OK, here is what you are not getting, I believe:

First, before any explanations, back up your entire computer with a real backup program, and are you all set no matter what.

Now, either the tech person was wrong or you misunderstood him. What he/she probably said was the practicename.enc file in the BACKUP folder IS the backup. It is the backup that is the most important.

The practice.enc file contais the six databases (counting the data file and the log file) and a few other files and folders. The reason it exists and doesn't contain the imported items is for several reasons.

First, the file is the bare minimum to restore your application. This is why many of us use it to move or redo our Amazing Charts. You simply restore from it, and you are done.

Second, it will generally always remain small and manageable. Whether it is the time to make the backup (one to ten minutes most likely) or backing it up online, this is very important. My databases are roughly 850MBs, which backs up easily. SQL data has a good ratio of compression. My databases back up to a 65MB file after encryption and compression, which is why it will upload so quickly. If not, the GB file would take forever to upload and take up too much of AC's server space. The encryption does make the backup less compressible.

Now, let's look at the ImportItems folder, which of course, is made up of all folders of the patients for which you have imports. For a lot of people, the majority of files in the ImportItems folder is PDFs. PDFs are already highly compressed. Try it. Put about 100 PDFs in a folder and check out how many MBs it is. Then zip it. It will not be much smaller. So, if you include all of your imported items in your databases, it will get very large.

Moreover, if you were to include imported items directly into the database, they would be there forever. You would always have to back all of them up with the AC backup. Then you would be sitting there with this 3GB database. Also, SQL Express 2005's database has a 4GB limit making including imported items impractical.

So, for the most part, the only thing you are entering into the database are the messages, vaccines, progress notes, prescriptions, etc. Everything that HAS to be in the database. Every time you save an imported item, a link to that item is made in the AC database.

So, for backup purposes, you want to do two things. You want to make sure that databases are backed up, and you want to make sure your imported items are backed up. This is why you want to do a regular backup of the imported items. So, you could do this in a variety of ways:

1. Do the regular AC backup plus backup the ImportItems folder either by copy and paste or a backup program.
2. Back up the whole AC folder nightly with a backup program.
3. Back up the entire server with a backup program.
4. Or, best practices, do a number of these.

A quick way to do it would be to use Acronis or some other good imaging program and back up the entire computer nightly. Then before you leave, click on AC Backup and have another backup available. And, make sure to back it up to a safe place, preferably an external hard drive. While having the backups go to the AC folder, I think it is a disservice to many users as they think they are save. Given that backing up to the same computer or hard drive is not good practice, backing up to the same exact folder is crazy.

Take a look at your ImportItems folder in your AC folder. Mine is over 10GBs. That can be backed up in 30 minutes with good backup software. It would take awhile with the AC backup. The AC backup should be thought of as an extra backup. Nice and neat and encrypted and all one needs to restore the program plus the imported items. But, it should not be all of your backup strategy.

HTH. If not, please ask specific questions, and I will try to answer them for you.

Bert
Pediatrics
Brewer, Maine