Results from our ezine survey indicated that many of you would like to receive regular tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your ClockWise system. This will be a regular feature, so let us know what you would like to know more about or how we can make things easier for you. In this issue, Support Manager, Michelle McNally, runs through the importance of backing up your files. It might be worth passing this article onto your IT department!

ClockWise Back Ups

Back up your files! Back up your files! Back up your files! Back up your files!

Back up your files! Back up your files! Back up your files! Back up your files!

Back up your files! Back up your files! Back up your files! Back up your files!

As a user of ClockWise and in order to protect your ClockWise data, it is your responsibility to back up your files. Yes, there I go, saying it again, back up your files, but it is our experience here in the support department that customers who don’t regularly back up their system run the risk of losing valuable information and increasing manual workloads.

The implications for those that lose data can be huge.

Lets say, for example, that you have not backed up your data for two months and in that time you have created new shifts and rosters; new employees have been added to the system; comments have been assigned to absences etc. Suddenly, a virus permeates your system and bye bye, all the data and information is lost. Not to mention all your daily clocking information, your absence information etc.

So, what advice can we give you? Back up your files. If you regularly back up, you don’t have much to worry about but unfortunately many of us are guilty of “forgetting”.

We would recommend that, if possible, you get into the habit of running a back up every night. Ideally, run the back up on a separate PC to the one associated with ClockWise for double protection. If your ClockWise server went down, for example, you would have no way of retrieving those files.

Backing up your files on a CD is a good idea if you make a major change to your data e.g. you create new shifts or rosters. We’d also recommend you take a back up at the end of every year.

Run regular checks to make sure your back up is running. Ensure information can be easily restored and try reloading old back ups to be sure they haven’t been corrupted.

Now for the techie bit…

What should you back up?

The ideal backup would be to backup all *.exe, *.ini, *.dbf, and *.txt files in cwise and all its subdirectories. For customers who use SQL, you will also need a separate SQL dump.

The minimum backup that can be taken is for the *.dbf and *.ini files contained in the cwise\data folder. Please contact Softworks for all other files.

SQL or Dbase recovery

Data: The main ClockWise data is stored in either dbase or SQL format.

There are various ways of backing this up and your IT dept should choose the best way for their environment.

To restore dbase files, it is sufficient to copy all the *.dbf files into the cwise\data directory.

To restore SQL data (Oracle or MSSQL) requires the reinstalling of the SQL server itself.

It is best to call Softworks before trying this to check on the latest settings.

When the server has been reset you need scripts to recreate the instance and then the tables. If you do not have these scripts please call Softworks to get them.

After setting the instance and installing the tables you need to replace the data. Depending on the type of backup that you use this will require the reinstating of an SQL dump or the upload of the dbf files.

You will need to install the Borland database engine. Softworks keeps the latest versions of these on site in Bray, so we can forward these to your IT department if there is a problem.

When the Borland database engine and the data is installed you can then copy the *.exe files into the cwise folder. The latest versions of these are available via email from Softworks.

You are now ready to run ClockWise.

If you have clocks or access points there are now additional files that need to be installed. If you have not saved these in your backup, please contact Softworks.

Directory Structure

Directory Structure: The ClockWise directory structure is as follows:

X:\cwise Main ClockWise Directory Contains Most exes cwfw, config, import, util cwfw.ini (with Datapath = X:\CWISE\DATA) pkzip/unzip

X:\CWISE\DATA

Contains all Data *.dbf *.mdx cwfw_sys.ini Payroll.ini (if you run payroll from ClockWise)

X:\CWISE\CLOCKING (if you clock)

Contains all clocking/polling exes, ini files and clock data files terminal.exe terminal.ini cuscom.exe cuscom.ini trans.txt tdbackup.txt Clock files

X:\CWISE\ACCESS (if you use Access)

Contains all the AccessWise polling files terminal.exe terminal.ini cuscom.exe cuscom.ini

X:\CWISE\SUPPORT\

Contains folder DBD32 and BDE32. Dbd32 contains

I hope the above will help you with your back up policy. Should you have any questions at all about back ups, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of the support team at support@softworks-computing.com or telephone 01 286 6126 or 0044 118 951 9586 and we would be happy to answer your queries.