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I would like to automatically download our FB database every night, or at least weekly, for reporting purposes.

This is difficult because everyone is locked out for so long while the database is copied.

The best thing I can currently think of is to use Watin/Selenium to automate a scheduled task in the middle of the night to login, kick off the db copy, monitor progress, download when complete and then re-activate FB for everyone.

This is going to be tricky because of the FB menus, the progress page reloading, and the length of time required for each test run: hours!

Has anyone cracked this problem already, or have any better suggestions?

Thanks.

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For reporting of what? Depending on what you are trying to report on, you might be better off retrieving a subset of information using the XML API. – James McLeod♦ Jan 20 2011 at 19:53
Hi James. I'm reporting on time intervals sliced up different ways. Eg total time spent on cases with certain tags within a date range; total time per user in date range, grouped by project etc. I think I could do it by pulling the data via the API, but it would be simpler to download it all ready to go in a relational database. – Trevor Jan 21 2011 at 11:49

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Please contact us directly. This data is available via the API. Nightly downloads are not a feasible solution and result in unnecessary load on our servers. We'd rather help you get a good API script running.

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You're dead right Rich (and James). I had a go with the API and it's working great and is very quick. I should have given it more a go before being seduced by the db download! Thanks. – Trevor Jan 24 2011 at 11:26

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