1163 - How to backup and recover SharePoint : TitanHQ Helpdesk

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Introduction

Backup and recovery of SharePoint forms part of our Microsoft 365 service offering. Watch our video below to learn more.

What is supported?

Redstor currently supports the following:

Backup of site structure (main site and subsites recursively)
Multiple domains/domain aliases
Backup of some owner/access details
Backup of all document libraries identified as such
Recovery to original location (overwrite)
Recovery back to SharePoint (new folder)
Recovery using InstantData

Multiple domains/domain aliases are supported. Domain name changes will not affect backups and recoveries, and no additional user actions are required.

What is not supported?

Contents that are not currently backed up include (but are not limited to):

Sites with no name
Permissions on files
Custom metadata on files
Generic lists (metadata)
Default non-document libraries
Custom libraries not identified as document libraries (even if file-based)
Pages and workflows
Lists not based on the templates: documentLibrary, pictureLibrary, 851
Custom site setup
Recycle Bin

Also note the following limitations:

It is not possible to exclude specific file types from backups.
If a single SharePoint site has more than 1TB of data, the first-time backup can take a significant amount of time. Please contact your account manager or log a support ticket for assistance.
Backup and recovery of SharePoint portals is not supported.

Guides

Use the guides below to manage your SharePoint backups.

How to add a backup set

To add a backup set, you need to be both a RedApp company administrator, and a Microsoft 365 global administrator for your tenant organisation. Read more about Microsoft's admin roles in this article on their knowledge base.

Watch our video or follow the steps below.

1. On the RedApp home page, go to My Company or to the relevant customer company.

2. To add a new backup set, go to Microsoft 365 in the sidebar on the left.

3. Click Add at the top right.

4. Select SharePoint and click Sign in.

5. You will now need to sign into Microsoft 365 and provide Redstor with permission to access your data. Click Accept.

Note: If you encounter an "Access denied" error, click here.

6. You can now make your backup selection. By default, all sites will be selected for backup. To retain this selection and proceed, click Add. You can also enable Include new accounts added to ensure that future additions to this tenant are automatically added to the backup selection.

You can deselect the sites you do not want to backup, or deselect all and select only the sites you want to backup. Note that it may take a few moments for all sites to load. Once you are satisfied with your selection, click Add to proceed.

Note: Sites without names cannot be backed up.

7. You will now see the home page for your new backup set, and its name will appear in the sidebar. To queue a backup immediately, click on the menu icon and select Backup.

You can view an audit trail of key actions and which users performed them by clicking on the inspect icon at the top right of the page.

You can customise which columns you see on the backup set home page by going to Customise display.

8. To make changes to this backup set, go to Backup selection > Edit.

9. Make your changes and click Save, or click Backup to backup your new selection immediately.

How to modify a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant SharePoint backup set, click on Backup selection > Edit.

2. Select/deselect the site(s) you want to add to/remove from this backup set. (You can also use the Search field to find a specific site.) Click Save to save your changes or Backup to backup the new selection immediately. To discard your changes, click Cancel.

3. The number of sites selected will show under Backup selection on the backup set's home page.

Note: Accounts that have been removed from the backup selection are still retained on the Storage Platform until you request that they be permanently deleted. Read more here.

How to configure the backup schedule for a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant backup set, click on Backup schedule > Edit.

2. Select the days on which you would like backups to run, as well as a backup time. You can choose between daily and custom backups.

For daily backups, select the number of backups per day (1 or 3). In the case of 3 backups per day, the backups will run at the specified backup time, as well as 8 hours after and 16 hours after the specified time. For example, if the specified time is 08:00, backups will run at 08:00, 16:00, and 00:00. Running multiple daily backups instead of a single daily backup will not incur additional costs.

Note: Multiple daily backups is only available as part of our M365 Premium edition. If you do not see the option to schedule multiple daily backups, you are on a legacy pricing plan. If you would like to enable multiple daily backups, please speak to your account manager about upgrading.
For custom backups, select the days and time that you want your backups to run.

3. Click the check mark at the top right to save your settings.

How to recover a backup set

To do a first recovery, you need to be both a RedApp company administrator, and a Microsoft 365 global administrator for your tenant organisation. To do subsequent recoveries, you need to be a RedApp company administrator and a Microsoft 365 SharePoint admin. Read more about Microsoft's admin roles in this article on their knowledge base.

The following should be noted with regard to SharePoint recovery:

Recover to a new location creates a new site with a timestamp, e.g. Site A as on 2020-05-14 at 06-37-12.
Recover to original location will recreate the subsites and document libraries if they do not exist.
Recover to original location will fail if the original location has been deleted. The details of the failure can be found in the activity history for the specific recovery. A workaround for this is to recover to a new location and then rename the new site with the name of the original site.
Recover to original location (if the location exists) will overwrite any existing files.
Files recovered back into SharePoint will have their original timestamps preserved, as well as their titles and any values entered for custom columns (except for the image column, which is not supported). Other metadata and permissions will not be restored.

Follow the steps below to start recovering.

1. On the home page for the relevant SharePoint backup set, locate the site you wish to recover. Click on the menu icon and select Recover.

You can also select multiple sites to recover.

Note: If you need to recover multiple sites, it is advised to recover them in bulk and not in sequence. It is not possible to queue a recovery while another recovery for the same backup set is in progress.

To recover an individual item, first click on the menu icon and select Open to expand the relevant site.

Then drill down and make your selection. Click Recover when you are ready.

You can also select a specific backup date to recover, and then select All to recover everything from that backup.

Use the Search field to find a specific site to recover.

2. Select what you want to do:

Overwrite recovers the site's data to its original location, overwriting whatever is present there.
New site recovers the site's data to a new site with the backup date's timestamp appended to its name. This is where the data will be recovered.
Note: It is not possible to recover a single item from a SharePoint subsite, since the parent site will not be recovered.
Recover using InstantData generates a shareable link that can be used to recover the site's data. Each link can only be used to initiate one restore. Watch our video or follow the steps below to proceed.

Use the Copy option to share a link to the InstantData application, or Download the application immediately.

Run the application on the machine where you wish to recover the data. Select between Permanent and Temporary recovery, then simply drag and drop files from the application into your File Explorer to recover them.

You will need to authenticate before any recovery.

Please note the following:

Recover to original location will recreate the subsites and document libraries if they do not exist.
Recover to original location will fail if the original location has been deleted. The details of the failure are the activity history for the specific recovery.
Recover to original location (if the location exists) will overwrite any existing files.
Files recovered back into SharePoint will have their original timestamps preserved, as well as their titles and any values entered for custom columns (except for the image column, which is not supported). Other metadata and permissions will not be restored.