Recommended backup procedures for Sage 300 CRE

Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate recommended backup processes.

Recommended backup procedures

By following these backup recommendations, you’re prepared to restore your Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate (Sage 300) data or application folders.

These recommendations are a guideline and you can decide to back up more or less, depending on how much data you enter each day.

For more information on backing up your files, refer to the Sage Desktop help topic, "About backing up your files."

In addition to backing up data files, it’s imperative that you back up the application data files found in C:\ProgramData\Sage on your server.

Daily

We recommend you back up your data every day. We also recommend you back up all files in your data folders each time you perform a backup.

Use some type of removable media such as a USB drive to make your daily backups and don’t over write the previous daily backup. Date these backups and delete them after you have a good permanent month-end or quarter-end backup.

Safety

Also do a safety data backup every time you perform a major procedure that affects your files. For example, posting, moving files, or printing checks and invoices. You can make safety backups before performing major tasks to personal hard drives or to the network drive.

Month-end

Make month-end backups just before closing the month and use a permanent backup such as a removable media.

We also recommend you back up your Timberline Office application folder because some of the sub-folders contain customization. For example, payroll formulas, security, and custom reports. (Your application folder is where you installed your Timberline products on a network server or host computer.)

Quarter-end

Make a quarter-end backup just before closing the last month of the quarter and use a permanent backup, such as a removable media.

Year-end

Before closing the last month of the year, make a year-end backup that’s permanent to a removable media.

More information

Your IT professional should already understand that there are three types of backup methods: Full, Incremental, and Differential.

• Sage 300 CRE doesn’t update some of the file attributes that incremental and differential backups rely on.
• Sage has observed customers experience significant data loss using incremental and differential backup systems.

We recommend that you store permanent data backups or copies of the data backups off site in a secure location.

Other backup methods

• You can use a third-party backup solution to back up your files. They must be able to restore the entire data folder and retain the existing folder structure.
• File Tools allows you to back up all or part of your data files.
• You can use the System Administrator tool to back up and restore data in versions 17.1 and later.

Data integrity

Regardless of the backup program you’re using, occasionally check the integrity of your data backups. If you can’t access the backup, or if your system can’t read the data, then it's not usable.

Consider restoring your backups when you upgrade. This allows you to upgrade the backup data and create a new backup. If you don’t keep your backup data current, your current software can reach a point where it can't view or upgrade the data. This occurs due to version changes and data compatibility.

Viruses or ransomware

Protecting yourself from virus or ransomware infections include the following considerations:

• Virus or ransomware infections have the potential to encrypt your data. They can also encrypt any attached hard drives or network storage devices used for backups.
• If you use a cloud backup that can't roll back to a previous period in time. When the data is encrypted, the encrypted data can overwrite data backed up on the cloud.
• Paying the ransom to decrypt your files will typically not work. Customers who pay the ransom find that the decryption process damages the internal structure of the file. This renders the files unusable.

 

 

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