dynamically backing up Sharepoint sites

[tim.palmer]

Hey all,

As the title suggests, I was looking for a way to dynamically back up Sharepoint/Teams sites, both existing and as they're created.

What I'm seeing when the backup job is being created is a list of CURRENT sites, however company policy dictates that users can make their own Teams site, which creates a Sharepoint site, which doesn't necessarily get backed up.
What I'd like is to back up all Sharepoint/Teams sites dynamically, and not capture and Mail/Onedrive data.

I believe this is the last piece of my puzzle.
Any help would be appreciated

[nielsengelen]

You can create a backup job with specific items and add the organization via there (last button). Then only select “Sites” via the edit button and it will only backup SharePoint sites. You can find an example in our user guide.

Any new sites will also be backed up this way.

[JRRW]

Nielsengelen, I'm not sure that answers his question.

Dynamically means not needing to go in and add/remove sites as they're added/removed. To my knowledge, the only way to do this is via a script; VBO doesn't natively have the ability to dynamically add or remove sites, as we cannot as of yet add Sharepoint Sites to any dynamic group which VBO could query from.

It's something I'm struggling with as well - my script adds any sites not on the list, but it does not remove deleted sites. I have to work that logic into it, yet.

Your script is the closest I've found and what I based mine off of, though I've adjusted it some. For Tim's use, I assume he'd just want to either set

Code: Select all

-IncludePersonalSite:$false

to

Code: Select all

 -IncludePersonalSite:$true

or exclude that switch entirely.

Right now my operating theory is to adjust the script to first remove all objects from the job, and re-run it. In this way, any deleted sites will not be added; ideally I suppose would be in some fashion making an array and doing a compare, removing sites that aren't listed in the

Code: Select all

Get-VBOJob -Name $backupjob

I just haven't wrapped my brain around that advanced scripting yet, when it's probably just as fast to remove all / readd what is in existence.

Maybe I'm off base, if so I'm sorry - I'd love to have a friendly discourse on it.

[Polina]

Hey Ryan,

The way that Niels suggested will do the job and all the new sites will automatically be added to the backup job. When the entire organization is selected (Back up the following objects -> Add -> Organization -> Edit processing options -> select Sites), on each job run VBO checks for all the objects (sites in our case) available within the tenant and protects them. So, it's not a static list, but each time a dynamic check. Makes sense?

[tim.palmer]

Thanks for the replies guys, sorry I haven't gotten back to this sooner but apparently my client has thrown 36 printer replacements and about 48 server upgrades/migrations so it's getting little time at the moment.

I thought I had tried this before and it ended up being personal sites? Can I confirm that this is definitely the company wide Sharepoint / Teams sites?

Cheers
Tim

[tim.palmer]

OK thanks for the guidance Polina and Niels,
I believe I'm on the right track now.

I have set it to backup Organization > Sites and then in Exclude objects I exclude personal sites, because I back these up with my OneDrive jobs

[JRRW]

Personally this still doesn't make sense - Backing up the entire Organization will also backup Exchange/Mailboxes - so you still have to exclude all mailboxes as well as personal sites.

At least in v4 - my v5 Beta expired - there's no option to specify JUST sites, only to EXCLUDE Sites > Personal Sites.

Thus, to backup dynamically all SharePoint sites in a job and exclude Personal Sites, you still have to do this via a script. Which thus far I haven't gotten to run automatically as it requires connecting to SP-Online via a credential - and thus I have to put the Service Account password in a powershell script. Yes, I can encrypt this over the wire but the ps1 file will still have it plaintext. And I still have to either do a compare, or blow away all items and add new to ensure I don't get "(401) Unauthorized" errors on deleted sites - or manually remove them each time.

I'd rather see this inclusive in the GUI to avoid that.

[slackhouse]

@JRRW,

From the main job creation wizard:

1. Give it a name.
2a. Select "Back up the following objects:"
2b. Add -> Organization, select your Organization.
2c. Back at the "select objects to back up" screen, highlight the object and select "Edit" and uncheck everything except for Sites.
3. At the Exclusion screen, Click Add, then Sites, then check Personal Sites.

This will backup all organization sites except for Personal sites and dynamically add/remove any sites as they are created/deleted.

[JRRW]

Thanks @SlackHouse - that makes a lot more sense! I somehow missed the option to add an organization and thought the UX described was selecting the Radio Button for Backup entire org.

I'll give that a shot.