[jeffn1]

OK, I have Companion now and am reading the manual, so I have some questions, though I think I'm answering them myself, just posting this in case I've got any of it wrong.

1. Backup - it says I can do a backup from the Companion directly onto my PC (not only to Dropbox, but to some other location, so there is that difference), but it says it will be copying the files from the tablet. Why isn't it copying them from Companion, or are the files really not there in Companion, it's just reading my tablet? Except that it did transfer 857088 bytes to a file on the pc - it says that on the tablet,  shows me the filename. Is that just a temporary file that disappears when I close the connection? But for the time I'm doing the syncing, the PC has the data. I think my question makes sense. It already transferred the data, why not use that for the backup if I initiate the backup from Companion? Or are there things not transferred for Companion? Which brings up question 2.

The way I do it is I "backup" the data base from from my Android tablet to the Companion (on my PC).  Then I "restore" to my tablet (it can be another tablet with MS in order to have a tablet with an exact duplicate)

2. Maybe I understand this - it only syncs to PC when I click that and tell it to. Then it just transfers changes, or does it replace what is in Companion with everything that is on the tablet? Or did I get it in the previous question - there isn't anything IN Companion - that's just reading the tablet? No, there's all that data that got transferred. But that data is never accessed again? I can only use the Companion when I have the connection, and it does the transfer every time? I think a corollary to this is to ask whether Companion only functions with a connection to the tablet. That would be the case if it's going to want to do a transfer every time.

When you back up from the tablet into the Companion, it create an MS database file on your computer.  You can have more than one (I keep the latest back up and two older backups just to be safe.  I delete older back ups as I add new ones).  I restore to another tablet from my latest backup.

3. I now have the app on my Samsung phone, in addition to my tablet. Is there something in Companion or elsewhere that will keep my phone version and the tablet version in sync? I thought for a bit that if I sync to PC from my phone, which normally will not be my most up-to-date version, that I would run the risk of later replacing the current Companion data with the older phone data, but I think that there is no Companion data (or now I'm confused about that), or Companion never uses old data. I will never run the risk of replacing the tablet data with older phone data unless I back up the phone, then restore to the tablet, but there is no need for me to ever back up the phone data.

My understanding is your Samsun phone is pretty much treated like any other Android tablet.  So, if you "back up" your latest data base file onto the Companion and you "restore" onto you Samsung phone, your phone should have that "latest) version of your MS data base.

4. So it seems to be the case that to keep the phone in sync with the tablet, I need to back up the tablet and then re-restore from that backup to the phone, so wipe out the current phone data, replace it with the newer backed up data, like I did to get it there in the first place. [Yes, I think that is correct.]There isn't any Sync from Android to Android, is that right? What I was kind-of thinking a companion app would do for me is keep track of what changes were made and sync them to the other devices where I have the data. No, eh?

I think there may be a newer "sync" function. But, I have always used the Companion and not tried it.  

I guess that's enough questions already.
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Wendy