Backups¶
SaaS Backup copies data from Microsoft 365 to cloud storage managed by Slide, on a schedule. Each completed backup of an application creates a recovery point that you can browse and restore.
How Backups Work¶
- First backup: When a resource is protected, its first backup runs right away and copies all of its existing data. Depending on how much data there is and how quickly Microsoft 365 responds, the first backup can take several hours, and a day or more for very large tenants.
- Later backups: Every backup after that is incremental, meaning Slide only copies what changed since the last backup. An item that's created and deleted between two backups isn't in any recovery point.
- Full re-sync: Microsoft 365 sometimes expires the change history Slide uses to find what changed, usually because of a change on Microsoft's side. When that happens, that backup fails and the next backup automatically does a full re-sync.
- Schedule: Backups run on the tenant's schedule, or on a schedule you set for a resource or application. See Schedule Backups. To run a backup right away, open the resource or application and click Backup Now.
What Gets Backed Up¶
Mail¶
Mail backups include everything in a mailbox:
- Email messages, including attachments
- Calendar items and meeting requests
- Contacts and contact groups
- Tasks (To Do)
- Notes and posts
Mail backups don't currently include the Recoverable Items folder, online archive mailboxes, or public folders.
Online archive mailboxes (also called in-place archives) aren't backed up. SaaS Backup is built on Microsoft Graph, and Microsoft is adding archive mailbox support to Graph, but it isn't generally available yet. See the FAQ for more.
OneDrive¶
OneDrive backups include all of the user's files and folders. Sharing permissions are included for items that are shared directly (inherited permissions are not). Sharing permissions are backed up but not reapplied when you restore. See Restored Files. Files that Microsoft 365 has flagged as malware are skipped.
SharePoint¶
SharePoint backups include every visible document library on a site, with each file's column values and each library's columns and content types.
| Content | Backed up | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Document libraries, including Documents and libraries users create | Yes | Files, folders, column values, columns, and content types |
| Site Assets, Style Library, and Form Templates | Yes | SharePoint's built-in libraries, backed up like any other library |
| Who each file and folder is shared with | Yes | Backed up, but not reapplied when you restore |
| Library permissions | Yes | Checked on every backup, so changes between backups are captured. Applied when you restore to a new document library. See SharePoint restores. |
| Hidden libraries, such as the Preservation Hold Library | No | SharePoint creates these for its own use. A library that was hidden after its first backup keeps being backed up. |
| Site Pages (pages, news, and the home page) | No | |
| SharePoint lists | No | |
| Picture libraries, wiki page libraries, and form libraries | No | |
| Membership of SharePoint groups, and permission levels such as Contribute | No | A team site's owners and members come from its Microsoft 365 group, which the Entra backup covers. |
In the Explorer, SharePoint files show the same details as OneDrive files. Column values are backed up, but they aren't shown in the Explorer and can't be searched.
Entra¶
Entra backups include the tenant's users, groups (with their direct owners and members), directory roles, app registrations (with their service principals, owners, and granted permissions), and Conditional Access policies. Distribution groups and devices aren't backed up.
Teams¶
Teams backups include each team's channels and their conversations:
- Standard, private, and shared channels
- The team's members, and the members of each private and shared channel
- Each channel's list of tabs (the content of apps inside tabs, such as Planner or OneNote, isn't backed up)
- Channel messages and replies, including edits
- Images, video clips, and other content posted in messages
Files shared in Teams channels are stored in the team's SharePoint site and are backed up with SharePoint. A shared channel is backed up once, with the team that owns it, and not again with each team it's shared with. Teams chats (one-on-one and group chats) aren't backed up.
Retention¶
When you activate protection for a tenant, you choose how long its recovery points are kept: 1 year, 3 years, or 7 years. The retention period applies to every resource in the tenant and can't be changed in the Slide Console after setup. To change it, contact Slide support.
Within the retention period, Slide keeps:
- Every recovery point for the last 7 days
- One recovery point per day for 14 days
- One recovery point per week for 4 weeks
- One recovery point per month for 12 months
- One recovery point per year for the rest of the retention period
The most recent recovery point is always kept, no matter how old it is. Recovery points that fall outside these rules are removed automatically. Recovery points of archived resources follow the same rules, so you can still restore a departed employee's data for the rest of the retention period. Because the most recent recovery point is always kept, an archived resource's last recovery point stays available after its retention period ends. Archived users aren't billable.
Backup Failures¶
If a backup fails, the application shows Needs attention, and the failure reason appears in its Recent Backup Attempts. Slide retries failed backups automatically. Items that fail to back up are retried on later backups.
If many backups fail at once, check status.slide.tech and Microsoft's service health before troubleshooting individual failures.
Here are the most common failure messages and what to do about them:
- This mailbox or site isn't available in Microsoft 365. It may be unlicensed, inactive, or hosted on-premises.: Check that the user is licensed for Exchange Online or SharePoint, and that the mailbox isn't hosted on an on-premises Exchange server.
- Slide doesn't have permission to access this in Microsoft 365. Check that the tenant is still authorized in Slide and that no access policy excludes it.: Check that the Slide Backup apps still exist in the tenant and that no application access policy or similar restriction excludes the resource. If needed, re-authorize the tenant.
- Slide couldn't authenticate to Microsoft 365. Re-Authorize the tenant in Slide.: Re-authorize the tenant.
- Slide couldn't get access to Microsoft 365 for this tenant. If this keeps happening, Re-Authorize the tenant in Slide.: Usually temporary, and Slide retries automatically. If it keeps happening, re-authorize the tenant.
- The item no longer exists in Microsoft 365.: Microsoft 365 couldn't find what Slide was backing up, such as a mailbox, OneDrive, site, or team, usually because it was just deleted. No action is needed. If it was deleted, the next discovery marks the resource Archived.
- Microsoft 365 was throttling requests. Try again later.: Microsoft 365 limits how much data can be read in a given time, especially during first backups. Slide backs off and retries automatically. No action is needed unless the failure keeps happening.
- Microsoft 365 returned a server error. Try again later.: A temporary problem on Microsoft's side. Slide retries automatically.
- Microsoft 365 change history expired. The next run will perform a full sync.: No action is needed. See How Backups Work.
- Slide couldn't complete this job. Contact Slide support.: Contact Slide support.