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Text File | 1989-02-26 | 14.0 KB | 344 lines

ANTHISTLE SYSTEMS & PROGRAMMING LTD. 563 Patricia Drive, Oakville, Ontario, CANADA L6K 1M4 Phone 416-845-7959 19th. December, 1988 MAKING BACKUPS OF YOUR EMPLOYEE DATA ==================================== We STRONGLY recommend that you keep backup copies of your employee data as it was going into each pay cycle. We suggest you keep as many pay cycles as you have room for, up to say a years worth, but at least keep the last two. The backups should ideally be made on real diskettes in case of a head crash or other catastrophic damage to the hard disk. PAYROLL USA WILL MANAGE THE BACKUP FOR YOU. ------------------------------------------- Vers. 2.0 onwards of PAYROLL USA prompts you for a backup the first time you access either the PAYUSEDT.EXE (Employee Update Program) after running a pay cycle, or in case all your people are salaried and you have no hours to enter or other changes to make with PAYUSEDT.EXE between pay cycles, then it will prompt you for a backup before you do the next pay cycle (PAYUSCYC.EXE). The backup prompt appears automatically after the prompt asking if you wish to copy the files from the pay cycle output directory to the input directory (which makes the last pay cycle permanent and ensures the YTD figures accumulate properly). The automatic backup creates a directory on the backup drive which is named for the pay date the files were input to. This also allows you to backup several pay cycles on the same disk, space permitting, (because each is in its own directory). Example: 880726IN <DIR> 7-26-88 9:17a The files in the above directory were INput to the pay cycle dated 880726 (1988, July, 26th.) . This directory will contain a copy of everything that was on the PAYROLL USA input directory (normally \PAYIN ). Example \880726IN might contain: . <DIR> 7-26-88 9:17a .. <DIR> 7-26-88 9:17a PAYUSA DTA 44800 7-26-88 9:17a PAYUS941 DTA 3456 7-26-88 9:17a PAYUSA INX 1280 7-26-88 9:17a The purpose of backing up the input directory rather than the output directory is that the output directory can easily be re-created by Continued .... PAYROLL USA BACKUP INFORMATION - 19 Dec. 1988 - Page 2 restoring the input directory and re-running the backed up pay cycle. (You might of course want to use PAYUSEDT.EXE to make changes to the Employees before the pay cycle if it were not just a straight re-run). This also assumes you are using the same version of the program (i.e. Federal Taxes have not changed since the backup) and that the PAYUSA.CNF configuration file is also the same (e.g. State Taxes, Employee Base Information, etc. have not changed since the backup). RESTORING THE PAYROLL USA BACKUP (IF NECESSARY) ----------------------------------------------- Backups are like an insurance policy. You hope you will never need them. But, once in a while you might and then you will be glad you took the trouble to create them. If it is necessary to restore a backup follow these steps: STEP 1. ------- The files currently in \PAYIN (or wherever your input directory is) will be replaced by the backup. If \PAYIN contains some garbage then you do not care if it is wiped out, but depending on what you are doing you may want to later put the current \PAYIN back. If that is the case, save it somewhere now. Example, from the DOS prompt C: MD \CURRIN COPY \PAYIN \CURRIN You might (or might not) also want to save the configuration file COPY \PAYPGMS\PAYUSA.CNF \CURRIN If you are not finished printing current checks or reports, or have not yet made the last pay cycle permanent, you might even want to save \PAYOUT MD \CURROUT COPY \PAYOUT \CURROUT If you do need to copy those back later (e.g. you just wanted a temporary look at a previous [backed up] pay without permanent changes to the current file) then AFTER you are finished looking at the backup simply reverse the steps COPY \CURROUT \PAYOUT RD \CURROUT COPY \CURRIN\PAYUSA.CNF \PAYPGMS ERASE \CURRIN\PAYUSA.CNF COPY \CURRIN \PAYIN ERASE \CURRIN RD \CURRIN Continued .... PAYROLL USA BACKUP INFORMATION - 19 Dec. 1988 - Page 3 If you find you do not need to copy those files back again then you can just get rid of them with ERASE \CURROUT RD \CURROUT ERASE \CURRIN RD \CURRIN STEP 2. ------- Step 1 is only necessary if you think you might want to later put back what you have now. Step 2 restores the backup. Put your backup disk in Drive A . A: CD \ DIR will give you a list of available directory names ( pay dates ) to pick from. Assuming 880726IN is required COPY \880726IN C:\PAYIN then you can start up PAYROLL USA with C: CD \PAYPGMS PAYUSA LARGE EMPLOYEE FILES -------------------- The PAYROLL USA backup is a FULL SIZE backup to ONLY ONE DISKETTE. It has no provision for splitting files between several diskettes. If the employee files will not fit on a single diskette you have two choices: 1. Use the DOS BACKUP.COM program (and DOS RESTORE.COM if you need to put them back). If you are doing this you have to do it from the DOS prompt. You will not need to use our backup procedure (reply N when prompted for it) but do your own backup of \PAYIN immediately after each pay cycle. Full instructions for the use of these programs will be found in your DOS Manual. They do a full size backup, but will spread it over several diskettes if the files are too big to go on one diskette. Assuming BACKUP.COM (and RESTORE.COM) is on Continued .... PAYROLL USA BACKUP INFORMATION - 19 Dec. 1988 - Page 4 drive C: directory \DOS and your backup disk is in drive A: the command is C:\DOS\BACKUP C:\PAYIN\*.* A: Anything already on the diskette in Drive A: will be erased. To restore a DOS backup Check out Step 1 above, then put your backup disk in Drive A . C:\DOS\RESTORE A: C:\PAYIN\*.* Note that if more than one diskette is involved they are a matched set. They must be restored in the same sequence as they were backed up - label them with pay date and sequence numbers as they are created by BACKUP.COM Keep the disk sets for several pay periods and rotate them so the oldest set is re-used each pay. The filenames themselves will not contain the pay date, but the file creation dates will give you a clue which is which if the external labels are lost. - OR - 2. Compress the Files. (i) PKARC / PKXARC ------------------ There are several ShareWare data compression programs which will squeeze your files to about 15 or 20% of their original size. Ideal for making your own backups of LARGE employee files (which might not otherwise fit on a diskette). If you are doing this you have to do it from the DOS Prompt. You will not need to use our backup procedure (reply N when prompted for it) but do your own backup of \PAYIN immediately after each pay cycle. One such compression program is PKARC.EXE . Assuming this program is on drive C: directory \UTILITY and your backup disk is in drive A: and the pay cycle for 26th. July 1988 has just been done then A: CD \ C:\UTILITY\PKARC A 880726IN.ARC C:\PAYIN\*.* will create the backup file. No matter how many files were on \PAYIN only one file will appear on A: but it will contain all of \PAYIN. Squeezed files have to be restored to full size and the component files seperated, before they can be used. PKARC has a companion program PKXARC.EXE for this purpose. To restore a squeezed backup Check out Step 1 above, then put your backup disk in Drive A . Continued .... PAYROLL USA BACKUP INFORMATION - 19 Dec. 1988 - Page 5 A: CD \ DIR will give you a list of available file names ( pay dates ) to pick from. Assuming 880726IN.ARC is required then C: CD \PAYIN \UTILITY\PKXARC A:\880726IN.ARC then you can start up PAYROLL USA with CD \PAYPGMS PAYUSA (ii) PKZIP / PKUNZIP -------------------- PKARC and PKXARC were authored by PKWARE, Inc. and may still be available on the ShareWare market but due to a mid 1988 lawsuit from System Enhancement Associates the authors of ARC claiming these programs infringe on their proprietory use of the ARC name and compression methods they were replaced Feb. 1989 by PKWARE, Inc. with a new set of programs PKZIP and PKUNZIP using a different compression routine and different file extension name (.ZIP instead of .ARC). Note that because of the terms of the settlement of the lawsuit .ZIP files could not be made compatible with .ARC files, therefore PKUNZIP cannot be used to decompress a .ARC file. Whatever program you use to compress the files with, you must later use the appropriate (matching) decompression program to decompress them again. Equivalent instructions for using PKZIP and PKUNZIP are: A: CD \ C:\UTILITY\PKZIP -a 880726IN.ZIP C:\PAYIN\*.* will create the backup file. No matter how many files were on \PAYIN only one file will appear on A: but it will contain all of \PAYIN. Squeezed files have to be restored to full size and the component files seperated, before they can be used. PKZIP has a companion program PKUNZIP.EXE for this purpose. To restore a squeezed backup Check out Step 1 above, then put your backup disk in Drive A . A: CD \ DIR will give you a list of available file names ( pay dates ) to pick from. Assuming 880726IN.ZIP is required then Continued .... PAYROLL USA BACKUP INFORMATION - 19 Dec. 1988 - Page 6 C: CD \PAYIN \UTILITY\PKUNZIP A:\880726IN.ZIP then you can start up PAYROLL USA with CD \PAYPGMS PAYUSA Where to obtain further information on PKZIP -------------------------------------------- For PKZIP / PKUNZIP a contribution of U.S. $25 to $47 can be sent to PKWARE, Inc. 7545 N. Port Washington Rd. Glendale, WI 53217-3442 Phone: 414-352-3670 Voice 414-352-7176 BBS 414-352-3815 Fax We suspect that the $25 Registration is for people who already have a copy of PKZIP / PKUNZIP obtained in the ShareWare marketplace - it may not include a disk and manual. With each registration of $47 or more you will receive a diskette & manual for the next version when available. Add $3.50 Shipping and Handling (plus Wisconsin Sales Tax if you live in Wisconsin). PKWARE ask that if you already have a version of their programs you state the version number when Registering. If you do NOT already have PKZIP then we suggest you mention that when writing to Glendale and ask them to be sure to send you the latest version. Note that PKWARE, Inc. have no connection to either PAYROLL USA or to Anthistle Systems & Programming Ltd. Do NOT send PAYROLL USA registrations to Glendale. PKWARE, Inc. are mentioned here only because they have some excellent low cost data compression programs that you might find useful. Christopher Anthistle, President, 19th. December, 1988 (Revisions re. PKZIP / PKUNZIP added 26th. Feb. 1989)