# Archives

This window is displayed by clicking on the Archive option in the main menu

It displays the years that have been archived and allows archiving operations to be performed.

1. Click "+" to open a dialog to add a new archive years. You can create multiple years in one operation.

Enter the start and end years.

On a local system, both archive records and subdirectories to hold the archive files will be created. When user the server option, directories must be created manually.

Directories will have the format <system dir>\archives\<year> eg c:\idw\archives\2003

Note that this operation by itself does not actually perform any archiving but just sets up references for archiving to occur.

2. Archiving occurs for the selected year in the grid.

3. Select the tables to use in the archiving operation. The [Check all] and [Uncheck all] buttons can be used to speed this up.

4. The date each table was last archived and the date when archived records were deleted is displayed.

5. [Archive data] actual copies the selected data to the archive, without removing it from the main database.

a. An empty copy of each detail table for the table types selected is created in the archive subdirectory

b. The header file is scanned for records with dates in the selected year.

c. The details associated with these records is copied to the tables in the archive

d. The header record has its archive field set to the archive year.

6. [Delete archived records] performs a similar scan, this time checking the archive field value matches the currently selected year. If it does, the associated detail records will be deleted from the main database. This does not physically delete them, so a pack operation will be required afterwards to regain the disk space and speed up the scrolling.

7. [Delete Archived headers] – Use this with caution since it effectively removes all references to data for the selected year from the main database. It would only be used after the previous 2 steps to clear out any records for a particular year, eg to remove records in a database copied from another company to remove the other company’s data. It would usually be followed by a [physical deletion of the archive directory.

8. As the operation proceeds, the header table, detail table and the key value for the records in the tables will be displayed, to indicate progress.

9. Since the inventory totals are derived from records in the manifests and other tables it is necessary to handle the case when records have been archived. The tables are checked and the [Recalc button clicked]

a. Normally the oldest archive would be processed first, then the next year and so forth.

b. The inventory at the end of the archive year is calculated, based on starting inventory = end inventory for the previous year plus the transactions for the year.

c. Each selected table will result in the equivalent “Recalc inventory” dialog being displayed. Normally you would check all wells, bases etc and all model numbers eg

Document Archive.htm