Proper database backup

[N3JC]

I've been using Constant Contact for over three years from my web host .  The Constant Contact service was very important in keeping our club members together and interested in our activities during Covid.

Recently discontinued your service leaving me unable to access my data.  

I opened a new account with Constant Contact and all has gone well except for re-entering my data from my old account.  

I had an old csv file but it was not a proper database backup.

The comma delimited file was a flat representation of the data with no schema.  Restoring it was difficult and time

consuming.  For instance the many tags I had characterizing each club member were corrupted.  Therefore, all the tags for

each member were checked.  I had to access each one and uncheck the incorrect tags. 

There should be a way to save your database and schema so it can be restored.  If there is a more correct backup method, I missing it and would like to be directed to a better procedure than the one I used. 

Thank you for comments and any help you can provide. 

Regards,

[William_A]

Hello @N3JC ,

If you're wanting a backup version of your Constant Contact account's contact data, then I'd advise exporting your data periodically so you can maintain a version of your lists, or at least your overall contact list, on either your devices or a separate cloud drive.

Was their support not able to allow you to access the account to export the contact data, or were you unable to call our general support so they could look up that previous account's info and grab the contact data for you?

[N3JC · Accepted solution]

Hello William;

I did have an export of my data along with the tagging from April of this year.  That is what I imported to my new Constant Contact 

account acquired directly from you.  It took some time and the tagging had to be touched up for each member.  Since I have only 400 members in my list, it was a bit time consuming but doable. 

Hostmonster was not able to access my account and give me a backup.  Likewise, I was not able to sign in to my Hostmonster Constant

Contact service to do the export.  Your help desk was able to find my Hostmonster account but since I did not have the password (Hostmonster did the signing in for me), they also were not able to access my old account.  

Not to worry, I was able to restore about 90% of my contacts from my April backup.  I was just commenting on the possibility of backing up the Constant Contact database with the relational schema so the importing would not be so labor intensive.  It was just a suggestion.  

I appreciate you service.  It has made our Amateur Radio club membership prosper over the last several years.  

Thanks for making it available.

Regards,

John Cooper

Virginia Beach