Packing your files will permanently remove any items marked for deletion.  This process is intergrated into your daily backup - Utilities / Backup-Restore / Backup.

If you have an accumulation of red entries in any of your modules that are not 'disappearing' at the end of each day your backups are not being done properly!!!

Packing can be done independanty to a backup and will allow you to remove resources marked for deletion from the system.  You will need to have exclusive use of the database to be able to carry out a pack.

Example of use -

• If you were entering a resource and accidentally added the barcode details to the wrong catalogue entry you would delete the incorrect entry by using the F3 or - symbol.
• Now this entry is displayed in red.  You cannot re-enter the same information ie Accession number and/or barcode number again until you have packed the files (or do a backup)
• By selecting the Utilities / Pack feature you have the choice of packing individual modules or all files.  In this case we deleted an entry from the catalogue so only packing the catalogue is necessary.  If you're not sure pack all files.
• Once the files have been packed you can now add the barcode details to the correct catalogue entry.
• You don't need to pack if you are just trying to remove a wrongly entered barcode.  Just mark the item for deletion AND change it slightly (eg. if it was ABC00123... change it to XABC00123) so you can enter the correct one again on another resource if that's what you need to do!  the safety of the twp stage deletion process is a bit pesky in this case!