Simon comes equipped with a wonderful backup and restore tool. This tool should be used often to keep a text file copy of all of your Simon data so that, in the event of a catastrophic failure of your system, you will not lose your Simon data. Your Simon mailbox rental data can be hundreds of hours of work and losing this data can be a horrible ordeal.
The Tool
The backup tool can be found from the Simon Helper window by changing the 'Step One: Choose Type of Operation' to Maintenance, and double clicking on the Backup/Restore/Import/Export listing there. You can also find this tool by choosing the Tools menu and selecting the Export/Import/Backup/Restore item. Or, lastly, you can simply click on F10 on your keyboard.
This tool looks like the image shown below.
The image below is the same as the one above except that it has bullets so that I can describe each feature of this fine tool.
(A) This is where you tell Simon to send your backups or from which folder to restore your data. This is initially set to the 'c:\simon\backup\' folder which is a special folder that Simon creates when you first install Simon. There is no reason that I can think of to use any other folder, but you are in charge of how and when you do your backups, just be sure to do them. You can click on the little arrow button at the end of the Where box to show a list of backup locations you might be using.
(B) Is what they call a toggle button. When this button is depressed, it is in active mode. When it is raised, it means that it is turned off and not active. So, in this case, if you want Simon to create your backup files in dated folders so that your previous data is not overwritten, be sure that this button is depressed. When opening this tool, this button is always depressed. When switching to the import, rather than export, mode, this button is deactivated since imports are returning data into Simon and thus does not apply.
So, if you are having Simon do backups to the c:\simon\backup folder and using the dating function, after doing a backup, you will see a folder inside of the backup folder that might look like '09092008_1923'. This folder name is the date, September 9, 2008 at 7:23 p.m (military time). All of your dated backups will use this formula for doing backups.
(C) If you click this button, a dialog box will appear where you can navigate your computer to find the backup location you are looking for. This can come in handy if you can't remember where you place backups and it is not in the list under the bullet (A) item.
(D) By clicking this button a dialog box will appear showing a list of the backup locations that feeds the list that is shown when you click on the button at the right edge of the bullet (A) item. This is nice to have in the event you want to remove locations from the bullet (A) list, or add new locations to the list.
(E) This is where you choose which operation you want to do. Of course, the export operation is the backup operation. This is where you send your data to a safe place. The import operation is when you need to return data back into Simon if your system should fail and you loose your data (hopefully, you will never have to use this!).
(F) This is where you choose which data you want to backup, or restore. We suggest, if you are just doing routine backups, to just select everything. Under Bullet (G) below, you can do this by clicking on one button.
(G) As stated above, this will check all data or uncheck all data in the area directly above these buttons.
(H) Once you have made your path selection, operation selecting and data selection, click on this button to have Simon perform that operation for you. Please note that if you are doing a restore, Simon will warn you that the operation is destructive in that it must first throw away your old data within Simon to bring in the new data from the text files. So, be careful when using Import.
(I) Simon will keep track of the operation as it is in motion by listing where it is in this red box.
(J) If you need help on how to use this tool, you can click on this '?' button to have Simon show you help.
When Should You Do Backups?
Just think about how much important data is involved here and you could probably answer this question yourself--daily! At the end of each business day, do your backup before leaving. This way, if something were to happen to your system overnight, you will not loose everything. If you want to protect yourself against the theft of your computer, you might also want to take your backup home with you.
Also, if you do an upgrade to a new Simon release, you might want to do a backup before you do the release and then after you do the release when you have determined that Simon works fine after the upgrade. Remember, there are times when I have to add new fields to tables to enhance Simon operations. These fields will change the table data so that a set of text files created before a new revision will not be compatable with the table data after a revision. So, since Simon is so darned important to your operations there, it would behoove you to be especially careful as to how you handle your data.
Also, something that is off topic, but important to your data and that is what we are discussing: before doing a revision always make a copy of your [simon] folder on your C drive. If you do this before doing upgrades, and you backup daily, and always do a before and after backup when doing revisions, you will never loose your data.
Hope this helps!