A backup is a copy of the database with all the information that was present at the time that backup was performed. Backing up is an important way of keeping your data safe. Data can be lost due to a variety of reasons such as system failure, a sync going bad, or human error in multi-user scenarios.

For example, Mary is an assistant who has been asked to delete a few activities in the database by her boss. Unknowingly, she deleted the wrong activities. The boss trusts Mary and does not check. Eventually, the admin chooses to empty the Trash and the activities are lost. When the project is finalizing 6 months later, the boss does not find those activities. The boss does not remember asking for the data to be deleted. The assistant doesn't realize she deleted the wrong ones and now that data is unrecoverable, because backups are only kept for a month or two. The most obvious answer to this issue is that we should retain all backups. This is not realistic as hard drive space is cheap, but not infinite. The other typical answer is that Daylite should have an audit trail. While this would prove what exactly happened, it would not help in recovering the lost data. Losing your business critical data can lead to dire consequences.

Hence, backup strategies are very important and backups can be used to restore the database in the event that a database is lost or damaged. Backup strategies can differ depending on the industry and company. It is advised that you maintain all backups for a period of the longest project cycle or the longest opportunity cycle, whichever is greater. In some industries, a project cycle is 3 weeks; in other industries, it could be 15 months. The same applies to opportunities-some cycles are short, but some are very long.


To figure out the date of the oldest backup you should keep, do this:

1. Create a project Smart list with the following criteria: Status is New, or In Progress, or Deferred. Click here for more information about Smart lists (requires Daylite 3.5 or later).
2. Choose View > List > List Only.
3. Choose View > List > Column Options...
4. In the Arrange Columns sheet, select 'Created' and drag it to the Active Columns. Click Close.
5. Sort by create date and find the oldest project. Make a note of that date.

Repeat steps 1 to 5 for opportunities. The earliest date of the two should be your "keep backups from" date.

If you cannot keep all those backups, then you should gracefully downsize the number of backups. For example, if 9 months is your timeline, then instead of keeping all backups from 9 months ago, you can choose to keep one for every week of that month or keep just one for that month (last day of the month would be reasonable). You may choose to keep a few more for month 8 or for month 7, depending on your preferences.