The Accounts Database stores all your customers’ Customer Accounts. It contains customer details such as name, address, and telephone number, and also contains the information programmed into the customer’s system. The database makes it easy to find and open a customer’s account to locate information without having to connect to that customer’s system.
You can store the database anywhere on your local disk or network you want. If ElkRP is installed on only one computer, it would make sense to keep it in the RP folder. The default location of the RP folder is C:\ProgramData\RP . If more than one operator uses ElkRP on separate computers, then the database needs to be accessible to all of them. In this case, the database should be kept on a network file server.
It is possible to have more than one accounts database. If each operator has a set of customers he is responsible for, then ElkRP may be installed on each computer with a separate database also on each computer. Each database could contain only the accounts that operator is responsible for. If your company has a large customer base, your system administrator may decide to break the customers into two or more groups and create a database for each group. These multiple databases may be kept in a common location so all operators may access them. However, the more separate databases you use, the more confusing it becomes to maintain them. They should be backed up periodically. Each organization is unique. Choose whatever set up makes sense for your organization.
To open a database, select the Open Database command on the File menu, then browse for it. ElkRP remembers the database you opened and will automatically open it the next time you start ElkRP.
To create a new database, locate the file ElkAccts._db in the RP folder. Unless your system administrator changed the location of this folder, it was installed in C:\ProgramData. Copy ElkAccts._db to the new location and rename it to ElkAccts.mdb or to any other name you choose with an .mdb suffix.
Because the database is a central component of ElkRP, Elk Products recommends you back it up regularly. The accounts database is a file on your local disk or on the network, so backing it up is easy. Any commercially available back up application will work. You may back up to another fixed drive or to a removable drive. If you use ElkRP often, the database should be backed up often – even daily. If the database is located on a file server, most organizations already have a back up procedure in place for critical files on the server. Ask your network administrator to include the database file(s) in their regular back ups. If your company doesn’t regularly perform back ups, now is the time to consider it.
Should the need arise to restore a backed up database, simply copy it back to the location where it was. The only information that would be lost is whatever changes were made to accounts in the database since the last back up. If those changes were sent to the systems (downloaded), you can retrieve the changes by connecting to the systems again, receiving all (full upload), then saving the account.