Custom Reports and Backup

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Colin Scott wrote:

>Thanks for that - including the timely reminder about backup!
>
>However, my issue doesn't relate to where *I* store my user data, but
>where Gnucash does!  To explain: in my view, custom reports are
>functionally not part of the system installation, they are a part of the
>user data.  This is because a report customised for one set of books is
>unlikely to be right for another (and indeed contains a title that is
>probably books-specific).  Moreover, as implemented the custom report
>definition stores a list of the accounts included in the report which is
>necessarily specific to one individual set of books.  So, functionally
>and practically, custom reports belong with the accounts data, not the
>installation data, and the (relevant) definitions should be read in
>whenever a new set of accounts is opened, not just when gnucash is
>started.
>
>This is not about backup, by the way, but distribution.  As Treasurer of
>my Rotary Club I need to be able to pass the books over to my deputy (or
>other substitute) if ever I am not going to be available.  Ideally, I
>should be able to put everything required in a single directory, because
>otherwise my substitute is going to have to understand far more about
>this system than would otherwise be necessary.
>  
>
It's actually a fairly difficult problem. In GENERAL might have several 
sets of books which each might or might not be sharing report 
definitions with the others. So a global solution wouldn't really help 
(an option to tell GnuCash to store elsewhere) and even including this 
specification with each set of books might not help (as you might want a 
change in a report definition stored in multiple places.

The problem of (special -- user modified) reports all stored in the same 
place but applicable to different sets of books isn't hard to solve. Use 
a naming convention.  But as things stand now, yes, you'd have to 
remember to copy a second directory to the thumb drive.

But since you have further defined the situation, I am no longer quite 
as clear about the exact problem. I am in very much the same situation. 
As Treasurer of a 501c3 I might not be able to make a quarterly board 
meeting and so somebody else would be presenting the reports. Well I do 
save the REPORTS themselves in the same directory. I don't expect 
whoever is taking over the presentation to have to know how to RUN 
GnuCash. I would have already have run the reports (revenue statement 
for the time period and balance sheet for the end of the time period and 
"exported" them to the directory where the books themselves were. Nor 
would I be physically transferring the device on which they were saved.

Michael