What happens to your data if you leave a hosted provider

"What happens to our data if we leave?" is one of the best questions to ask any hosted software provider, and it is best asked before you sign up, not on the way out. This article gives you the questions to ask any provider, then answers them for OpenBoxes Lift: what you can take with you, the difference between cancelling and closing, and how long anything is kept afterwards.

Questions to ask any provider#

• Is the software yours to run elsewhere? With a closed product, leaving means moving to different software and rebuilding your records in its shape. With open-source software, you can keep the same application and run it yourself.
• What can you export, and is it complete? A report export is not the same thing as your data. Ask which records an export includes, in what format, and whether anything is capped or left out.
• Can you download a full copy of the database? This is the copy that lets you stand the system up somewhere else.
• What is the difference between stopping payment and closing the account? And how long is data kept after each?
• What happens to backups after the account is closed?
• Can you rehearse leaving now, while everything is working?

How OpenBoxes Lift answers them#

The software is open source#

OpenBoxes is open-source, and Lift runs standard OpenBoxes rather than a closed fork with its own data model. If you leave, you can run the same OpenBoxes yourself, with the same screens and the same database structure. The total-cost worksheet helps you cost that.

What you can take with you#

There are several ways to get data out, and they do different jobs.

• A backup of your database. The Backups page in the portal lists your backups with a download option once each is ready, and Run backup now takes a fresh one. This is a copy of your instance's database, the most complete thing you can take. On Dedicated, the nightly backups are not listed on that page, only the ones you take yourself, so take one on demand. See Backups.
• The account data export. Under Settings › Danger zone › Export my data, the account owner can request a ZIP file of the account's details, audit log and billing history, plus, on Shared, one CSV file per table of your OpenBoxes data. A few tables, such as user role assignments and password history, are left out, and passwords and encryption keys are redacted. You can request one every 24 hours, and the download link works for 7 days. Each table in it is capped at a fixed number of rows (50,000 today), so for a large instance the database backup is the complete copy.
• Exports inside OpenBoxes. Most reports have a CSV download, and Reporting › Data Exports has ready-made downloads of products, product sources, inventory levels, bin locations, requisitions and product demand. These are handy for a spreadsheet, not a way to move the whole system.
• The REST API, for your own tooling to pull records. On Dedicated, ask support first whether your instance's API address is live. See the API overview and Your first OpenBoxes API call.
• The scheduled CSV export, which emails a link to seven report datasets every day, week or month. It is useful for accounting and donor reports, but it is not a full export or a backup. See Scheduled CSV export.

If you want help with a full copy when you leave, ask our support team; a full database export when closing an account is something they handle directly.

Cancelling is not closing#

These are two separate actions, and the difference matters.

Cancelling (under Billing) stops the subscription, and what happens next depends on whether you have paid yet.

• A paid subscription: your instance keeps working to the end of the billing period you have paid for. After that the instance is suspended and cannot be reached, and 30 days later the instance and its data are permanently deleted. During those 30 days your portal login keeps working, so you can download a backup or resubscribe to get the instance back as it was. There is also a Pause instead option for a paid subscription (up to 90 days, once every 12 months), which stops billing and keeps your data without cancelling.
• During the free trial: the instance is suspended when the trial ends, and its data is deleted 30 days after that. Take your copy before the trial ends.

Closing the account (under Settings › Danger zone) deletes data on its own clock. It takes the instance offline straight away. For 30 days the closure can be undone: contact support to do it. After that, your OpenBoxes data is permanently deleted.

Treat closing as the last step. Take your backup and exports first, open them and check them, because once you have closed the account you can no longer use the instance to take them.

What is kept after closing#

The privacy policy sets out the retention in full. In short:

• Your instance data is destroyed at the end of the 30 days.
• Backups roll over on a 30-day rotation, so erasing your data from backups can take up to 30 more days after that.
• Audit logs and invoices are kept for 7 years for security and tax reasons, with personal details such as names and email addresses redacted after the account is deleted.

Rehearse it now#

Leaving goes smoothly when it has been practised. Once, while everything is working:

1. Run a backup and download it.
2. Request the account data export and open the ZIP.
3. Check the files against what you know: the number of products, the stock on hand of a few items, your most recent receipt.

If you plan to run OpenBoxes yourself afterwards, restore the backup into the same OpenBoxes version your instance runs, since OpenBoxes applies its database changes when it starts and a different version can change the restored data on first start. OpenBoxes backups: what to back up and how to test a restore covers the restore test itself.

Summary#

• OpenBoxes is open-source, so leaving Lift does not mean leaving OpenBoxes.
• The database backup from the Backups page is the complete copy; the account data export, the in-app exports, the API and the scheduled CSV export each cover part of your data.
• A cancelled paid subscription is suspended at the end of the paid period and deleted 30 days later; a cancelled trial is deleted 30 days after the trial ends; closing takes the instance offline at once and deletes it after 30 days.
• Take and check your copies before you close, and rehearse it once while nothing is at stake.