Protected Peace Of Mind

This blog is being written the day after President Trump went on TV and told the American public about the Chinese stealing voting records.

You may be wondering if this kind of hacking could ever happen to your FFLAssist database records. The answer is an emphatic “NO”.  Here’s why.

First, the database is hosted in a secure Microsoft data center located within the U.S.

Second, the data transmitted between the server in the data center and your computer screen is encrypted and is only decrypted when you view it on your screen. So, if any hacker decided to intercept the transmission they could not make use of the data.

Third, Microsoft backs up all the databases on all its servers nightly.

Fourth, many paranoid FFLs continue to want to use paper copies of 4473 and A&D books because they think the government is spying on them and their data. Should the government decide they need to see your data, they must present Microsoft with a subpoena, hence the requirement to have data centers located in the U.S.

Fifth, in the nearly 30 years that I have been a Microsoft partner and consultant, I have never heard of instances where Microsoft-stored data was hacked.

Sixth, if you want or need an independent peace of mind, you can offload your data to a storage medium of your choosing. The following data elements can be exported:

1. 4473s
2. A&D Book
3. Guns
4. Customers
5. Vendors
6. Items

These data elements are exported as CSV files, one file per element. What you do with the exported files is up to you. You can save them to a file folder of your choosing. You can import them into Excel. But keep in mind this is RAW data. You cannot recreate a specific printed 4473 simply because you have a download of that record. If you need a printed 4473, you must use FFLAssist.

Also, these six (6) data elements are not importable. The reason is that data being imported  to a table must be validated for correctness. We don’t want junk data infiltrating your database. You could have changed something on a specific record after exporting it. A subsequent attempt to re-upload that data could be catastrophic, depending on what you changed. So, imports/uploads are not permitted.

You do, however, have the ability to save the entire Production database as a working backup, should you ever need to do that. That database backup will be considered a “Sandbox” version, because your Microsoft subscription license allows all customers one and only one Production database.

Sandbox copies are great for:

1. Training new staff
2. Experimenting with available functionality you do not currently use. After all, Microsoft Business Central is a very powerful and robust ERP system, so you may be inclined into using features you are not currently using.
3. Development testing. For example, if you needed a salesperson commission report because you have a complex method of determining sales commissions, that requires specialized development from the FFLAssist developers. When the solution has been completely developed, the FFLAssist developer will first place this functionality into a Sandbox database for you to test, because the developer does not want to corrupt any of your “good” data in the Production database. Only after you have tested the functionality and signed off that it works per your needs does the FFLAssist developer then place the functionality into the Production database.