Honestly this is still my biggest concern regarding use of Knack... You really cannot trust what you cannot back up, as any company can be bought out, fold up overnight, or have issues that could compromise your data.
I still use Knack, but as other users I would GLADLY pay a monthly fee to have an ACTUAL BACK UP of the database in a usable format (with table linkage and attachments). I am honestly incredibly surprised that this is not a bigger deal to Knack as a company, as anyone who works in IT knows that backups are the key to reliability, and currently you can accidentally delete thousands of records or hours of work in a click or two, with no way to recover.
Maybe they think that it would lead to using Knack as a designer, and not paying monthly fees? Which is a bit strange, as the online and mobile integrated parts are what make it most useful... I know how to design a database, but having one that works as seamlessly and has an easy interface is completely different...
I agree totally! This is the single biggest risk I see with becoming deeply embedded using Knack which I am. They need to get a back system in place ASAP, I do notice there is a Restore Database Service offered by Knack so they obviously can do it have the backup. I would gladly pay a few extra bucks each month to be able to download a back up of my own data.
If that happens, we need to have a way of preserving our table connections as well. What a mess if we are left with only individual tables to try to connect to records. Blech.
I agree, I have the workflow of my business running though Knack and at the moment I have to spend/waste significant time downloading everything each month so that I have a backup. Should Knack for whatever reason cease to exist it would also leave me in a tough position without having a backup.
Knack Team - Please implement a file backup feature, I am confident that many businesses will be put off from using your service because of the lack of this simple feature. Thanks
Just bumping this again... My uses for Knack are only growing, and as they do my concerns with my data grow as well. I am not asking for the world, just a way to BACKUP MY OWN DATA to ensure that loss or closure of Knack in general does not put me in a legally compromised situation.
On of the issues is file attachments. Incredibly useful to store here, but impossible to trust without some form of a backup!
Yikes, I'm going to be answering this very question to my legal team. "What is your backup plan?" Last night, I accidentally lost all data connected to a data field (approximately 450 records) when I was experimenting with connections and showing records for a logged-in user. I had to send out an apology email this morning and ask for help from the entire dept. to re-select a person from a pull-down menu. Augh!
Would making a daily copy of my app (and all of its records) have been effective? If so, in the case of an emergency, how would I make my duplicate app become my active one? Need an answer to this.
I think an easy to use backup to zip function would be best. Something similar to a cPanel backup for WordPress or the like... It simply queues the backup job, zips it up, then asks where you want to save the .ZIP Simple to backup, simple to restore. You can even install your own WordPress server and restore the backup locally fairly easily.
My request is basically twofold:
1. Provide a backup method that can be downloaded to an offline or third party location (for a more permanent copy, or archiving purposes where there is a legal obligation or critical data involved)
2. Have a method to restore my own backups. This way if I accidentally destroy a form, a user accidentally deletes ALL the records when they meant to delete one, or something else happens I can "roll back" to the day before, or a week before.
This just happened to me two days ago (accidentally deleted a linked field and all the pages with it) and you guys were happy to restore my backup for $100/hr depending on the time it would take (1hr minimum). I paid the $100 since I could not restore my own backup from the previous night and I only needed the interface (not data) restored... Your backup scheme works, but if Knack is bought out by Oracle and starts displaying a nice 404 page I would love to have a copy of all the months of data input I have spent on using the product. Thanks for responding!
I have a project that requires a full export that includes downloading content for integration into an in-house application, and best of all I just completed a working proof of concept! I still need to add a bit of polish, but if you are interested in checking it out please shoot me an email.
That is great! Any way I can get this code snippet or what providers you guys use for this? It would be invaluable to me as we really need a way to backup our data in case of emergency. The real trouble is all these attachments we are uploading... Thank you very much!
I'm really surprised Knack doesn't have the ability to automatically backup the data to a remote location. This is crucial for businesses! Having to manually run backups everyday or every few hours is unreasonable.
For a company that promotes "no coding. all smiles", I wouldn't want to have to hire a programmer just to create custom script for automated backups. I hope this feature gets added sooner than later.
My programmer has developed an extraction routine that brings the data down into our backup database environment on ur own server. I agree that there should be some guarantees or at least an offering for backup.
Currently there is no built-in option to download a single file containing all records or a file containing all the assets that have been uploaded. While we may investigate this for a future feature update, there's no specific timeline currently.
If you had someone who knew programming, you could use our API to create a utility that could assemble a collection of CSV files. You could also potentially program something that tracks file records that have been added, and then downloads those to another server somewhere. Unfortunately our production schedule just doesn't have room for us to tackle a custom project like this.
Thanks,
Eric
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Sounds like it is not something Knack is really worried about -- but I certainly am. Makes it difficult to use when there is absolutely no guarantee that you data is safe. In fact they specificallydenyany liability for losing ALL of the data you put into the system...! I really like the product and offered to pay them for the time to back up my data for me... :( I want to use it, but right now it is a liability and huge risk to put ANYTHING into the system that might actually matter.
From KnackHQ Terms of Service: "Knack shall not be responsible or liable for the deletion, correction, destruction, damage, loss or failure to store any Customer Data. Knack reserves the right to withhold, remove and/or discard Customer Data..."
I also agree, I have mission/business critical information going into our database and need the ability to make sure it is backed up. This was reinforced last week when my ISP had a hard disk failure (it happens) and then could only restore me back to 24hrs prior. Thankfully I had a full backup so no data was lost. But without that option I would have been stuffed.
I fully agree. I am putting a lot of customer data into these databases including documents and they will want to know how I am backing this up. I think this should be treated with a high priority.
Is there anyone from the Knack team who can speak to this issue? Like all the others who have posted here over the past six (!!!) years, I would like to be able to export and back-up our database. What does Knack recommend?
I have been working very diligently with a great platform to back up my Knack database SECURELY! The vendor is All-in-one Website & Database Backups Automation (simplebackups.com), they built a recipe that allows you to enter your API and App ID, choose the objects you want backed up. Fully automated, the scheduler sets the specific time you want your backup process to run. Finally, they offer many different storage options available to you to distribute your back up (i.e., SFTP, S3). They also allow you to encrypt your backups with a public key (has to be in PEM format). Amazing service. Highly recommend.
Yes, just contacted them to see if there was any way to download a backup of ours as we have a lot of hours building it out, disappointed to see that there is no way to do so!
Hi All,
I have developed a means of backing up individual CSV files from a Knack app to Dropbox/OneDrive.
I’m using Make to automate this process, and I would like to try it on a few other Knack.
I have built it in such a way to handle multiple apps on a single Knack account (or across accounts).
If you’re interested in this, please message me.
Just a note, please export your largest objects from Knack as a CSV file, and let me know how large the file is in MB, that will affect what Make account you will need to have to manage the larger files.