Restore SharePoint Online Data

With IBM® Storage Protect for Cloud Microsoft 365, you can browse or search for SharePoint Online backup jobs or data to restore items to their original location, to another location, or to a storage location. This module also allows you to search and restore backup data for Project Online sites, Viva Engage sites, Group sites, and Teams sites.

Complete the steps below to restore SharePoint Online data:

1. Navigate to the Restore > IBM Storage Protect for Cloud Microsoft 365 Backup page, and then click the SharePoint Online tile.
2. Select the items that you want to restore. You can choose one of the following methods to find the data to restore.

   • Search mode – Define a SharePoint Online site collection as the search scope and then use the properties to search for the items within the scope. Note that this method does not support searching and restoring the list items.

     Refer to the steps below:

     1. In the URL field, enter the keywords in the URL or select a SharePoint Online site collection URL. The default search condition is to search the backup data of that site collection within the last backup cycle. The drop-down list will remind you of SharePoint sites with unusual activities or under potential ransomware attacks.
     2. In the Backup time range field, the time range of the last backup cycle is displayed by default. Click the Calendar () button to customize the backup time range. The start date must be earlier than the end date. You can click Reset if you want to reset the settings. Click OK to save your customization.
     3. Select Site Collection, Site, List/Library, App, Folder, or Document from the Level list for the items you want to search. If you want to search for all sites, lists or libraries, apps, folders, or documents in the selected site collection, you can leave the search conditions empty. To search for specific sites, lists/libraries, apps, or folders, enter the title or name or the keywords for search; to search for specific documents, you can configure the following search conditions: Document Name, Created Date, Created By, Modified By, or Document Size.
     4. Click Search to search the items according to the conditions you configured. The search conditions and the search results are displayed. The results include all backup items which meet the search conditions in SharePoint Online sites, Project Online sites, Viva Engage sites, Group sites and Teams sites. The search results table will display a maximum of 500 items. You can edit the search conditions and click Search to adjust the search results.
     5. Find and select the item you want to restore from the search results. In the Recovery Point column, click the Calendar () button to select a backup job that backed up this item at the status that you want to restore, and click Apply. Recovery points with objects with unusual activities detected or potential ransomware attack detected will be displayed with (Unusual activities detected) or (Potential ransomware attack detected).
     6. Click the Restore button above the search result table to restore all selected items.
     7. Go to step 3 to continue with the Restore settings.

   • Calendar mode – Find a backup job that backed up the items at the time of the status you want to recover, and then search and select the items from the backup data of that backup job.

     1. In the calendar, all backup jobs of SharePoint Online are displayed. You can select whether to display the jobs that finished with an exception or failed jobs in the calendar by selecting the Include jobs with only partial backup data option. Note that the data of these jobs may be incomplete. Hover over a backup job to show the backup job details.
     2. Select a backup job. All backup data of SharePoint Online, up to a maximum of 2000 items, is displayed in the table. You can select the Show data from this backup only option (historical data in this scope from previous backups not included) to only show the data backed up in the selected backup job. Recovery points with objects with unusual activities detected or potential ransomware attack detected will be displayed with (Unusual activities detected) or (Potential ransomware attack detected).
     3. You can enter keywords to search the items, or you can click the backup data to browse the items you want to restore.
     4. The following actions are provided for the restore:
        • You can select the items you want to restore, and then click the Restore button above the table to restore all selected items directly at the same time. Note that you can only select the items at the same level in this way. Then, proceed to step 3 to continue with the Restore settings.
        • To restore site collections, you can select the site collections you want to restore, and then click the Queue for restore button above the table to add them for batch restore. After adding all desired site collections to the queue, click the Restore queue () icon at the top of the page, and then click the Restore button to restore the site collections in one restore job.
          Note: In the restore process, the site collections in the Restore queue will be restored sequentially from first to last as listed. The objects in the Restore queue are ordered by their addition time, from oldest to newest.

          If you leave the recovery point, the restore queue will be cleared.

3. If necessary, you can enter your comments for this restore job in the Description text box. For objects with unusual activities or under ransomware attacks, you can click the Potential ransomware attack detected or Unusual activities detectedin the Suggested field below to enter it in the Description text box directly.
4. Select what you would like to restore for the selected items. You can choose to restore all of the content and security from the backup, or you can choose to only restore the security or content.
   • The security includes all the user permissions at the selected level and beneath. The restore-security-only restore job cannot add or delete any users in the target site collection.
   • The restore-content-only restore job will skip the conflicting documents/items or restore the documents/items with a suffix “_1” added, depending on which conflict resolution you choose at the content level.
5. Choose where to restore the backup data to. Note that the SharePoint Online site collections, sites, and apps only support being restored to the original location or restored to another location.
   • Restore the data to its original location – Restore the backup data to where the data are backed up.
   • Restore the data to another location – Restore the backup data to another destination. Configure the following settings:
     • Select a destination object type – Select to restore the backup data to SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Microsoft 365 Groups, or Teams. You can enter keywords to search for the restore destination. The items that can be selected as the restore destination are listed under the Search box.
       Note: If you choose to restore to OneDrive, only the Documents library, Site Assets library, and the custom libraries will be displayed in the destination tree. You can click Show All Libraries to display all lists and libraries.

       On the destination tree, click a node to load the nodes under it and click the Previous button to navigate back to the previous node. Select a node where you want to restore the backup data.

     • Action – Select how the backup data will be restored to the destination. Select Attach to restore the contents as children beneath the selected node, or select Merge to add the contents to the destination node. For example, you want to restore a site to another site. If you select Attach, the restored site will become the subsite of the destination site; if you select Merge, the subsites and contents of the restored site rather than itself will directly become the subsites and contents of the destination site.
   • Restore the data to your storage – Restore the backup data to your own storage location configured. This option is not available if the default storage location is used.
     Note: The SharePoint Online site collections, sites, and apps do not support being restored to a custom storage location.
6. Select how to handle the conflicts in the restore job. The conflict occurs if a folder or file in the destination has the same name, or the item in the destination has the same GUID.
   • Container level conflict resolution – Select how to handle the conflicts at the container level.
     • Skip – The settings of the conflicting destination container will be retained in the destination.
     • Merge – The source container settings and the content will be merged to the conflicting destination container.
     • Replace – The settings of the conflicting destination container will be deleted and replaced by the source container settings, as well as the content within the container.
   • Content level conflict resolution – Select how to handle the conflicts at the content level.
     Note: This is not available if Replace is selected as the container level conflict resolution. If you select to restore content only, only the Skip and the Append an “_1” to the Item/Document are available.
     • Skip – The conflicting destination content will be retained in the destination, and the backup data of the conflicting content will not be restored.
     • Overwrite – The conflicting destination content will be removed from the destination, and the backup data of the conflicting content will be restored.
     • Overwrite by Last Modified Time – If the last modified time of the conflicting destination content is earlier than that of the source content, the conflicting destination content will be removed from the destination, and the backup data of the conflicting content will be restored.
     • Append an “_1” to the Item/Document – If the last modified time of the conflicting destination content is the same, the restore will be skipped; if the last modified time is different, the conflicting destination content will be kept, and the backup data of the conflicting content will be added to the destination with a sequential number suffix added to the filename.
       Note: If you want to restore a single file version without affecting other versions, set the content level conflict resolution to Append an “_1” to the Item/Document. If the content level conflict resolution is set to Overwrite, the restore job will remove all the versions of this file from the destination and keep this file version as the latest and only version of the file.
   • Apps conflict resolution – Select how to handle the apps conflict.
     • Skip – The conflicting destination app and AppData will be retained in the destination, and the backup data of the conflicting content will not be restored.
     • Overwrite – The conflicting destination app and AppData will be removed from the destination, and the backup data of the conflicting content will be restored.
       Note: If you choose to only restore security, you must select how to handle the security conflicts at the container level and content level. Replace will overwrite the security in the destination; Merge will combine the security in the backup with the security in the destination.
7. Expand the Advanced settings area to configure more restore settings. If you choose to restore to another location, the mapping settings will be available to allows you to update the permissions and metadata or language.
8. User mapping - Select a user mapping profile from the drop-down list. For more instructions on creating a new user mapping profile, refer to Configure Mapping Settings.
9. Language mapping - Select a language mapping profile from the drop-down list. For more instructions on creating a new language mapping profile, refer to Configure Mapping Settings
10. Choose how you would like to restore the version history if file versions are backed up by IBM Storage Protect for Cloud. You can select Restore the latest version only, or you can select the Restore the current and previous versions option and enter the maximum number of versions you want to restore in the box. IBM Storage Protect for Cloud Microsoft 365 can restore up to 20 versions for one document. For the best performance and simplest experience, IBM Storage Protect for Cloud recommends restoring only the latest version.
    Note the following:

    • By default, history versions of items and files are not backed up due to the regular recovery points created by backup jobs, as well as Microsoft 365 API overhead and limitations related to versions. In our experience, most user and legal requests are only for the most recent active version. In addition, we will capture multiple roll-back points during our daily backups to ensure you have a change history for this document outside native versioning. If you need to back up the versions for some reason and are willing to accept the performance impact, please contact IBM support to have it enabled. The backup job will include the most recent 10 versions by default.
    • If you want to restore earlier versions of a document, you can run an export job to export all versions of that document from the backup data.
    • This restore setting is not available when selecting documents or restoring security only.
11. Select how you would like to restore the Managed Metadata Service.
    • If the containers or content you select to restore is under the site collection level, the Restore terms in site term store only option and the Restore terms in both global term store and site term store option will only restore the terms and their parent terms associated directly with the data from the site store or both. Note that if the data is not restored due to the conflict resolutions you choose, the restored terms cannot be connected to the data either.
    • If you select at least the site collection level object to perform the restore, the Restore terms in site term store only option will restore all the deleted terms in the site store and the Restore terms in both global term store and site term store option will restore all the deleted terms in both the global term store and site term store.
    • If you select to Use existing terms only, no terms will be restored.
    • If you want to perform a term store-only restore, refer to the FAQ: How do I perform term store-only restore?
12. Turn on/off the switch to define whether to restore the sharing link permissions. This feature only works for the sharing of items to specific people inside or outside your organization. For external users, the restore job can only restore the permissions for the users who have accessed the sharing link. After the restore, the sharing links will be changed, and OneDrive users can go to OneDrive > Shared library to view the content shared with you and shared by you. The links generated by the Copy link function in Microsoft 365 are also regarded as sharing links.
    Note: The Sharing setting is a tenant-level setting, and IBM Storage Protect for Cloud Microsoft 365 does not protect tenant settings. The restore job to restore a deleted site cannot restore the Sharing settings, including the external users and their permissions.

    Note: This restore setting is not available when restoring content only.
13. Turn on/off the switch to define whether to allow restore jobs to rehydrate the data sets automatically, when the backup data is stored in the Azure archive storage tier. This field is only functional for the BYOS subscription type. For IBM Storage Protect for Cloud default storage, the restore job will automatically rehydrate data.
    Note: IBM Storage Protect for Cloud recommends not storing the index database to the Azure archive storage tier.
14. Turn on/off the switch to define whether to restore the subsites. This option is only available when you select site collections or sites to restore.
15. Turn on/off the switch to define whether to restore the hub site connection. This option is only available when you select site collection to restore.
    Note: IBM Storage Protect for Cloud Microsoft 365 cannot restore the hub site connection, if it is a cross-tenant restore or the destination hub site requires approval for the associated site to join.
16. Turn on/off the switch to define whether to enable the Custom Scripts setting during the restore. This feature allows you to restore data related to scripts to the destination Microsoft environment.
17. Click Next to view the restore summary.
18. Click Restore to restore the selected items. After the job has started, you can navigate to the Job Monitor to view more job details. For details, refer to Job Monitor.