Configuring Your Backups


 

 

Once you launch BackJack, you will be presented with the main Back Up window and an initial Backup Configuration Assistant. To help you get started, the Assistant provides you with the choice of immediately adding your ~/Documents folder or choosing your own items.

 

 

Action: Click on 'Choose My Own Items' or 'Add Recommendations' to begin adding items to your backup.

 

If you chose to 'Add Recommendations', then BackJack immediately places your Documents folder into the 'Items to Back Up' field as follows:

 

 

Tip - help tags are available via this window (place your mouse over an item to activate the tag)

 

 

Adding Items to Back Up

There are 2 ways to add items:

 

1) ACTION: Click
to the right of the 'Items to Back Up' field

 

Navigate to the location on your hard drive where the item exists. Remember, you can press CANCEL at any time if you do not wish to proceed. Once you have located the item, select it (so that it is highlighted), click the ADD button. BackJack will place that item in the Items field along with its native size, and its location (it will show you the complete path leading up to the chosen item). If the item is large in size, it may take a few seconds for BackJack to calculate its size.

 

TIP - Multiple items (both files and folders) can be added to the 'Items to Back Up' field at the same time via the navigation window - for continuous adding (ie. selecting all items from top through to bottom), hold down the shift key to select all all items - for discontinuous adding (ie. selecting items not together in a row), hold down the command (apple) key - once selected, click on the ADD button and they will be included in your items list.

 

TIP - Holding down the 'option' key lets you look inside bundles.

 

OR, you can:

 

2) ACTION: Drag and drop items from your hard drive directly into the 'Items to Back Up' field.

 

 

 

As you add items to your list, several things will happen:

 

  • The storage bar at the top of the Back Up window begins to move showing you the total number of GBs you have selected and the total amounts of GBs remaining
  • The 'Backup Now' button is replaced by a Cancel and a pulsing Save button

 

ACTION: After adding items to the backup window, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACKUP NOW button will again become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL.

 

If there are no items added to the 'Items to Back Up' field, the 'Back Up Now' button remains greyed out.

 

Errors when Adding Items

 

Important: we generally do not recommend selecting and backing up your entire hard drive (due to the upload restraints). Rather, we encourage you to focus on the items that are critical to you and the functioning of your personal and/or business life. This may include (but is not limited to) items such as your Documents folder, your Library folder, your entire User folder, projects, accounting files, etc.

 

If you are adding items to your backup and receive an error message indicating 'Some Items could not be added to this Backup Set. Please see Log for details', this is due to the following:

 

  • you are attempting to add your entire hard drive (ie. /) to the backup
  • you are attempting to add items that are already part of an existing folder that you have already added to your 'Items to Back Up' field (ie. you've added your User folder and then attempt to add your Documents folder). Since your Document folder is contained within your User folder, there is no need to add it again

 

 

Exceeding Your Storage Limit when Adding Items

 

If you add items to your backup that exceed your available storage, the storage bar will turn red. If you click on the pulsing 'Save' button, you'll note how the 'Backup Now' button is disabled. If this occurs, please refer to the steps below outlining how to remove items from your backup.

 

 

Alternatively, if you want to purchase additional storage to accommodate the upload OR assign additional (available) storage to this User, this can be done via the MyBackJack portal. The native size of the items you added will be showing in the 'Selected' field to the left of the red bar so that you know how much additional space you need to purchase or assign.

 

ACTION: Once you've purchased additional storage via MyBackJack, click on the 'Available' field at the top of your Backup window to confirm the updated 'Available' limit.

 

 

Removing Items

Now that you've added items to your list, you are also able to remove them at any time.

 

ACTION: Click once on the item in the list and then click    to remove the item from the list   

 

You will receive a warning to confirm that you want to remove the item and will be required to enter your password.

 

 

IMPORTANT: Removing/deleting an item from the 'Items to Back Up' field will permanently delete the data from our remote servers during the next backup session. You will be asked to provide your User password in order to remove items from your backup, item filters or global filters. This prevents stolen computers from having their backed up files removed from our remote storage servers. If you need to remove multiple items, you will only be asked for the password for the first deletion attempt (ie. provided that you do all the deletions at once).

 

ACTION: Enter the User password and click OK to continue. Once you do this, the item will be automatically removed from the 'Items to Back Up' field and will be flagged for deletion from our servers.

 

Item Count

To the right of the 'Items to Back Up', 'Item Filters' and 'Global Filters' titles, there is an item count. This is a quick, convenient way to see the number of items contained within a backup as well as the number of global or item filters configured.

 

 

Tip - You can collapse or expand the 'Items to Back Up', 'Item Filters' and 'Global Filters' fields by clicking on the arrows to the left of each of these titles.

 

 

Configuring Filters

 

Filters are an important feature since they allow you to configure what you don't want to back up as part of the backup. There are two types of filters:

 

1. Item Filters:

  • apply to individual items in your backup
  • apply to folders only (if an item filter is applied to a file, it is ignored by BackJack)

 

2. Global Filters apply to all items in your backup. Below are the default filters that BackJack sets:

 

 

Adding Filters

There are 3 ways to add filters: 

1) ACTION: To add a new ITEM FILTER, select the Item and then click on the + sign to the right of the Item filters field. To add a new GLOBAL FILTER, click on the + sign to the right of the Global filters field

 

 

The pulldown menu allows you to filter information based on: file name, folder name, full path, date file modified, date file created, date folder modified, date folder created, file size, extension, visibility, type, creator. Select your choices from the pulldown menu and place information into the blank value field. If you need to navigate in order to verify the information to be put into the value field, select the Get Info button. Once you do this, you can navigate to the item on your hard drive and press Select. It will display that information in the value field of the Configure Filter window. Note that filters are not case sensitive.

 

 

OR, YOU CAN:

 

2) Drag and Drop on the list of Filters in the Backups window. All items will be added with a default filter of 'full path is'

 

OR, YOU CAN:

 

3) Drag and Drop into the Configure filter window (instead of clicking on the Get Info button, just drop a file on the window)

 

TIP - The comments field can be blank or you can enter a description to keep track of what the filter is and why you configured it.

 

 

Deleting Filters

 

ACTION: Highlight the filter you wish to delete by selecting it and clicking the - button.

 

Note: Deleting a filter may actually increase the amount of data stored on the remote servers.

 

Editing Filters

ACTION: Highlight the filter you wish to edit by selecting it and clicking the (i) Info button. You can also double click on the filter itself within the Filters field

 

 

ACTION: After editing your filters, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACK UP NOW button will become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL.

 

Scheduling Your Backup

The schedule that you set applies to ALL of the items in your backup. You can only set one daily time schedule for your backup but you can choose the days on which the scheduled backup occurs. Keep in mind that there is no charge for how often you back up to our servers.

 

The default days are Monday through Friday and the default time is based on when you launched BackJack for the first time (after installing).

 

 

ACTION: Check the box to automatically activate backups on the scheduled days at the specified time.

TIP - You can put an automated schedule on hold by unchecking the box and saving your backup.

 

ACTION: After editing your schedule, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACK UP NOW button will become visible. The Next Backup date and time will now appear at the top of the Backup window.

 

Confirmation Emails

Once your backup session is complete, BackJack can send a confirmation email to a designated email address (or addresses). These emails summarize important information regarding your backups including items backed up, problems encountered, current storage levels, etc. These emails are sent to the default email address on your Account. You can view this via BackJack's Preferences window. You can add and/or edit the email contacts via MyBackJack.

 

ACTION: If you want to receive these automated confirmation emails, activate the 'Send Confirmation Email'.

 

 

 

Selecting a Finish Action

 

For added functionality, BackJack can perform one of 5 different finish actions. You select the finish action via the pulldown menu at the top of the Backup window. Your choices are as follows:

 

  • Do Nothing - this means that once your backup session is done, your computer will remain on, all programs will remain active including BackJack (Back Up window is displayed) - the Next Execution date will be set for next scheduled date/time
  • Quit BackJack - the BackJack application will quit automatically once the session is complete (you'll note how this is the default setting)
  • Sleep - your Mac's hard drive will be put to sleep
  • Restart Computer - your Mac will restart itself once the session is complete
  • Shut Down - you can tell BackJack to completely shut down your Mac once the session is complete
  • Log Out - BackJack will log out the current user

 

Note: For each of these finish actions (with the exception of 'Do Nothing'), BackJack will provide the user with a 15-second countdown window - this gives the user the option of performing the finish action immediately or canceling the configured finish action.

 

ACTION: After editing your finishing action, click SAVE and your settings will be saved. The BACK UP NOW button will become visible. If you don't want to save any of this information, simply click CANCEL.

 

 

Manual Backups

 

ACTION: Click on the Back Up Now button to manually commence the backup process. If you have a backup scheduled to take place at a later date/time, it will still run as configured.

 

The Backup Progress window is important for monitoring the status of your backup session. It relays the following information to you:

 

  • start time (date and time the backup session started)
  • elapsed time (how much time so far has elapsed in the backup process)
  • time remaining for the backup session to complete
  • finish action selected by user
  • total number of files to be backed up
  • number of files already completed
  • number of files remaining
  • original file size

 

TIP- You can either STOP or PAUSE the backup process from this window - if you pause the session, that button will change to a 'continue' button - if you stop the session completely, you will be automatically taken back to the Backups window.

 

Automated Backups

For automated backups to occur, the following requirements must be met:

 

  • Your Mac needs to be on at the time of the scheduled backup. You can use System Preferences --> Energy Saver --> Schedule to start your computer just before a scheduled backup is to occur and select the Finish Action in BackJack to 'Shutdown' when the backup is complete.
  • the mac's hard drive cannot be sleeping (screensaver is fine)
  • the user must be logged in

 

 

The backup execution will take place according to the preferences you have set. A connection will be established with your computer, the information you have selected for backup will be compressed, encrypted and transferred securely via the Internet to our remote servers.

 

 

Revisions/Deletes

 

BackJack has pre-configured (global) revision and delete options as follows:

 

  • File Revisions - after a previously backed up file has been modified on your hard drive and backed up again, BackJack will retain 10 older revisions for up to 30 days (whichever comes first).
  • Delete Options - when a file, previously backed up as part of your backup, has now been deleted from your local drives, BackJack will retain the item for 30 days on our servers. Strikethroughs will appear on these items (in the Restore window) immediately after your next upload. These strikethroughs indicate that the item(s) have been removed from your hard drive and are no longer being backed up; however, can still be recovered for the next 30 days. After that time, the items will no longer appear in the Restore window.