With normal use, a database may start exhibiting unwanted behavior and may perform slower. To ensure your database is in optimal health, it is recommended that your perform a Compact and Repair on it regularly.

Additional Information: While there are no hard and fast rules about how often to Compact and Repair a database, the following guidelines may be used:  Single user, stand alone database - once every two weeks Shared database - one to two users - once a week Shared or network database - more than 2 users - daily

To Compact and Repair a database:

• In the application, click File>Open - the Open Database dialog box will display
• Highlight the database on which to perform maintenance
• Click on the Compact and Repair button - this process can take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes depending on the size and condition of the database
• Once completed, a confirmation dialog box indicating the process was successful is displayed
• You will need to re-login to the database if the database requires login after performing a Compact and Repair

NOTE: This applies to Microsoft Access type databases. SQL databases degrade far less frequently and require less regular maintenance - which is performed by the SQL Database Administrator. If you are sharing a database, all users except for the user performing maintenance, must close the application before starting the Compact and Repair process.

Now, it's time to setup database and application defaults.