Reindexing should be preformed at least once a month. If your Excent is loaded on stand alone machine then reindexing and backups can be performed at any time. Reindexing and making frequent backups are two of the most important things you can do to keep your Excent working properly and must be performed. Some schools have their Excent programs networked to a central data folder. If you reindex or create a backup while a networked Excent is running at more than one location, corruption can occur.
Backups are basically insurance.
If data is accidentally corrupted or lost, backups can restore all the information that has been previously backed up. The proper way to do a full backup is through the file menu. Give the backup a unique filename such as the date the backup was made. Don't use any punctuation or symbol characters in the file name and make sure the file name is less than eight characters long. You can save the backup file to your hard drive or a floppy disk.