Home/Chapter 27

Backup, restore and getting your data out

Backups run by themselves. The part that needs a person is proving one works, and it is the only item on the getting-started list that really matters.

Administration, Backup. Where copies go, when the last one ran, and the button that proves one can actually be restored.
Administration, Backup. Where copies go, when the last one ran, and the button that proves one can actually be restored.

Where backups go

  • An external drive, or a folder in your own cloud storage. Never the same physical disk as the database.
  • Klinira Cloud, encrypted before it leaves the building, if your plan includes it.
  • More than one destination is better than one, and Klinira will use all of them.
What we receive is already unreadable. The key that opens it is yours alone, on the two Recovery Key sheets printed on installation day.

Proving a backup works

Press the button that restores a backup into a scratch copy and checks it opens and is complete. Do it on your first week, and let Klinira repeat it every ninety days.

An untested backup is a belief, not a backup. This is the one item on the getting-started checklist Klinira will not let you tick without doing.

When a backup fails

  • Almost always the drive is unplugged, full, or the folder has been renamed.
  • Klinira tells you once per failure, not every morning. A clinic told daily that its drive is unplugged stops reading the message by Thursday, and the message after that is the one they needed.
  • The bottom strip of every screen carries the days since the last successful backup anywhere.

Recording where each Recovery Key sheet went

The wizard asked on installation day. This is where you answer it again — after reprinting a sheet, after moving a safe, or after an owner takes the second copy home to a different house. Choose which sheet, write where it is, and press It is put away.

Write it so somebody can find it in four years. "The safe in the manager's office", not "safe". No query can see whether a piece of paper is where you say it is — all Klinira can record is that a person said so, and when.

Recovering a backup to a file

This is the one to reach for when somebody needs yesterday's records back — a patient's record that was deleted in error, a figure somebody wants to check against last month. It writes a copy of a chosen backup to a file you name, and it never touches the database the clinic is running on.

  1. 1Choose where the backup is, then Show what is there — Klinira lists every restore point that destination holds, with its date and size.
  2. 2Pick which backup, and type the Recovery Key words from your printed sheet, in order.
  3. 3Say where to write the file, and press Recover. Klinira counts every record that came back.
If it says the restore finished but not everything the backup promised came back, do not use that file. Try an earlier restore point and telephone support.
Nobody outside this clinic has those words, and nobody outside this clinic should ever ask you for them. We cannot and will not.

Replacing the database itself

Putting a backup back in place of the database a clinic is running on is a different job, and it is not done from a workstation while the clinic is open. It is done on the main PC with the Klinira service stopped, usually on a fresh installation. Telephone support and keep your Recovery Key to hand.

Getting your data out

Administration, Your data. A full export of everything the clinic holds, and the diagnostic file support asks for.
Administration, Your data. A full export of everything the clinic holds, and the diagnostic file support asks for.

Export works in every licence state — trial, active, expired, read-only, locked. Your clinic has a statutory duty to maintain patient records, and holding your data would put you in breach of the law. We lock features; we never lock data.

  • The export is a zip of CSV files, one per table, with a README explaining what each is.
  • Values are exactly what the database holds. Import it as text — a Malaysian mobile number written +60123456789 is something Excel will otherwise treat as a formula.
  • Passwords, keys and credentials are not in it.

The diagnostic file

When you telephone support, they may ask for a diagnostic file. Anybody in the clinic can make one — the person who telephones support at nine on a Tuesday is the counter clerk, and a file only the owner can produce is a file that arrives on Thursday.

It carries no patient name, no medical record, no database, no licence and no Recovery Key. That is why anybody may send it.

Related pagesThe licenceStaff accounts and clinic settingsHelp inside the application

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