License editions: To understand the applicable license editions, see Plans & Pricing.
Overview
You can restore Microsoft 365 Groups data within your tenant, ensuring business-critical information remains accessible when needed.
You can view available snapshots and choose to restore either an entire snapshot or specific group settings. Restoration can be performed to the same location or a new group.
📝Note: If a Group Site is quarantined, the corresponding group is also quarantined. Full restoration is not possible for quarantined group data.
Order of Restore in Groups
Restoring a Microsoft 365 Group follows this logical order:
Group Metadata Restore: The process starts by restoring metadata, re-creating the group with the original settings before deletion.
Planner Restore: After restoring the group, Planner data—including tasks, buckets, and comments—is restored (excluding attachments).
Group Mailbox Restore: Next, emails are restored, followed by attachments.
SharePoint Restore: Lastly, SharePoint data is restored, ensuring that Planner-related attachments stored in SharePoint are recovered.
Restore Specific Groups Data
📝Note: Ensure the Group is in an enabled state.
Procedure
Sign in to the Druva Cloud Platform Console and navigate to Microsoft 365 > Groups.
Select the group or click the group name hyperlink.
📝Note - Before you restore Planner, ensure you have the members of the plan available. Restored Planner plans will only display assignments for members who are part of the plan.
Click Restore Data.
From the Snapshot Viewer, select a snapshot to restore data.
📝Note: Snapshots appear only when a Group and its associated sites have been fully backed up. If a backup is in progress, snapshots are not visible.
Select group settings and review snapshot details for the SharePoint site.
Choose the data to restore and click Restore.
A dialog box appears with restore location options:
Restore to the same Group:
Select Restore to the same Group.
Click Next.
Choose to restore Owners' or Members' group settings.
Click Restore.
📝Note: It is recommended to select Group settings options to prevent restore failures.
Restore to a new Group:
Select Restore as a new Group.
Enter the new Group Name.
Select Group Visibility: Private (requires permission) or Public (open to all in the organization). Choose None if restoring a Security Group.
📝Note: If "Azure AD roles can be assigned to the group" setting is enabled on the Microsoft 365 portal, restoration is only allowed with Private visibility.
Click Next.
Choose to restore Owners' or Members' group settings.
Click Restore.
📝Note: If the group no longer exists, the data is restored as a new group.
Restore full Group
You can perform a full restoration, including Group Metadata, Planner, and Site Data.
Note: Ensure that the Group is in a configured state.
Procedure
Sign in to the Druva Cloud Platform Console and navigate to Microsoft 365 > Groups.
Select the group or click the group name hyperlink.
Click Restore Data.
From the Snapshot Viewer, select a snapshot.
Choose the items to restore and click Restore Full Group.
Follow the steps for restoring to the same or new group as outlined above.
Restore considerations
1. Group Restoration Limitations
Due to Microsoft API limitations, a Distribution Group or Mail-enabled Security Group will be restored as a new Microsoft 365 Group. Owners of these groups cannot be restored. For more information, see Back up Groups data.
A deleted group on Microsoft 365 portal can only be restored as a new group.
Restoring data to a new group without any existing owners may result in Druva adding an owner to ensure proper management and protection. If a group has only one owner, it is not possible to remove that owner, as every group must have at least one owner to maintain control over settings, members, and content.
Group owners added by Druva can inadvertently gain access to a non-subscribed group in the following scenarios:
Restore abruptly ends - The owner added by Druva will retain access indefinitely.
Global admin is changed - Any owner added by Druva who could not be removed during the restore will retain access indefinitely.
Group has no owner, or restore is tried without any owner - The owner added by Druva will retain access until a new owner is added to the group.
2. Geo-Location Limitations
Restoring a group site associated with a Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo tenant will restore the site data to the same geo-location. Changing the geo-location during restore will still result in the site data being restored to the original geo-location.
3. Planner Limitations
For more details on Planner Protection, please refer to Protect Microsoft 365 Planner.
4. Group Mailbox Restore Limitations
For more details on Group Mailbox Protection, please refer to Group Mailbox Protection Limitations & Considerations.
5. Groups Naming Policy Considerations
When a restore is initiated, a group is created. The Microsoft Groups API leverages the Microsoft 365 groups naming policy and the new group is created as per the naming policy. For more information about the naming policy, see, Microsoft 365 groups naming policy in the Microsoft documentation.
Consider the following when you:
Restore to a new group
Restore a deleted group
The group will be created as per the group naming policy wherein if you are using:
Custom Blocked Words Naming Policy: If the group name contains a blocked word, the restored group is created with the format <BlockedWord><RandomThreeDigits>.
Example:
Blocked word: Sample
Original group name: Development Sample
Restored new group name: Development Sample123
For more information, see Custom block words in the Microsoft documentation.
Prefix-Suffix naming policy:
If configured, the restored group name follows <Prefix>Name<Suffix>.
Example:
Prefix: CompanyName
Suffix: CostCode
Original group name: Development Sample
Restored new group name: CompanyName Development Sample CostCode
📝Note: The group name must be 256 characters or fewer to avoid restore failure.