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Operation Educate is part of a ongoing effort from Ensign Systems Inc., to help better educate POS•IM users with some of the basic features of POS•IM software.
 

Backing Up Your Database

Ideally you should back up your POS•IM database daily. If your database becomes corrupted, there is a disaster in your area damaging your store, or your computers are stolen, having a backup is essential in retrieving your important information.

Mac

To automate the backup process and have your database backed up for you every day, you can use Automator (built-in software on your Macintosh computer). This section will explain how to create a plug-in for your iCal which you can schedule to back up your POS•IM database.

Backup

This must be performed on the server computer.

  1. Open Automator. It is found in your Applications folder on your hard drive.
  2. In the new Untitled window, find "Run AppleScript" in the Action column and drag it to the workflow area.
  3. Remove the "(* Your script goes here *)" text and replace it with the following text.
    • tell application "POSIMShare"
    • with timeout of 1800 seconds -- 30 minutes
    • set theBackupFolder to Backup Database
    • end timeout
    • end tell

    Make sure you leave the first "on run..." and last "return input..." lines in the script.

  4. Click the hammer button to compile the script.
  5. If you have the POSIMShare program running, you can test your script by clicking the green play button.*
  6. While still in Automator, click the file menu and select Save As Plug-In....
  7. Name the plug-in "POSIM Database Backup" and make it a plug-in for iCal Alarm.
  8. Click Save.
  9. iCal will appear with the backup alarm set for the current date and time.
  10. Drag the alarm to midnight (for example) and set the following attributes:
    1. Repeat every day.
    2. End never.
    3. The Alarm section will be already set up to run the script you wrote in step 3.
  11. When you are done, you can hide iCal and close Automator.
  12. In order for the backup to run, you must have iCal open when the alarm is set to go off. Automator does not need to be open.

After the script has run once from iCal or after step 5, you should be able to find that new backup in your POSIM Diamond folder on your hard drive in the Posim Backups folder. A new folder with todays date and time will hold your data. Each day a new folder with that days date on it will be created and all of your data up to that day will be contained therein.

Restore

This must be performed on the server computer. All POS•IM programs will need to be closed.

  1. Open the Posim Backups folder on your hard drive in the POSIM Diamond folder.
  2. Find the date for which data you wish to restore and open that folder.
  3. Select the POSIM_DB file and copy it (Edit menu, copy).
  4. Open your POSIM Diamond folder and go into the POSIMData folder.
  5. Rename the current POSIM_DB file to POSIM_DBold.
  6. Paste the backup database into this folder (Edit menu, paste).
  7. Close and reopen POSIM Share and all POS•IM programs.
  8. Confirm that the data has been successfully restored by checking processed invoice dates up to the date you had restored.

Windows

Your Windows operating system comes installed with the System Scheduler which can be used to run programs or batch files for you automatically at set dates and times. This section will discuss how to set up your System Scheduler to back up your POS•IM database. Your backups can be further supplemented by archiving them on an external media such as a CD, DVD, external hard drive, flash drive, or online data storage site.

Option 1

Create a batch file to run backups automatically without disrupting database connectivity. See the C:\posim\utilities\Posim Auto Backup Readme.txt file for technical information.

Part 1
  1. Open notepad (found in your Accessories folder in the Start Menu).
  2. Enter the following information into the document:
    C:\Posim\Utilities\PosimAutoBackup.exe Posim c:\posim\backup -i
    • You Can change the destination from c:\posim\backup to another location if you desire.
  3. Go to File, Save As, and save the file as posimautobackup.BAT to your My Documents folder.
  4. Open the System Scheduler through Control Panel (in the Start menu, may be under Settings). Windows Vista users will need to see Part 2 of Option 1 below.
  5. Drag the posimautobackup.BAT file (the extension ".BAT" may not show, this is fine) into the Scheduled Tasks window.
  6. Right click on the new task created and choose Properties.
  7. In this window you can set up a scheduled time for the backup to run.
    • Be sure you assign the correct user to run the task (an Administrator on the computer) and password (cannot be blank). If the user you selected does hot have a password, you will need to create one. This can be done by pressing ctrl+alt+del on your keyboard simultaneously and choosing "Change password".
  8. Your backup task should run on schedule. You can check on the status of the last backup task by accessing the Scheduled Tasks window and checking the Last Result column. A result of 0x0 is a successful run. A result of 0x4 is a bad password.
Part 2 (for Vista users)
  1. Open the Task Scheduler from Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools.
  2. Under the Actions column on the right choose Create a Basic Task.
  3. Name it Posimautobackup and click next.
  4. Choose the frequency (daily is recommended) and click next.
  5. If you have no further adjustment to the "daily" schedule, click next again. Otherwise, complete your schedule customizations and then click next.
  6. Choose Start a Program and click next.
  7. Click the Browse button, find the posimautobackup.BAT file on your desktop, click open, and then click next.
  8. Review your setup and click finish if you are done.
  9. If the task does not run or if you receive errors, see Microsoft online help for Task Scheduler for more information.
Option 2

Create a batch file to run backups automatically which requires users to log of all POS•IM programs before running. This option performs a database restart.

  1. Extract the batch file contained in the attached zip file to your My Documents folder (Documents in Vista).
  2. Follow the steps above starting with number 4 on from Option 1 (Part 1 for Windows 2000 and XP users, Part 2 for Vista users).
Restore

To restore your POS•IM database backup, simply copy the posim.db and posim.log backup files into the C:\posim folder (accessible through Start, My Computer or Computer for Vista users), overwriting the old .db and .log files. NOTE: If you want to keep the old .db and .log files before restoring your backup, rename them to something else (posim_old.db and posim_old.log for example) before copying the backup files to the C:\posim folder. Overwriting the files means you will lose the old data permanently.

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