There’s More to Backing Up Dynamics GP Than Meets the Eye

Dynamics GP provides a mechanism inside the application to set up regular backups. Administrators simply go to the Microsoft Dynamics GP menu and select Tools->Maintenance->Backup. From there a wizard walks you through the process of the first backup and setting up recurring, scheduled backups.

Simple, right?

Not so fast. The built-in backup process in Microsoft Dynamics GP only backs up the data in the SQL tables. This is a fine place to start, but it's really just the minimum backup for most companies.Not covered are customized forms, reports, and financial statement formats-which many companies accumulate in significant numbers-- that would be costly and time consuming to replace. Then there are integrations, notes, collection letters and more that make up the full Dynamics GP ecosystem.

A Dynamics GP system is more than just data, it's the infrastructure around that data as well.

How can companies make sure that they are backing up all the pieces of their GP environment? Here are the things to make sure you back up:

-Dynamics GP SQL - Back up the Company, Dynamics, Master and Model Databases. This is the core backup and unfortunately, it's as far as most people get.

-Business Intelligence SQL - Back up any Reporting Services, Analysis Services and Sharepoint Databases, if applicable. Since Business Intelligence solutions are often built over time, these items can take a long time to rebuild, if lost. Companies using Business Portal and Sharepoint will want to make sure that both the databases and file repositories are backed up as well.

-Other SQL - Backup SQL Integration Service Packages and SQL Server Agent jobs If you have important SQL integrations or scheduled jobs, they probably took a ...