Method Community

Hi there 

This will sound very pessimistic - but what happens if Method disappears -goes bust, gets hacked etc etc.

More and more of our data is going onto the Method part of the system - not just Quickbooks. I'm perfectly happy with all the Quickbooks information - it's sitting in a box next to me and is back up offsite every night. But what about the Method data; cases, custom fields etc. Is there:

1. Anyway to back up information offline on a systematic basis so if the worst comes to the worst we don't lose everything

2. Guarantees within the Method about availability should something go badly wrong.

Sorry to be downbeat - but we're increasingly relying on Method and I always want to reduce risk!

Thoughts appreciated.

Have fun

Mike

Thanks Mike, I've wanted to ask this same question but didn't want to throw water on one of the most exciting products I've seen.

It would be great to have a maintenance screen on the home tab that among other things contains a button that writes all tables as .csv to a backup spot. These files could easily be downloaded and imported into access or excel.

Mike & LaCrews -

We fully understand and appreciate your concerns.  The last thing we want you to feel is that your data is being held hostage .

This is why we have two great tools for you:

1. Import / Export - If you go to Customize > Integration Tools, you'll see there is an Export function that allows you to export your data to a CSV or XML format.

2. We have the MethodAPI (also under Customize > Integration Tools), that you can use to pull out the data you want, whenever you want to - this requires programming, though, but the advantage is that you could automate it.

I hope that helps,

Paul

 Hi Paul

That sounds excellent. The api route sounds ideal - I'd be interested (if others are) of part-funding some sort of auto timed/back-up that downloads fields (perhaps on a tab by tab) basis just to be on the safe side.

Data is so critical to the business - and the risks of losing it for whatever reason is terrifying!

Any other takers for this sort of project?

Havefun

Mike

All,

I've been poking around the forums to find some new news on this topic. Has anything happened recently on MSP end or the Method end to give the user more control over the backup and restore process of the Method file?

Hi Lance,

There is nothing new to report on this.  You're options are the API and the Import/Export tool.  If I learn more, I'll be sure to post here.

- Adam

Is there still no back up for the method only data?  I understand I could do very labor intensive exporting of every table, but I am looking for a more automated idea if there is one.  Even if the back up data was only available to access with a paid subscription, it would be comforting to know that I have all the information safely away somewhere.  If there is no real back up option, can you tell me how many back up copies of all our tables that you have at Method?

Thanks,

Maureen

Hi Maureen,

Since this thread was started all those years ago, we have since moved our Hosting Provider over to the much larger Amazon Web Services (AWS). One of the major benefits of moving our hosting to this hugely scalable service, was that our Security and Data redundancy have been kicked into overdrive.

We take a Full backup of your Account every day - for the past 14 consecutive days. These backups are all hosted on our redundant AWS server Cluster which is professionally managed by the Amazon Web Services team.

There is no single point of failure here, Rest assured your data is in good hands :)

If you wanted to learn more - Check out this article

Thanks Maureen.

-Ben

Thank You!