Backup Restore
Your application has the ability to backup and restore all clients, jobs, and related data. The backup files can be stored locally within your device or in the cloud, via Google DriveTM. The file that is created (*.bkp) is a proprietary file that contains all jobs within the application. The backup contains all data about the jobs, including clients, expenses and receipts, time entries, payments, statuses, and states. Once created, the backup file can be moved around and stored like any other file. The name of the backup can be anything the user desires.
Restoration from a backup is simple. Select the *.bkp file that you would like to restore and select restore. Once the restoration is initiated, the current database will be restored, and the corresponding receipt images will be restored and made available.
Warning: When a restore is performed, all previous data and receipts are eliminated. Other than a restore from an additional backup, there is no way to recover the lost data. For this reason, it is highly recommended that you first back up your existing data before restoring from a previous backup.
To access the backup and restore features, select the device menu button from the main screen of the application, next select either Backup or Restore. Once selected, a screen will be displayed that will allow you to choose destination/source for your backup/restore.
Device Backup/Restore
To perform a backup or restore to/from your device, select the Device option. The Device option will allow you to store your backup either internal to your built-in device memory or external to an SD Card. Within internal memory, you are able to backup to any location that you want. When backing up to an SD Card, the application will only allow you to backup to directories that the application is allowed to write to. Note that as of Android 4.4 and later, the Android operating system only allows applications to write to specific directories that are reserved solely for the application. It is important to note that if the application is un-installed, the directory and any backups within the directory will be deleted along with the application. For this reason, it is highly recommended that your backups be stored in the cloud via Dropbox or Google Drive.
When performing a backup and restore to/from the SD card, there are a number of different options available at the top of the screen:
This button will navigate to the root of your device memory. From here, you can navigate to internal or external memory by selecting the directory into which you want to navigate. When performing a backup and navigating to a directory in which the application does not have permission to write, the application will flash a message warning the operator that they must select a different directory. The application will also make the Backup button unavailable.
This button will navigate up one directory within the directory hierarchy. Again, when performing a backup and navigating to a directory in which the application is unable to write, the application will warn the user.
This button is only available when performing a backup. When selected the application will prompt the user for a directory name, then will create a local directory with that name inside of the current directory. If the directory is READ ONLY, the application will not be allowed to create the directory. In this case, it will warn the user.
Google Drive Backup/Restore
Google Drive backups and restores require a Google Drive account as well as internet access. By default, most Android devices already have Google Drive installed and connected to your Google account. The first time that the application attempts to connect to Google Drive, the user will prompted to allow the application access to Google Drive. In order to backup/restore to/from Google Drive, it is required that the user allow the application access. It during the backup or restore, internet access is lost, the transfer will fail and the user will be alerted. Please try again once internet access has been restored.
Once the user allows the application access to Google Drive, the application will display a window in which the user can make the appropriate selections for backup and restore.
All Google Drive backups will be saved to the root of your Google Drive. Once the backup is created, the user is free to move the backup to any other place within Google Drive, using the Google Drive application. When the user is restoring a backup from Google Drive, they are able to pull the backup from any location within Google Drive.
Sometimes, creating a backup can take a long time (depending upon how much data you are backing up). For this reason, there is an option to create a backup in the background. When selected, the backup will continue in the background, even though the user is directed to the main screen of their application. While the backup is occurring, the user can navigate anywhere within the application and/or device, and the backup will continue until complete. Once completed, the application will send a notification to the screen indicating that the backup is complete. The only way to stop a backup once it has started is to terminate the application from the device OS.