Backing up and restoring your reports
Your reports live on your phone and nowhere else. A backup file is the only way to get them back after a loss, a theft or a new phone.
Exporting a backup
Open Settings, find the backup section and export. The app produces a single file named backup_reports.fbs and hands it to the system share sheet.
Send it to yourself by email or save it to a cloud drive. A backup that stays on the phone disappears with the phone.
At the start of each month the app reminds you to do this. The reminder exists because the most common support request we receive is a lost phone with no backup.
Restoring on a new phone
Install Pioneer Planning on the new phone, then open your backup_reports.fbs file from your email or the Files app and choose to open it with the app.
Importing erases everything already in the app and replaces it with the contents of the file. On a fresh install there is nothing to lose; on a phone you have already been using, export the current data first.
Files the app cannot read
The app only reads files it produced itself. It checks the contents, not the name, so renaming a file does not help.
.mabackup— a Ministry Assistant backup. Different app, different format..bkr— same story.- A spreadsheet, a PDF or a screenshot of your months.
None of these can be converted. If your data is in another app, the only route is to re-enter it.
Android and iPhone
The backup format is the same on both systems, so a file exported on Android imports on an iPhone and the other way round.
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Related questions
No. Backups are files you export and store yourself. There is no account and no server.
One per month is plenty. Keep the last two or three in case you notice a problem late.
It is a database dump, so it is readable as text but not meant to be edited. Editing it will make the import fail.