When your Formatta E-Forms Manager system is running under the default data repository configuration (using the built-in database engine for its data repository as opposed to an external Oracle or SQL Server database), its Administration Console provides you with a user interface that allows you to create a backup routine for the Formatta E-Forms Manager data files. Once defined, this backup routine can be automatically run on a scheduled basis, or you may run it manually. This backup routine allows the backup of the Formatta E-Forms Manager database to be performed without requiring you to stop the Formatta E-Forms Manager and its database processes. In essence, using this backup utility runs a hot backup of the Formatta E-Forms Manager database, saving a copy of the database files to a directory that you specify.
Once you have a regular backup routine in place, it is always a good idea to copy the Formatta E-Forms Manager database backup files to a location off of your Formatta E-Forms Manager server, so that you can restore Formatta E-Forms Manager to a prior state in the event of a system failure.
Under the default Data Repository configuration, Formatta E-Forms Manager relies on an internally-managed database that stores all of its configuration settings, form catalog, and submitted form history. There are two data files for this database that reside with your Formatta E-Forms Manager installation, called fsbs.db and fsbs.log. By default, these files are located in the C:\Program Files\Formatta 7.0\EFM\asa\win32\data directory. This location may vary depending on where Formatta E-Forms Manager was installed. Both of these files contain data crucial to the proper operation of your Formatta E-Forms Manager system and should be backed up regularly.
Note: This section only applies to systems that are using the default Data Repository Configuration settings, in which Formatta E-Forms Manager uses the included database engine for its data repository. For configurations that involve your organization's own Oracle or SQL Server instance, you should make use of the utilities provided with those databases for performing backups.
There are two ways to back up the Formatta E-Forms Manager database:
You may perform a cold backup by stopping both Formatta E-Forms Manager services and making a copy of these files to a separate location. See Starting and Stopping Services for more information.
You may perform regular hot backups (without stopping Formatta E-Forms Manager services) by configuring and scheduling the backup from the Database Backup Configuration screen.
Regardless of how you want to perform backups, there are several things you should make sure of when configuring or running backups of the Formatta E-Forms Manager database:
The database backup process can be resource intensive. If possible, schedule it to run at a time when you expect a low volume of user activity.
When the database backup routine runs, it essentially takes a snapshot of the database. This means any other scheduled jobs that are running at the time of the backup would show up as "In Progress" if the backup database is used to restore a system. You can avoid possible complications related to this by scheduling the database backup to run at a time when no other scheduled tasks are being run by Formatta E-Forms Manager.
The backup process creates files that are roughly identical to the live data files being backed up. Make sure that the location to which the backup files are written allows adequate space. You can check the size of the existing files by looking into the \Program Files\Formatta 7.0\EFM\asa\win32\data directory, and estimating the combined size of the fsbs.db and fsbs.log files.
When the backup process runs automatically, it overwrites any existing files named fsbs.db and fsbs.log in the backup destination directory, so the backup directory will contain, at most, only the most recent database snapshot.
If your backup destination directory is on a machine different from that on which Formatta E-Forms Manager is installed, make sure that the Formatta E-Forms Manager machine's SYSTEM user has write privileges to the backup destination location.
Versions of Formatta E-Forms Manager prior to 7.1.2 required automatic database backups to be scheduled outside of Formatta E-Forms Manager using a command-line script and the Windows Task Scheduler. This means of scheduling database backups is no longer supported as of version 7.1.2. So if you have upgraded your Formatta E-Forms Manager from a pre-7.1.2 version and you have an existing scheduled task for this purpose, disable the existing task and create a new scheduled task within Formatta E-Forms Manager using the steps below.
Note: This screen will be unavailable on systems that have been configured to use an Oracle or SQL Server database for housing the Data Repository.
Select DB Backup from the Administration tab. This will open a screen that allows you to view and configure backup settings for the Formatta E-Forms Manager database.
The top section of the screen shows existing backup routine settings, including the destination folder for backup files, basic information on the routine's schedule, and whether or not the routine is enabled to run automatically.
Clicking the Edit button in this area opens a screen that allows you to add or change settings for the database backup routine.
Clicking the Run Backup Now button in this area allows you to begin execution of the configured backup routine at any time. Once the routine is started, this button will be disabled until the routine completes. The routine may take several seconds to several minutes, depending on the size of the Formatta E-Forms Manager database.
The lower section of the screen will show the status of the routine's most recent execution. Details include the date and time the backup was last run, completion status, and error message (if any). Clicking the View Log button in this area will open a window showing a history of the routine's last 25 executions.
To add or change backup routine settings, click the Edit button. This will open a window that allows you to modify and save backup settings.
On this screen, you can enter the following information:
Backup Destination: Enter an absolute path to a directory in which the backed-up database files will be stored. The path you specify may be a local drive, mapped or shared drive, or a UNC path. The location you specify must allow file sizes as large as your existing Formatta E-Forms Manager database files.
Schedule Type: Allows you to choose the frequency on which the backup routine runs. Options are:
Daily - the routine will run once per day.
Weekly - the routine will run on the days of the week that you specify.
Monthly - the routine will run once per month, on the day of the month that you specify.
Start Time: Choose the time of day that you want the routine to run. Note that other scheduled tasks run by Formatta E-Forms Manager will run more quickly if you make sure to pick a time during which no other tasks are set to run.
Enabled: Enabling the job adds it to the Formatta E-Forms Manager job scheduler so that it will run automatically. Note that you can still run the job manually, even if you do not enable it here using the Run Backup Now function described above.
In the event of a hard drive crash or other type of system malfunction that renders your Formatta E-Forms Manager server unusable, it should be possible to restore your Formatta E-Forms Manager to its last backed-up state by using previously backed-up database files. All of the data specific to your installation (licensing, users, configurations, etc.) as well as the form catalog itself are stored in the Formatta E-Forms Manager database. This means that the process of rebuilding and restoring Formatta E-Forms Manager back to a prior state is simply a matter of re-installing Formatta E-Forms Manager, then replacing the database files from the clean installation with your backed-up files. Detailed steps follow:
If, due to a system crash or other type of file system corruption, a new installation of Formatta E-Forms Manager is required:
Install Formatta E-Forms Manager, making sure that the version you install is the same as the version you had installed previously.
Once installation is complete, stop both Formatta E-Forms Manager services. See Starting and Stopping Services for more information.
Open Windows Explorer and browse to the directory C:\Program Files\Formatta 7.0\EFM\asa\win32\data. (If you installed Formatta E-Forms Manager into a directory other that C:\Program Files\Formatta 7.0 then you will instead find this directory relative to your installation).
Delete the two files in this directory called fsbs.db and fsbs.log.
Replace the deleted files with your previous backup versions of fsbs.db and fsbs.log.
Start the Formatta E-Forms Manager services. See Starting and Stopping Services for more information.
If you simply need to restore a working Formatta E-Forms Manager instance to a prior state without re-installing the Formatta E-Forms Manager software, follow steps 2 through 6 above.
Once these steps are complete, your Formatta E-Forms Manager application should work as it did at the time the last successful backup was run.