Backup

Avoid File Hosting Services for your Free Purchase Order Software

Please do not try to use Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive or other cloud-based file hosting services for your free Windows/desktop version of SpendMap.  It just doesn’t work.

You can certainly back up your system/database to those services; you just can’t install your active/live database there. 

That’s because, as with other database applications, the files/tables in SpendMap’s database are constantly being opened and updated as you process Purchase Orders and other transactions in SpendMap.  And when files are being copied/uploaded to those cloud-based file hosting services, they are locked and not accessible to SpendMap and so you will get a runtime error if SpendMap tries to access the files as they are being moved up to the cloud (which happens each time a file is modified).

That said, you can certainly 1) exit/close SpendMap and then, 2) copy your database folder to Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive as a backup, while SpendMap is not running.  Again, you just can’t keep the live/active database files there.  For more details, please see the section “Backup and Restore Procedures”, in the Getting Started Documentation that comes with the software.

And just as a reminder, if you want your SpendMap data to be stored in the Cloud, we offer a SaaS version as well. You can try a free demo of our Cloud-based Purchase Order Software here.

World Backup Day and your Free Purchase Order Software

We’re not sure if World Backup Day is really a thing but any excuse to remind you to protect your work in the free version of SpendMap is a good thing.

Remember, unlike the On-Demand/SaaS version of SpendMap, when using the free Windows/desktop application, your database is installed on your own computer, so we’re not backing it up for you.

For details, please see “Backup and Restore Procedures” in the Getting Started Documentation that comes with the software.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Uninstalling your free Purchase Order Software will delete your data

BadDayToday was a bad day.  We had to tell a friend that his data/history was deleted when he uninstalled the system (which was installed on his local C: drive, rather than on a network server).

To make things worse, he also didn’t have a backup of his system, so now he has to start over.  That’s no fun.

😦

So here are a few important things to keep in mind…

  • Per the note under “Uninstalling/Removing the System” in the Getting Started Documentation that comes with the software, if the software is installed on your C: drive, uninstalling the system will remove the software AND delete all your data/history.
  • Please consider moving the database to a network server (even if you only need a single-user system).  That way, your data will be backed up with everything else on the server.  For details, please see “Network Installation Instructions” in the Getting Started Documentation.
  • Please, please, please back up your system on a regular basis.  Details are under “Backup and Restore Procedures” in the Getting Started Documentation.

If this is too much work for you, please consider upgrading to the On-Demand (hosted/SaaS) version of SpendMap.  It’s not free like the Windows/desktop version, but with SpendMap On-Demand we do the backups, upgrades and other system maintenance for you as part of the monthly service.

Tomorrow is another day…

Backing up your free Purchase Order Software

When you start using the free version of SpendMap in your business, it is very important that you implement a backup procedure.  Your IT Department should be backing up your Purchase Order System when they backup the other applications on your PC or network servers.

We moved the backup and restore procedures into the Online Help system.  To update your Online Help, from the Main Menu of SpendMap, select the menu Help > Check For Updates, then exit the system.

At the bottom-left of the Help window, click “Free version guide” and look for the new subsection called “Backup
and Restore Procedures”.

If you have any questions, feel free to log a support ticket.