Account Backups

Account Backups

Introduction

Users with required permissions can produce backups of the Controlled Documents held in an iPassport account, together with their metadata. A subscription is required for this service, but it allows unlimited backups during its term. It is possible to only backup documents from selected OUs and a full history of previous backups is always available.

Only Controlled Documents are included in a backup. For each document in the selected OUs, the backup takes the latest version of the procedure file, its attachments, and its bench procedure and MSDS where the document has them. No other record type is backed up: audits, incidents, non-compliances, equipment, materials, meetings, competency records and tasks are not included.

Genial Compliance Systems Ltd. has rugged systems in place to ensure continuity of service and to keep backups of the entire system. However, if a customer loses access to the internet and therefore can’t use iPassport, it’s helpful to have local backups of documents that can be opened outside of iPassport.

Settings

Subscription Expiry

There are no account settings that users can directly access for account backups. The Genial sales team manages settings according to subscriptions received, and the user will always be able to see when a subscription is due to expire in the Account Backups page.

If an account doesn’t have a subscription, links are provided to help get one easily.

Backup Expiry

Backups have a lifespan of 2 weeks, after which they can no longer be downloaded. There is no setting to adjust this. A backup is started as soon as it is requested, but some can take a long while to complete, so it’s necessary for the system to store them until the user comes back to download them. They must then be gradually removed to clear space for the following ones.

Nothing expires a backup on a schedule. A backup is only marked as Expired when someone clicks Download more than two weeks after it was created, at which point the message, “The backup you’re trying to download is now expired” is displayed. Until that happens, a backup older than two weeks still shows a status of Completed with a Download icon beside it, even though the download will no longer work.

Any backups that haven’t expired when a subscription expires, will continue to be available for the remainder of their 2-week lifespan.

Permissions

The permission, Backups: Manage Account Backups is required in at least one OU for users to be able to produce backups. This permission is included in the system role, Administration Editor. As a security precaution, users must have the permission in each of the OUs they wish to back up. Site Admins can do backups of all OUs without having the permission in every one. Facility Admins can do the same within the facilities they administer, because they are granted every permission inside their own facilities, so they do not need Backups: Manage Account Backups in each OU either.

Having this permission will make the Account Backups menu visible, but a subscription is also required for the module to become usable. Site Admins and Facility Admins see the menu whether or not they hold the permission, provided their account is not read-only.

Viewing and Downloading Account Backups

To access the backups area, go to Administration > Account Backups. The menu item will only be visible if the user has the permission above, or is a Site Admin or Facility Admin whose account is not read-only.

The Account Backups tab displays a table of all backups requested. It includes the following information:

• Status:
  • Pending - the status given to a backup when it is first requested. Backups are dispatched immediately rather than on a schedule, so this normally lasts only a few seconds
  • In Progress - this shows while the backup is being prepared
  • Completed - the backup is available for download for a period of 2 weeks, in this status
  • Expired - after two weeks a backup can no longer be downloaded but the Download History remains available. The status only changes when somebody tries to download it, so a backup more than two weeks old may still be showing as Completed
  • Cancelled - while a backup is in Pending status, it can be cancelled by clicking the delete (trash) icon under Actions. Because Pending normally lasts only a few seconds, there is rarely time to do this in practice
  • Failed - in the event the backup process isn’t successfully completed, the system aborts it to allow requesting it again
    
    
• Created At - date it was requested
  
  
• Created By - user who requested it
  
  
• Download Expires - reminder of expiry date
  
  
• OUs - if all Organisational Units are requested, this field will display, “All OUs”; it will otherwise list every OU requested
  
  
• Active Docs - a tick or a cross showing whether active documents were included when the backup was requested
  
  
• Inactive Docs - a tick or a cross showing whether inactive documents were included when the backup was requested
  
  
• Exclude Superseded - a tick or a cross showing whether superseded documents were excluded when the backup was requested
  
  
• Document Count - provides indication of the number of documents included in the backup
  
  
• Actions:
  • a Delete (trash) icon is available while in Pending status
  • a Download icon is available while in Completed status
  • a Download History icon is available while in Completed or Expired status. It is not shown for Pending, In Progress, Cancelled or Failed backups
    
    

Visibility of Backups

The list of existing backups will only show ones where the user has permission to create backups in all of the OU’s included in that backup.

Site Admins can see all backups.

Requesting a Backup

The Request Backup button is only visible when there aren’t any pending backups and the subscription is valid.

To request a backup:

1. Click the Request Backup button to open the 'Request an Account Backup' pop-up window
2. Leave the field under, Limit export to the following OUs blank to back up all the OU’s the user has the permission to create backups in, or
3. Click in the field and select OUs by clicking one by one below (text can be entered to narrow down the dropdown list). On an account with facilities, selecting OUs here is not on its own enough to limit the backup: see Requesting a Backup in an Enterprise Account below
4. Click the dropdown under, What to back up?, 3 options are available:
   • Active Documents - only active documents are included
   • Inactive Documents - only inactive documents are included
   • All Documents - all documents are included
     
     
     
5. Tick the checkbox under, Exclude superseded controlled documents, as required
6. A Password can be entered to protect the zipped download (Warning: if it’s forgotten, the files won’t be accessible!)
7. Click Request Backup
   
   

The backup starts straight away. It does not wait for an overnight run or a scheduled check, so the status usually moves from Pending to In Progress within seconds.

Requesting a Backup in an Enterprise Account (with Facilities)

This section only applies to accounts which have facilities. An additional field is provided to allow limiting backup requests to a facility without having to select all of its OUs. Multiple facilities can be selected if the user has access to them, and then individual OUs can be selected from one or more of the facilities. If no OUs are chosen from a selected facility, all of its OUs will be backed up.

Leaving the Facilities field blank does not mean “no facilities”: it selects every facility the user has permission for. Combined with the rule above, that means selecting OUs while leaving Facilities blank will not limit the backup to those OUs. Picking two OUs in one facility backs up those two OUs, plus every OU of every other facility the user has permission for, because those facilities have no OUs explicitly chosen in them.

In short:

• A facility where at least one OU has been picked contributes only those OUs
• A facility where no OUs have been picked contributes all of its OUs
• A blank Facilities field means every facility the user has access to is selected

To genuinely limit a backup to a few OUs on an account with facilities, select the facility or facilities those OUs belong to as well as the OUs themselves.

What the Backup Contains

The download is a single zip file, encrypted with the password entered at request time if one was set. Inside it there is a folder for each OU included in the backup, named after the OU’s short name, and inside each of those a folder for each document, named after the document index.

Each document folder holds the latest version of the procedure file, and the bench procedure and MSDS files where the document has them. Attachments are placed in their own sub-folder named after the document version.

A Metadata.csv file sits in the root of the zip, listing every document in the backup under the following columns:

• Name
• Index
• Version
• Document Type
• Status
• Created Date
• Created By
• Authorised On
• Authorised By
• Effective Date
• Superseded On
• Review Due
• OU
• Category
• Section
• Authors
• Introduction and Scope
• Inactive?

Missing Files

If any source files could not be found in storage, the zip will also contain a Missing_Files.csv listing the affected documents, and a README.txt explaining what has happened. Neither file appears when nothing is missing.

This is normally a historic issue where the original files were lost or removed. For documents authorised more than a year ago, recovery is very unlikely. If any of the affected documents were authorised within the last year, contact support so it can be investigated further. Every other document in the backup will have been exported successfully.

Backup History

The download history of each backup remains available after it has expired. Clicking the History icon under Actions, brings up a pop-up window with details of any downloads of that backup. If it hasn’t been downloaded, the message, “Backup not downloaded yet” is displayed.