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The unthinkable has happened- our company server crashed and all e-mails, calendars & contacts vanished.  The e-mails have been recovered, but calendars and contacts are lost.

I had not printed a hard copy of contacts in about 6 months, and will spend the next few days re-entering contacts and calendar events (luckily I keep a paper calendar for reference when I'm in meetings).

Please, take a few minutes and back up all your info.

There was a power cut yesterday and lots of homes lost electricity for a time.   Luckily our lights in work only flickered for a few seconds but I had to log in to my pc again.

Not sure what backup procedures our IT department use but I would have thought calendars and emails would have remained intact and that they could perform a sys restore.

Your information technology folks didn't make backups of the server??? Oh my gosh. I can't believe that... How awful for you.


Marie
Peer Moderator

Our server crashed Friday the 13th.  I have my schedules back, but there are still some e-mails that never made it to me. I don't know what we did pre- e-mail  and electronic calendars:)

We wrote it all in desk diaries and calendars! lol

I still keep a desk diary even though I use Outlook calendar too.  We back up every night and the back ups get taken off site.  I don't even want to think about loosing all my data - would be awful!

I think this post has highlighted a very serious issue that many people don't appreciate until it affects them.

In all honesty, I was one of these people until last year when I lost all of my work on my home PC.

If you're using MS Outlook, it's useful to export all of your contacts and your calendar to MS Excel (for example) and store this on a removable storage drive.  This means that you can easily import the data back into MS Outlook as and when you need to - it saves a lot of re-inputting later.

Matt Griffin MIPA
Wales Regional Coordinator
Institute of Professional Administrators

I do agree although I am one of these people that keeps everything electronically.  

The only problem is that of course we are able to do this at home from a personal perspective, but in my case, what if you are not allowed to use discs, memory sticks or any other external devices in work?  That to me means that an IT department would need to cover their backs with regards to all aspects of network or server crashes, and ensure my work is backed up on my personal drive as well as documentation stored on other corporate network drives.

Hi gee4

I tend to use a website that allows me to upload large files in a personal storage area - I don't know if I'm allowed to name the website on here?

It could be useful for those who are not allowed to use removable storage devices as you mentioned.

Just a thought.

Matt Griffin MIPA
Wales Regional Coordinator
Institute of Professional Administrators

Matt,

We have extremely strict rules and guidelines here in work about where information is stored so I doubt we would have access to such a website given that the internet is also restricted for business use.  Many website categories are blocked and are not accessible.

Gee4

I know what you're saying but it is frustrating when businesses do not recognise the risks of not backing-up data - as I'm sure you appreciate.

Matt Griffin MIPA
Wales Regional Coordinator
Institute of Professional Administrators

As we have no control over such matters, I therefore trust IT to have processes and procedures in place to manage this.  I work for a large global company and based on the nature of our work I assume data is backed up on a regular basis.  
A lot of smaller companies might outsource data storage and back up.

I worked in IT several years ago and we managed a very large project (still in existence) which encompassed all aspects of data storage and server backups.  I found it extremely interesting and as it was a managed service, there was no way we could ever go back to the customer and stay, oh guess what, all your data is gone because we never backed it up.  We would have been sacked immediately.

My company does not have systems in place to back-up data - this is why I have taken the initiative to do it myself - I know that if all our data is lost, I'll be the one having to re-input it all!

I was thinking more about companies like Museumgal's who also do not seem to have adequate systems in place.

Matt Griffin MIPA
Wales Regional Coordinator
Institute of Professional Administrators

Might be a good time to invest then.  I know lots of small companies who either manage this themselves or outsource it.

If only it was that easy - the company I work for is rarely prepared to invest in anything!  Hence the frustration :-)

Matt Griffin MIPA
Wales Regional Coordinator
Institute of Professional Administrators

Bit like car insurance.....you never need it until a crisis happens.

We will have an adequate system soon.  The Powers that Be decided it could wait a couple of months, maybe now they will change their minds.

And, it's a matter of training employees (a museum is not filled with tech savvy folks).  One user had over 20K e-mails in their in-box. Our poor IT guy is pulling his hair out, explaining the deleted folder is not the place to file e-mails you want to keep.

I had this happen 5 years ago at another company, but let myself grow complacent, and didn't back up my contacts. Luckily, it's a slow time, the Boss is heading out of town and I will be re-entering contact information.  I will be backing up weekly from now on.

I have given various tips to co-workers and colleagues on general house-keeping including filing of emails and the importance of detaching documents received via email.

I find it so frustrating that this is not explained or taught to staff in the workplace.  It's only when they get a message saying, your mailbox is over its limit, that they phone IT to complain - ahhh!!

The staff has been warned about the need to clean up the e-mail.  There are instructions on the intra-office site, hard copy instructions, and the IT guy has walked at least 3 people in my department through archiving.