Backups and restore

How Tallify backs up a practice twice a day and keeps every backup, the readable file per client, the off-server copy, and restoring a database and vault.

What is backed up

A consistent snapshot of the database and an archive of the vault, at 06:00 and 18:00 South African time. The vault archive is a full one once a week and an incremental one in between. Backups are kept permanently; nothing is pruned. A named copy is also taken before any risky script, such as a client book import.

A readable file per client

Every night at 04:30 South African time, each client's file is written out as a folder of its own that can be read without the database: a summary, the Record of Advice and FNA, drafts, the CCP and documents, disclosures and signatures, fact finds, communications, and CSVs of policies, holdings, beneficiaries, tasks, changes and audit rows. It is meant for the compliance officer, a FAIS inspection or a successor FSP.

Off-server copy

A second machine pulls every backup file it does not yet have, once a day, over a private network. Nothing is ever deleted on either side.

Restore

Stop the services, put the chosen database snapshot in place, rebuild the vault from its newest full archive and the incrementals after it into an empty folder, and start the services. The search index rebuilds on start-up. Test it on a scratch installation and record the result.