iCare Knowledge Base

The archive process given here applies to the Access version of iCare. For iCareSQL talk to your DB Admin for all administrative procedures. 

Archiving Procedure: 

Data archiving has a different purpose than backing up data files. In the backup process, iCare makes and stores exact copies of the entire data files, so that you have copies in case the files later become damaged.

In the archiving process, old information is removed from the data files and put into a separate file called the archive. Archiving data makes your main data files smaller, which improves performance.

For example, you may want to archive one-year old attendance and billing data, which you don’t need on a daily basis. If you need to refer to old archived data, you can still restore it to your database. Follow these instructions for archiving and retrieving data:

1. Go to the Tools menu.
2. Select Database Maintenance.
3. Select Archive or Retrieve Data.
4. Select a table to be archived or retrieved.
5. Select Date From and Date To.
6. To archive click on Archive. To retrieve click on Retrieve.
7. Click Exit to close the form.

Following data types can be easily archived without affecting most of the daily needs:

1. Punch Activity Records - Children and Staff
2. Punch Activity Posted Records - Children
3. Punch Activity Posted Records - Staff
4. Punch Activity Records FTPT - Children
5. Actual Meals Served
6. Receivables Ledger Entries
7. Payment Sub-Ledger Entries

For extremely large database:

If you have an extremely large database then even you archive file may become too big after you archive a few times. In that case use the procedure below to create and manage multiple 'date stamped' archives.

1. Rename the file ArchiveMain.mdb in the folder, DCMS9003\Databases\MainCenter, to ArchiveMain_mm-dd-yy.mdb; where mm-dd-yy stands for the date of the last transaction included in this archive file.
2. Copy the file, ArchiveMain.mdb, from the folder, DCMS9003\Databases, to the folder, DCMS9003\Databases\MainCenter.

To retrieve data from a specific 'date stamped' archive, rename that file back to ArchiveMain.mdb. Be careful not to accidentally overwrite any of the archive files - ArchiveMain.mdb or the 'date stamped' archives.

Special Note on what types of data can be archived

The data types that can be archived, as mentioned above, include only transaction data. Currently, we have not included any entity data types (such as, names of children, adults, staff or vendors) in the data types that can be archived. Primary reason for this is that entity data does not take too much space and does not affect performance as much. Transaction data can be large and is a better fit for archiving.