It is essential to take a backup of your Actinic data regularly. If you have any kind of system failure then you will lose all your data, including all your order data. Even if the store is online, it will be useless if the Actinic application is missing or damaged for any reason.
Whenever you close Actinic, you are given the two following backup options:
· Database Backup - This will backup your database, which contains (amongst other things) all your products and orders. The database is the most important file in the entire Actinic installation, and should be backed-up regularly. This is described in Database Backups.
· Site Snapshot - A site snapshot is essentially an archive file that contains your database, together with all your templates, images and security settings. It is basically every file required for your site to run. Snapshots are described in Exporting A Snapshot.
There is also a button labelled 'Options' which opens the 'Backup Options' window. This window can also be accessed via 'Housekeeping | Backup | Shutdown Backup Options.'.
This window is used to control how often Actinic prompts you to make a backup when shutting down. You have a choice of the following:
· Never - Actinic will close without prompting you to backup
· Every - Set a number of days that you would like Actinic to wait before prompting you to backup.
· Always - Actinic will prompt you to back up every time you close the application.
The 'Backups Folder' field is discussed in Database Backups.
Note: The 'BACKUP', 'Backup v8.x.x' and 'Upgrade v8.x.x' folders within your Actinic installation directory are used to backup templates and files that are replaced during an upgrade. They are not used in database backups.