TFC #49: The Importance of Scheduled Backups

As the heartbeat of your cabinet manufacturing operation, your software holds the key to efficiency, precision, and profitability. Picture this: years of painstakingly curated construction methods, meticulously cataloged materials, and hard-earned innovation—all gone in an instant.

The thought sends shivers down your spine, doesn't it? Yet, the reality is that without scheduled automatic backups, this nightmare scenario isn't just plausible; it's a ticking time bomb waiting to detonate.

We all like to think we will remember to run the backups manually… but we all know how that goes.

As I work with more and more shops, I’m reminded of the importance of this. Just yesterday, I had an incident happen and we had to lose a week of work.

It could have been worse, but honestly, we got lucky that we happened to run a backup a week ago.

In this article, I am going to talk about setting up scheduled backups in Cabinet Vision, but for the rest of you using Mozaik or other production-critical software, may this be a good push for you to double-check that your files are being backed up regularly in a safe place.

Creating Scheduled Cabinet Vision Backups

Lets talk about the way that most people run backups in Cabinet Vision. I think for a lot of people. It goes something like this:

Hmmm, its been awhile since we ran a backup.. maybe I should run one today.

With that mindset, it will likely go months between backups because, well, everybody is busy, and it's hard to remember trivial tasks like that when things are working well.

There is a better way.

Server Versus Standalone

I will explain the steps below but first things first, lets determine what type of install of Cabinet Vision you are using so you know where to run this schedule task.

SERVER: If you are utilizing a server install of Cabinet Vision, this should be done on the server itself, not on one of the workstations.

STANDALONE: If you are utilizing a standalone install, the same instructions but you will run the task directly on your computer.

Step 1 - Find the CV Backup Tool Location

Search for “backup cv” in your windows search bar.

Be sure to click on the right year. You might see 2022, 2023 and other version of CV in this search.

Do not open the app. Instead, click on the Open File Location button highlighted in the image below:

This will open your File Explore to the path where the backup tool is stored.

Step 2 - Get the Backup “Target” Path

Now take your mouse and right-click on the file called “Backup CV 2023 Settings”. (There will be 8-10 other files in this folder)

Click Properties in your mouse right-click menu.

You will see a Windows popup like the one in the image below:

Take your mouse and select all the text in the highlight box labeled “Target”

Copy it to your clipboard by clicking Crtl+C.

We will use this Target path in a later step.

Step 3 - Open the Windows Task Scheduler

Search for “task scheduler” in your windows search bar.

Open the Task Scheduler app.

Step 4 - Create Basic Task

After you have Task Scheduler open, open the Action dropdown in the top menu.

Click on “Create Basic Task”

Give your task a recognizable name.

Example: CV 2023 Daily Backups, CV 2023 Weekly Backups, etc

You can leave the description blank.

TRIGGER STEP

Now it’s time to choose how often you want to back up.

Weekly is probably often enough…. but, in the event of needing to restore, you will be much happier if you have daily options.

Storage is the only reason to not do daily backups.

I’m going to choose daily in this example.

The next step is to choose what time it runs.

This isn’t too critical because this task will run in the background without interrupting anyone.

However, I would recommend choosing a time when people are not using Cabinet Vision.

Early mornings or late nights would be preferred.

ACTION STEP

The action we want to perform is to “Start a program”

On the next page, it will ask us for the Program Path.

This is where we need the Target path we copied in Step 2.

Click in the Program/script field and paste the Target path.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

In the Add Arguments fields, type “/g”

This allows the backup program to run silently in the background without disturbing anyone.

Don’t miss that step.

Your last screen should look like this:

For the final step, simply click Finish.

And for the final, final step…. go check the backups folder the next day after you set this task up and make sure it created a CV backup when you set your task to run.

That’s it. Now you can relax and know that if you ever need to go back, you can choose exactly the day you want to restore from.

Thanks for reading,
Myron