Data Safety & Backups
What happens to your data, how to get something back, and how to hold your own copy.
Your school's records are the reason DRAIS exists. This page explains where they live, what protects them, and — most practically — how to recover something when a member of staff deletes the wrong thing.
Where your data lives
DRAIS runs on managed cloud infrastructure with automatic backups at the platform level. Your school's data is stored separately from every other school's and is only ever accessible through your own sign-ins.
Schools that need to work without reliable internet can run DRAIS locally on a machine at the school. Speak to support about which arrangement suits you.
Recovering something deleted
This is the situation schools actually face, and it is usually a two-minute fix.
Almost nothing in DRAIS is deleted immediately. Removing a learner, class, subject, staff member or payment moves it to Settings → Trash, where an administrator can put it back.
| Find it | Open Trash and pick the type of thing that went missing. Search by name. |
| Check it | Trash shows what was deleted, when, and by whom. |
| Restore it | The record returns with its history intact. |
[ Screenshot: Trash with restorable records ]
Replace with actual screenshot
When someone reports that a learner "disappeared", check Trash before anything else. It is the answer far more often than not, and it takes seconds.
Permanent deletion
Emptying something from Trash permanently is deliberately harder: it requires an administrator, an explicit confirmation, and DRAIS first shows what else would be affected — the reports, attendance records and payments attached to the record.
Permanent deletion cannot be undone from within DRAIS. Unless you are clearing an obvious mistake — a duplicate created in error, a test record — leave things in Trash. Trash costs you nothing.
Taking your own backup
Platform backups protect the service. A backup you hold protects you. FromSettings → Backup an administrator can generate a complete copy of your school's data.
- It covers your school only — never any other school's records.
- It is a standard database file, not a proprietary format.
- It is stored securely and can be downloaded.
- Large schools receive it in several parts, which are recombined before use.
It is your independent copy — for your own peace of mind, for a board that wants assurance, or for a handover. Restoring one is a support operation rather than a button in the interface, so contact DRAIS if you ever need to use it.
How often
Once a term is enough for most schools, taken at a natural boundary: after results are finalised, or at the end of term. Keep the file somewhere that is not the same laptop everything else is on.
Treat the file the way you would treat a filing cabinet of learner records. Do not email it, do not leave it on a shared machine, and do not upload it anywhere your school does not control.
The audit trail
DRAIS records who did what and when. Settings → Audit Log shows the significant actions — records created, changed and deleted, sign-ins, permission changes, and corrections.
This is not only for investigating problems. It is what lets you answer a parent's question about a changed mark with a fact rather than an assurance.
Corrections keep their history
Across DRAIS, a correction adds to the record rather than replacing it:
- A fingerprint credited to the wrong learner is re-pointed; the original scans are untouched and the correction is logged.
- A payment entered wrongly is reversed with a correcting entry; both remain visible.
- Merging duplicate learners archives the record you did not keep rather than destroying it.
- Report cards already generated stay exactly as printed.
The point of all of this is simple: when someone asks your school to prove something — a parent, a board, an inspector — you can. A system that lets the past be quietly rewritten cannot do that.
Your responsibilities
DRAIS protects the data. A few things remain yours:
- Individual accounts. Shared logins destroy the audit trail.
- Disable leavers promptly. Same day, every time.
- Keep Super Admins few. Two is usually right.
- Review the audit log occasionally, rather than only when something has gone wrong.
- Take a termly backup and store it somewhere sensible.