### Guardian Workspace

The Guardian Workspace is the directory in which all of your Guardian data is stored. It includes the following data for each domain you have defined in Guardian:

- Preferences
- Domain Inventories
- Evaluation Summaries

When you invoke Guardian, you are prompted to select a location for your Guardian Workspace. To prevent loss of work when Guardian is updated or uninstalled, select a Workspace location outside of the Guardian installation directory (see Select Workspace on page 41).You can also safely back up your Workspace data by exporting your Workspace to a file also located outside of your Guardian Installation directory. For instructions, see Export Workspace on page 42 of About BEA Guardian.

Although the documents in the Guardian Workspace are persisted as XML files, they are best viewed through the Guardian User Interface. The Guardian User Interface provides a number of tools for viewing, managing, and processing your data, as well as better protection against unintended edits or deletions. For basic instructions on using the interface, see Guardian User Interface on page 2. For a detailed description of Guardian User Interface components and features, see Reference. See Tasks, for detailed instructions for using the interface to perform specific Guardian tasks.