1310 - How to backup and recover Xero – Redstor

If you're looking for a Xero backup solution, you can find more information on our website, or start a free trial here. Already a customer? Log into the RedApp.

Introduction

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

Note: To use the service, you need to be both a RedApp company administrator, and a Xero user at the organisation/s you wish to back up.

Use the guide below to manage your Xero backups.

How to add 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 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 Xero in the sidebar.

3. Click Add at the top right.

4. You will now need to sign into Xero. Click Next to proceed.

5. Select the organisation you want to connect and click Continue.

Note:

If authorisation fails and you get an error, log out of Xero and re-attempt the authorisation.
If you need to later revoke Redstor's permissions for whatever reason, please see this article from Zero's knowledge base.

6. Once authorisation is successful, the name of your newly created backup set will now appear on the side navigation of the RedApp. Click on the name to proceed with your first backup or make changes to the backup set.

7. To run your first backup, click on the menu icon at the top right of the backup set home page 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 customise which columns you see on the backup set home page by going to Customise display.

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

How to configure the backup schedule for a backup set

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

2. You can retain the default of a single daily backup, or you can set your backups to only run on specific days (custom). In either case, use the drop-down menu to set the backup time. Set your preferences and click on the check mark.

How to recover a backup set

Important note: Recovery of Xero is done through InstantData, and requires some knowledge of Python to collect the necessary content. Recovery will not result in the recreation of your Xero environment as is.

1. On the home page for the relevant Xero backup set, click on the menu icon and select Recover. This option will only be available if a backup of the set has successfully completed.

You will need to authenticate with Xero before you can proceed.

2. Download the InstantData agent using the Download button or use Copy to clipboard to get the shareable link. Each agent is valid for 48 hours and can only be used to initiate one restore.

3. On the machine where you want to recover the data, run the downloaded installer. Once the application opens, you can copy the files from there into your file explorer. The files will be in JSON format.

Important note: From this point, we recommend consulting the detailed guides on Xero's knowledge base (e.g. Import a chart of accounts) to assist you in recovery. Use their provided templates to make sure you import your data correctly.

4. To return your files to CSV format (spreadsheets), open Microsoft Excel and click on the Data tab.

5. Go to Get Data > From File > From JSON.

6. Select the file you need, for example Journals.json, and click Import.

If your data is distributed across multiple files, you will need to combine all the necessary JSON files from a directory into a single JSON file that contains an array with the content of those files. You can use the Python script provided below to do this.

Be sure to replace /path/to/your/directory with the actual path to the directory containing your JSON files, and /path/to/output.json with the desired path for the combined JSON file.

``python

import os
import json

# Directory containing JSON files
directory_path = '/path/to/your/directory'

# List to store the JSON data
json_data = []

# Loop through all files in the directory
for filename in os.listdir(directory_path):
if filename.endswith('.json'):
file_path = os.path.join(directory_path, filename)
with open(file_path, 'r') as file:
# Load the JSON content and append it to the list
json_content = json.load(file)
json_data.append(json_content)

# Path to the output JSON file
output_file = '/path/to/output.json'

# Write the combined data to the output file as an array
with open(output_file, 'w') as outfile:
json.dump(json_data, outfile, indent=4)

print(f'Combined {len(json_data)} JSON files into {output_file}')
```

7. Click Into Table.

8. Expand the Value column and select Expand to New Rows to access the records in the list.

9. Expand the Value column again to access individual fields (you may want to Load more to make sure you have all the fields listed as columns).

10. Untick the box for Use original column name as prefix, as this option causes the columns to be named "Value.(name)", which means they cannot be recognised by Xero's system on import. Then click OK.