ChartEvolve Help Newsletter

July 2004

Welcome

This is another in a monthly series of helpful newsletters that are designed to help you get the most out of ChartEvolve. Helpful hints on how to get your work done more efficiently.

Backup strategies for ChartEvolve

Where ChartEvolve is stored on the hard drive. When you first start ChartEvolve on a PC, it automatically installs itself on the “C” drive. Like most other application programs, ChartEvolve is installed in a directory on the Hard Drive called Program Files. In the Program Files directory a folder is created called “CIMS”. In the CIMS folder, any programs you purchase from The CIMS Group are installed. See the figure below.
Mac Users have the option of putting the ChartEvolve anywhere on their system. However, we recommend a similar scheme for storing ChartEvolve. In your Main hard drive, there is a folder called “Applications”. Inside this folder you should create a folder called “CIMS” and put each of your ChartEvolve application folders in the CIMS folder as you receive them.
The location of ChartEvolve is important for a number of reasons. In order to use ChartEvolve you must know where it is located on your hard drive. A logical location scheme for ChartEvolve will ensure that you will create a backup of the right version of the data. In addition, when you upgrade ChartEvolve from one version to the next, the application needs to know where to find the previous version of the software.

Fig 1 Location of the ChartEvolve files
(Click for larger image)

What to backup

In the previous section we covered where the ChartEvolve application is located. Next you need to determine which folder contains the most current version of ChartEvolve. Each successive version of ChartEvolve is installed in the CIMS folder using this simple naming convention:

ChartEvolve108PC Folder
--Application
--------Version Number
-----------Platform (Mac, PC etc)
-------------------Folder (not the application)

The ChartEvolve Folder with the highest version number is the one that is the current or working database.
To backup ChartEvolve; copy the current working database folder and its contents to your backup medium. It is not necessary to backup the entire “CIMS” folder. You need only backup your current working version of ChartEvolve. In the examples shown in Figure 1 the current database is ChartEvolve109. Simply copy the entire ChartEvolve folder onto your backup medium (CD, ZIP disk, flash drive, etc).

How often to backup

The number of backups you should do depends on how busy your practice is. We recommend at least monthly backups. For a clinician with a very busy schedule a weekly routine is safer.
If you are using automatic backup software then you should schedule backups to occur every night. The CIMS Group recommends the following type of backup schedule:

Daily backup every night.
Monday backup – every Monday make a backup
Tuesday backup – every Tuesday make a backup
Wednesday backup – every Wednesday make a backup
Thursday backup – every Thursday make a backup
Friday backup – every Friday make a backup

This schedule insures you have a rolling set of backups going back one week.

How to make a backup

There are many choices available for making backups of your important data. To determine the best choice for your organization, the decision should be made by reviewing the options;
Manual backups. At first blush this seems to be the easy choice. At the end of every day (or week or month) make a copy of all your important files and folders on a CD-R, a ZIP disk, a flash drive, or an external hard drive. While this is an attractive solution, it has drawbacks, the largest of which is reliability. Over time, the backups will not be performed at regular intervals. This will put your data at risk.
Automatic backups. This option requires you to purchase software to perform backups automatically. The most common software used for automatic backups is Retrospect. This powerful cross platform solution allows backups to be made to tape drives, CD’s or external drives.

A simple all-in-one solution is available from Maxtor. The Maxtor OneTouch drive is a Firewire/USB hard drive and backup software combination. Mac users should look into .Mac for a backup solution. A .Mac (pronounced 'dotMac') account comes with an iDisk. The .Mac iDisk is a full 100 MB of space on Apple's servers where you can store and access files using almost any Internet–connected computer. When you use the included .Mac Backup software and use the iDisk as the destination for your files, they are stored safely on your iDisk. Other online backup solutions can be found by doing a Google search. The following companies all have similar type products that will perform backups over the internet; DataProtection, Hexistor and StoreMyPC

No mater what type of backups you decide to utilize, it is imperative that you make sure that the backups are actually being performed. Also remember to keep your backup disks in a different physical location from your computer.