Customers are encouraged to maintain their own backups of their applications.  You can back up your application in several ways:

• Make an online copy of the applicaton

• Export your data to your computer

Make an online copy of the application

You can make an online copy, or “clone”, of either the entire application or the application structure without the data.

Cloning the entire application includes everything -- Roles, Formulas, Dashboards, Reports, etc.  Keep in mind that cloning your application will use additional application and attachment space on your billing account since you are effectively doubling the footprint of the application you’re cloning.

For more information on cloning your entire app, see this help topic: https://www.quickbase.com/help/default.html#cloning_database_with_data.html

You can also clone the application without data.  By doing this, you can preserve the structure of the application without decreasing your subscription plan’s allotted data and attachment space.

For more information on cloning the structure of your app, see this help topic: https://www.quickbase.com/help/default.html#cloning_database_structure.html

If you find that you are low on space and still wish to make application clones, you can always make changes to your billing plan to add additional storage packs, or update to an alternate plan that has higher limits: https://www.quickbase.com/help/default.html#changing_your_service_plan.html

Export your data to your computer

Exporting data to your computer saves only your data, and does not include any of your application schemas such as Reports, Formulas, Roles, etc. 

You can export data to a CSV (comma-separated value), TSV (Tab-Delimited Value), or XML file.  This method exports data on a per table basis, so if you have multiple tables in your application you need to run the process for each table. For more information, see this help topic: https://www.quickbase.com/help/default.html#exporting_quickbase_data.html

You can also export just a subset of data in a table. This is useful, for example, if you want to archive records from several years back and then delete those records from your application to conserve account space.

The first step in archiving a subset of records is to create a new report in your table that filters out the records you want to archive.  A good field to filter against is the “Date Created” field, as this determines when the record was actually added to the table.  As another example, you could also filter against records in a “Closed” state if you categorize records using a Status type field. 

In the example below, our table contains data going back to 2007.  For our company to do its job, we only need to work in records from 2009 and beyond.  As such, you would filter your report so that it showed issues for which all of the following are true:

Date Created is on or after the date 01-01-2007

Date Created is on or before the date 12-31-2008

Once this report is run, it will only show records created in the years 2007 and 2008.  You may also want to customize the report to include every field in the table; this ensures you’re getting all of the data for these records.  To do this, under the Columns to Display section of the report builder, set the radio button to “Custom columns”, and move every field over from available columns to your columns.   

Now that the report is complete, you need to archive the data by selecting Other -> Export this report to a spreadsheet, from the report’s menu bar. This will save the report’s data as a .csv file to your computer.

Now that you have saved the data locally, the next (optional) step is to delete this data from your application since you may not need it anymore.  To delete all the data from the report, see the following help topic: https://www.quickbase.com/help/default.html#deleting_multiple_records.html

Note: You can also use a tool we offer called QuickBase Desktop to download your QuickBase data and file attachments using Microsoft Access. Please note, this tool is currently not supported, but many customers have had great success with it and we offer it as an alternative means of archiving data. See the following Knowledge Base article for more information about QuickBase Desktop: http://quickbase.intuit.com/developer/knowledge-base/how-would-i-automatically-download-quickbase-tables-and-their-attached-files-using-microsoft

Recovering Lost Data

Unfortunately, when you or any user on your account accidentally deletes data or an application, you are responsible for paying for a restore if you want to retrieve that data.  Payment for this service is achieved by adding the "Restore Pack" to your billing plan.  If you are not the billing administrator on the account, you'll need to check with them so they can add this service.  The restore pack is $50 a month on top of your current fees, and having the service on your account entitles you to 4 restores per year.  Think of the restore pack as an insurance policy on your account should this ever happen again!

To add the restore pack:

1. From your My QuickBase page, click the link on the right hand side for Manage My Billing Account.

2. Open the Summary Tab and click Change Plan. 

3. On the bottom of the resulting screen, change the Restore Pack from 0 to 1 and submit the changes.  If you are having difficulty applying the pack to your account, your account may be out of compliance and therefore won't allow the pack to be added.  The following KB article explains how to address this issue:  http://quickbase.intuit.com/developer/knowledge-base/why-didn%E2%80%99t-change-my-billing-plan-go-through

Once the restore pack has been added, create a support case for us and answer a few key questions about this incident so that we can begin the restore process. 

To enter the support case:

1. Open https://quickbase.intuit.com/support/portal/ in your browser.

2. Click the orange Contact Support button.

3. Add a new case, supplying the following information:

   1. What was deleted specifically? Was it an entire application, a table in an application, or records in a table?

   2. What is the DBID of tables or apps that need to be restored?  The following explains how to find the DBID: http://quickbase.intuit.com/developer/knowledge-base/how-do-i-find-database-id-dbid-quickbase-table

   3. From which nightly back up (day/date) should we restore your application?  When we perform restores, we restore from the previous night's backup. As an example, if you deleted data on the afternoon of Wednesday April 6th, we would restore from the backup of Tuesday night, April 5th. We need to know which date the deletion occurred so we can pull from the correct backup file.

   4. Should we overwrite the current application or send you an export of the data? If the application itself has been deleted, we would obviously need to restore the entire application.  If, however, you only lost records in a specific table within the app, then our overwriting the current application would have the ill effect of also overwriting any new data added to the application since the data loss occurred.  If you want us to overwrite the whole app, it would be your responsibility to export any new data or changes and merge them with the live app once we restore it.  Alternatively, we can send you a .csv export of the table's contents the night before the deletion, and then you would need to import those lost records into your application. Please let us know how you'd like us to handle the restore.

   5. If a .csv export of your data is required, to whom should we e-mail the file once we have it?

   6. Finally, were file attachments present in the deleted portion and, if so, do you need those retrieved as well?  

In terms of turnaround time for this process, a typical restore can take 4-7 business days to complete, but can be longer in some cases.  Factors that can add time to a restore are the need to retrieve file attachments, or restores that go back a substantial amount of time.  Our window to restore data is 6 months.  A restore would be processed faster if you need data from a few days ago versus 4 months ago, as an example.