The master is designed for a full backup / recovery of the catalog in case of failure or for transfer between PCs, as well as for partial transfer of certain product sections for the distribution of work between employees in your organization.
The standard ZIP format is used for saving (save the file extension.mbc.zip).
The archive can be encrypted for internal use only.
To exchange archives, you can use FTP-folder or
Thecatalog.Online
in order not to carry it on a flash drive or to send it by email.
To launch the master, use the main menu button menu Product list - Backup
All of the masters’ steps are thoroughly documented and described during the work process.
In this article, we will find out more about some aspects of this app.
Backup creation
Full backup of all sections
A full backup of the catalog means that during recovery from such archive, ALL the data included in it will be recovered to its original state at the time the backup was createdLet’s take a look to the possible settings.
(1) Photos, descriptions and attached files.
Additional files attached to the commodity items will be added to the archive.
In the application, they are located on the right side at the bottom.
Include items (2) and (3) only if you are making a long-term backup or transferring your own project to another computer.
You should not include these items if you just exchange data with colleague!
(2) Templates
Document templates (Folder /Reports) - catalogs, price lists, booklets, orders, etc. will be added to the archive.
Include them into the archive only if you are making an archive backup. Otherwise, the configured templates can be destroyed when your colleague will unpack them.
(3) The rest of the components of the project (Android Project, store)
Includes these folders into the archive /Bonus, /e-shop, /Languages, /Mobile
The Mobile folder is particularly interesting. Each project of the catalog at the time of the first creation is unique in its internal parameters,
which ensures its uniqueness in PlayMarket and during the installation to the Android device.
If you include it in the archive and unpack it to a project catalog where there is already a configured and published in PlayMarket Android catalog,
you will completely destroy the Android project and will not be able to update the version of Android catalog in PlayMarket.
Section saving
Saving of a separate section of products does not affect the settings of the catalog in general and affects only the data of the section itself.
Meaning: the list of products, the section characteristics and, if necessary, photos attached to this group, descriptions and additional files.
Thanks to this approach, it is possible to distribute/receive data from employees without worrying about the safety of the catalog in general
This mode is the most useful for a group work. An employee can edit or create a new section from scratch and send it to the administrator
in order to include it in the company's general catalog.
Tick the box "Photos, descriptions and attached files" to include all the files attached to the products in the archive along with the list of products.
Archive saving
(1) Select the folder where the archive will be saved.
(2) Select the archive file, if you want to rerecord it, or enter a file name (3).
File extension.mbc.zip will be substituted automatically.
(4) Tick this box to create an encrypted archive
Recovery from such archive is possible only from MyBusinessCatalog, activated with the same key and name,
i.e. only in your organization. You will not notice any difference, everything will be done automatically.
Manual unpacking of this archive is also impossible. In case of license change, keys loss, etc. archive unpacking could be fulfilled only for a fee. Therefore, we recommend you to create a local version of the archive that is not encrypted, and if you consider it necessary, use encryption to exchange it over the Internet.
(5) After creation upload archive file to FTP server
This option significantly simplifies data exchange. Moreover, if the FTP folder is accessible via HTTP (/public_http/ backup/),
you can send an http link to the archive to your colleague without sending the password of the FTP account.
After unpacking (only for the full archive), he will receive all the settings and will also be able to upload his changes to FTP without knowing the password.
Tick the box, fill in the connection parameters and the folder.
The file name will be the same as in (3).
(6) After creation upload the archive file to theCatalog.Online service.
(7) Write a note to the file, it is possible to see before the unpacking.
(8) Click the 'Execute' button. An archive will be created and, if specified, uploaded to the Internet.
Recovery from the archive
File selection for the recovery
The easiest way is to select a local file (1).
(2) You can download it from the site via http Protocol, the file will be downloaded and unpacked
(3) Or download it from FTP server, the file will also be downloaded and unpacked.
Please, pay attention, that after unpacking of the full catalog, your colleague will also
have all the settings to upload via FTP, but without an explicit knowledge of the password.
We advise you to tick the box (5) Show information about the archive before unpacking.
(4) Download from TheCatalog.Online. No additional data required, the archive will be retrieved automatically
After the archive opening or downloading you will be shown information and description and
you will be able to continue or to cancel unpacking.
An example of information about the archive with one group with photos, descriptions and product files included:
Sections conflict Manager
If you add one section of the goods from the archive, there may be three situations:
1.there was no such group in your catalog, in this case the group will be added without any questions
The group has already existed. And it is not necessary the same group, it just means that you and your colleague created
one new group in different projects and they both got the same id number.
In this case, you need to make a decision
2. replace your current group or
3. add it as a new one.
A window with information about both groups will be opened to make a decision.
In this example, we can clearly see that there is the same section in the archive, so the current section should be replaced by new information from the archive.
The first 20 commodity items from the sections are shown for your convenience. This does not mean that the goods need to be compared by positions, they are there
for content evaluation purposes only.
And in this example, in the presence of similar features, it is obvious that there is a different in content section in the archive and it needs to be added as a new one!
If the solution is not obvious, click CANCEL and coordinate your actions.
Reverse synchronization
After the separate section recovery from the archive, be sure to make a full archive of all sections and send it back to the employee.
Only then the synchronization will be fully completed.
Otherwise, if you are sent the same edited group again, you will have to add it as a new one, and the newly added items will be re-indexed in order to eliminate duplicated ID.
All this will lead to a confusion and sections and products duplication.
You unpacked the section and got this message:
Press the "< Back" button twice and make a full archive, item (2) - optional.
Send the resulting archive to a colleague so that he could recover his catalog from it.
Only after that you will be able to continue working correctly.
Tips and recommendations
The catalog full archive can be unpacked manually (a regular ZIP) into a separate folder and just open it from MyBusinessCatalog, menu item File-Open
After the first launch, a shortcut will be created in the project file for a quick launch.
If you want to share your template with a colleague, just go to the folder /Reports (Programme Menu File-About-Open data folder) and send the necessary files to him.