1163 - How to backup and recover SharePoint

Introduction

Backing up and restoring SharePoint forms part of our Microsoft 365 service offering. For more on what functionality we support, click here.

Note:

• To add a backup set and 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.
• Multiple domains/domain aliases are supported. Domain name changes will not affect backups and recoveries, and no additional user actions are required.

Use the guide below to manage your SharePoint backups.

How to add a backup set

How to modify a backup set

How to configure the backup schedule for a backup set

How to recover a backup set

How to delete a backup set

How to change a backup set's name

How to add a backup set

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 wish to back up, or deselect all and select only the sites you want to back up. Note that it may take a few moments for all sites to load. Once you are satisfied with your selection, click Add to proceed.

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 monitor the progress of your backup at the top of the home page or under Notifications > Tasks.

You will receive a message under Notifications > Recent when the backup completes. 

To see a complete history of your notifications and tasks, click See all.

You can also view an audit trail of all activities and which users performed them by clicking on the icon at the top right.

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 back up 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 and click Save. (You can also use the Search field to find a specific site.) Click Save to save your changes or Backup to back up 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

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 is valid for 48 hours and 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.

In the case of an Overwrite or New site recovery, you can monitor the progress of your recovery at the top of the home page or under Notifications > Tasks.

You will receive a message under Notifications > Recent when the recovery completes. 

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 i(f 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.

How to delete a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant SharePoint backup set, click on the menu icon to expand more options, then click Remove.

2. Confirm the deletion by clicking Remove.

How to change a backup set's name

1. On the home page for the relevant SharePoint backup set, click on the menu icon to expand more options, then click Rename.

2. Enter the new name for the backup set and click Update.