I have been taking backup of my docs with the help of feature available in account settings under advanced option. It exports the data but I want to know how can I restore it in case I need it.
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I recd reply from coda that there is no such restore backup file but can you please let us know what other people are doing to backup
Coda is more of a cloud service than it is a filetype that can be downloaded and run on your computer. We do maintain backups and in various forms. An example of this is version history.
As far as the data download you mentioned in Account Settings, that’s provided because everyone has a right to their own data, so this is technically a backup, it’s just not as usable and working with your Coda docs on Coda’s service. This is more like visiting your Google account settings and downloading the data for your account, all the data is there, but it’s not as usable as it is on their system.
This is somewhat of a tradeoff when choosing what systems you want to work with. SaaS, Software as a Service, can generally offer more features as well as being available from anywhere and allowing for true collaboration. Traditional software on the other hand, like Excel, has the advantage of the file actually being on your computer and being able to save copies of it. Even these software systems are moving towards the SaaS model to try to compete with the always-available systems.
Depending on what you need from your backups, there are ways others are using to backup their data. Some send an email digest of a table to have a timestamped record of their data at a certain point, while others might use our API or Zapier to correlate data between a spreadsheet and Coda. If it’s a straight file download you’re looking for, that’s something we don’t have. This would simply be text version of your data because you need Coda’s system to run the formulas and functions.
I didn’t mean to oversimplify or over-explain things like SaaS vs. Files, but backups are an important aspect and I wanted to reply for others that may read this question too.
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@BenLee agreed on your points but what if the goal isn’t to display or use the coda files locally but rather to have a local copy to restore to coda should something/someone accidentally delete a key table/ doc/ etc.
What are the best practices to protect against data loss with Coda?
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There is version history where you can see previous versions of the doc. We also have redundant backups several times over should there be various emergency scenarios.
So there isn’t a way to download a copy to store locally and then re-upload it and have it work.
And we have gone through SOC II security checks that have verified our systems.
@BenLee does the version history include data in tables?
If someone was to delete a master table, then delete the page and then delete the whole document. could it be recovered?
Tables and the data in those tables is included in version history, so copy to a new doc from any point in history or you can copy a lost table from version history into the current live doc. You may need to recreate views if it was a master table is you simply copy the missing table back in.
If you deleted the doc, you can recover it for a period of 7 days, but after that it goes through our purge process to abide by all the GDPR and other laws. If it’s been more than 7 days since the doc was deleted, you can write into support, but there is a chance that it’s been purged.
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I’m uneasy about this. I don’t like being so dependent on Coda. What if Coda goes bankrupt? Or gets hacked? Or your servers set on fire or something. Or you decide to randomly lock me out of my account - I don’t know man, all sorts of things could happen. Could you not introduce a function where you can email a doc to yourself like you can in google docs? (Btw, I use the document part more than the tables - with different pages etc).
This is my main worry with using Coda, especially as we put more and more stuff into it.
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In Google docs you can email the doc as a PDF or Word doc - could you not do the same - and perhaps different pages would be sent as separate Word or PDF docs
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Any updates on this topic?
You really do need a backup and recover.
It’s not valid that “a service” can’t do a complete document. It’s hard, not impossible. For all practical purposes everything that can be created in is declarative–except some automations. The state of a Coda document is known. It consists of data columns, all with common data representations, and documents that are close to markdown, including canvas fields (which are really a form of page).
Nested pages are a bit of a challenge that can be handled with folders and markdown standard cross-document links.
The code of automations and formulas can be represented by code markdown. Some parameters and settings, even though declarative probably don’t have a format that is easy–but you persist them in your internal data structures. Those data structures are table and/or hierarchical. So, some complex JSON could represent all of these. Most databases (that you’d use in your backend) probably have their own form of export.
There is a point when vanishing returns to complexity occurs. For example, capturing every formatting setting in a table–possible, hard, and not strictly speaking data.
If the point of a backup is data migration or data recovery, you could provide the state of all the data and code (formulas, automation code). Let’s say formatting is lost. For migration this is more than ok. The code is not going to work in another target system–but it will be there and be intelligible to someone. For backup from Coda to Coda, a pretty full fidelity recovery would be possible with data and code and relationships. Standard formats could be use throughout. Someone will get that they lost their formats. Well… …that happens. The recovery would provide such a nearly complete match that data itself and much of “app design” would be recovered. Formatting would have to be done again. Well, that’s annoying for whoever has to do it. But, nothing essential in the data or the function application would be lost. Pretty close to a miracle.
I’d look to your internal storage (which you needn’t reveal). I’ll assume it’s in a form of structured storage. This can be converted to a suitable platform independent storage.
Again, hard but doable. And, goodness is achieved incrementally. Accept for Canvas columns, which you lose altogether (though easy enough to output as folder nested markdown files) you provide the other structured data. So, you are left with formulas and canvases. Get that done in nested folders. Very little is lost. Recovery or rebuilding is not assured. But, everything is there. This is more than a start. It’s more than most similar products provide.
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Totally agree.
There at least should be an app or software (installed offline, that works with internet only if there are software updates from coda or if we need to sync our edits to own data/doc) that we can have complete ownership of, where we can have all the edits, formulas etc identical as how we have in a web version of coda.
So even if anything happens as you described, the docs that we have saved offline on our system, can be accessed with all the edit functionality, views, filters, formulas, colors, buttons intact.
We should be able to use our coda docs exactly the same way even if coda goes bankrupt, gets banned or something similar.
If I am not wrong, similar concept exists in all SAAS products of omni group eg. omniplan, omnifocus, omnioutliner etc
I need to keep info for 75 years so need to be able to create a pdf (or something similar) every month as a separate storage of collected information. Someone help - its a deal breaker!
That’s great. Looks easy. Sorry I didn’t notice before
Many thanks
Paul