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This guide covers everything you need to prepare SharePoint Online for Druva backup and restore—from prerequisites, permissions, and configuration. It also outlines common issues, unsupported items, and best practices to ensure reliable protection and restore.
1. What is SharePoint Online in your environment?
SharePoint Online is a cloud-based service, hosted by Microsoft, for businesses of all sizes. Any business can subscribe to a Microsoft 365 plan or to the standalone SharePoint Online service, Organizations use Microsoft SharePoint to create websites. You can use it as a secure place to store, organize, share, and access information from any device. All you need is a web browser, such as Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox.
2. What are the Benefits of Backing up SharePoint Online?
A Druva cloud administrator can avail of the following benefits while protecting the SharePoint Online data:
Customizable backup frequency: Discover SharePoint Online sites and protect data as per their organization's Recovery Point objectives.
Flexible recovery location: Restore SharePoint Online data to the original site or as a copy within the site or simply download it.
On-demand restore: Restore SharePoint Online data on demand.
Granular restore capability: An option to do a full site restore or an object-level restore, making restores more efficient.
3. Why is it essential to perform regular backups of SharePoint Online?
Performing regular backups of SharePoint Online is crucial to ensure data protection and disaster recovery. Backups help safeguard against accidental deletions, data corruption, cyberattacks, and other potential issues resulting in data loss. It provides the ability to restore individual emails, mailboxes, or entire tenants.
4. What data and components does Druva backup from SharePoint Online?
Druva console backs up various data and components from SharePoint Online including SharePoint Data, and SharePoint Site Settings, with Automatic Site Discovery and supports for backup of the following site collection types:
Classic SharePoint sites (not linked to Groups or Teams) are governed by the SharePoint-specific backup profile. You can define custom schedules, retention settings, and Smart Backup options for these standalone sites.
SharePoint sites associated with Microsoft 365 Groups or Teams inherit settings from their respective Groups or Teams backup profiles. These settings cannot be customized at the SharePoint site level. Any changes must be made within the corresponding Group or Team profile.
For more information, please see Data backed up by Druva Console for SharePoint Online
5. Can you explain the backup workflow for SharePoint Online?
Step 1. Select the Microsoft 365 App: As a first step, you need to select the Druva app:
Advanced - Backs up the data for SharePoint Online, Groups, OneDrive, Public folder, SharePoint, Teams
Basic - Backs up the data for SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Public folder, SharePoint, and Teams(Use the Basic app when you want to protect this data without providing the
Directory.ReadWrite.Allpermission.)OneDrive & SharePoint - Backs up the data for OneDrive and SharePoint
Step 2. To ensure that the Microsoft 365 data that is backed up is secure, you must configure Druva Console to get the data encryption key (ekey).
Step 3. Configure SharePoint for Backup and Restore
Create a backup profile for org app
Create a auto-configuration rule
Sync rule
To learn more refer to the Backup Profiles for Org Apps and Auto Configuration Rules. Refer Manual Configuration to manually configure a SharePoint site.
6. What are the prerequisites before configuring Druva for SharePoint Online backups?
Before configuring Druva for SharePoint Online backups, ensure the following prerequisites:
A valid subscription to Druva Console and appropriate licensing for SharePoint Online.
Check the Supported Microsoft 365 Edition
An account with Global Administrator privileges for initial configuration.
Cloud Key Management to store the encryption key.
7. What steps are involved in configuring the Druva for SharePoint Online backups?
Log in to the Druva console.
Navigate to the SharePoint Online backup configuration section.
Register M365 tenant and Select the preferred app
Verify the connection and provide the required permissions
8. How do I configure backup settings for SharePoint Online in Druva?
Step 1: Create Backup Profiles
A profile is a set of backup settings used to manage a group of org app resources. Profiles offer significant advantages by enabling standardized backup configurations that can be automatically applied to multiple users or applications.
For example: Let's create a new profile for the Groups app with backup frequency of Thrice a Week and data lock enabled.
After you define backup profiles, the next step is to map them to resources. This is where Auto Configuration Rules come in.
Step 2: Create Auto Configuration Rules
Auto Configuration Rules provide a powerful, automated approach to managing resource backup settings across your organization. These rules allow you to dynamically group and configure resources based on specific attributes, significantly reducing manual configuration efforts and ensuring consistent backup settings application.
For example, if you've created a backup profile called RPGroups that needs to be applied to groups containing the word test in their name. You can create a rule with the condition name contains text, which will automatically identify all impacted resources. The wizard will then prompt you to select a backup profile for these resources. You can choose an existing profile from the dropdown menu or create a new backup profile.
Step 3: Sync Rules
Click Sync Now on the Auto configuration rules window. Once the rule is synced, all discovered groups with test in their name will automatically have the settings from the RPGroups backup profile applied. The rule sync occurs every 24 hours, automatically updating backup profiles for resources based on the matching rule.
Fore more information see
9. How do I run a backup for SharePoint Online using Druva?
Backup can be initiated manually or automatically. You can schedule an automatic discovery and backup of site collections while configuring SharePoint Online.
Manual backup of SharePoint Online data
As an Cloud administrator, you can start an unscheduled backup of a site collection as and when necessary.
Go to the Druva dashboard and click on the Microsoft 365 tab.
Click on the SharePoint Online.
Select the site that you want to back up.
Click on the Backup Now button.
Druva will start backing up the selected site.
10. How do I restore a backup for SharePoint Online using Druva?
An administrator can restore SharePoint Online data using the Druva Console at the following locations based on the selection for restoration:
Restore to the same Site: Restore data to the same site from which it was backed up.
In-place Restore: To the same site collection from where the data was backed up.
Restore as a Copy: A new subsite is created within the same site collection and the data is restored in this new subsite. Doc Link: Restore SharePoint Online data
11. Based on your experience, what are the most common issues encountered when dealing with SharePoint Online backups?
When a particular SharePoint site is deleted from Microsoft 365, the App Status of that site changes to Disabled in Druva Console. ESITENOTFOUND error is displayed in Status Details when you initiate a backup for this site. The discovery and scheduled backups for these sites are excluded in the subsequent discovery and backup cycle. However, you can perform a restoration of these sites.
Below are the common issues encountered when in backups:
API throttling and cloud integration issue
Insufficient permissions to backup web files
The backup failed due to wrong credentials issue
Common Microsoft 365 errors.
Druva Console is unable to access the tenant.
12. What are the items in SharePoint Online not protected by Druva?
By default, SharePoint backups will exclude all files from the default folder path of Teams Meeting Recordings (TMR) to ensure optimized backup speed (Configurable)
Unpublished site pages will not be backed up.
Checked-out files and folders will not be backed up.
Contents in the recycle bin will not be backed up.
The forms folder is displayed by default in every folder for every backed-up site collection and will not be restored.
If the SharePoint Online sites, subsites, lists, and document libraries have a '/' (forward slash) character present in their title, the “/” is replaced with an “_” (underscore) character before backing up the data.
13. What are the best practices when protecting SharePoint online with the Druva backup solution (custom)?
Configure backup frequency: Ensure that you have set up an appropriate backup frequency for SharePoint Online to ensure regular data protection.
Review backup configuration settings: Review and verify the backup configuration settings in Druva Backup for SharePoint Online to ensure they align with your organization's requirements. Overlooking backup configuration settings may result in incomplete or incorrect backups.
Set proper retention policies: Set proper retention policies for SharePoint Online backups to comply with your organization's data retention requirements. Ignoring retention policies may lead to excessive storage consumption or retention of unnecessary data.
Ensure to validate backups: After running backups, it is crucial to validate them to ensure data integrity and accuracy. Neglecting to validate backups may result in issues when restoring data.
Note: All settings in SPO are only applicable for Classic sites. For Group and Team sites its controlled from the Groups configuration page.
Monitor backup status regularly: Regularly monitor the status of SharePoint Online backups to identify any issues or errors promptly. Failing to monitor backups may result in undetected failures or gaps in data protection.
Test your restores: Perform periodic tests to ensure the backup data is recoverable and meets your recovery objectives. Skipping restore testing may lead to difficulties when restoring critical data during actual recovery scenarios.
Review backup reports regularly: Regularly review backup reports generated by Druva Backup for SharePoint Online. These reports provide insights into backup status, any errors encountered, and overall data protection health. Neglecting to review backup reports may result in missed information about backup issues or potential risks.