Overview

As an inSync Cloud administrator, you can configure inSync with Microsoft 365 for SharePoint Online and automatically discover and protect site collections.

inSync discovers and supports back up of the following site collection types:

Classic sites: The SharePoint site collection used for project collaboration, intranet portal pages, record storage, and so on.
Team sites (hidden sites for 365 Groups, Teams' Web App): A site collection used for Teams to work on projects, and share information and files from any device. A team site automatically creates Microsoft 365 group and any user that you add to the team site gets added to the Microsoft 365 group. These sites are not listed in the SharePoint sites list.

Benefits

inSync Cloud administrator can avail 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.

Data backed up by inSync for SharePoint Online

You can backup the following SharePoint Settings and SharePoint Data for SharePoint Online:

SharePoint Site Settings

The following data types are backed up for SharePoint Online -

Users and Permissions
- People and groups
- Site permissions
- Site collection administrators (Top-level site)
Site administration
- Regional Settings
- Language Settings - Default Language
- Language Settings - All supported Languages
- User alerts
- Content Organizer Settings
- Content Organizer Rules
- Content-associated labels (except if a label is changed for a file in the destination in case in-place restore)
- Site Closure and Deletion
- Site output cache
- General Settings- Below is the list of general settings that we are going to restore in Managed Metadata:
  - Name
  - Description
  - Term set or term
  - Default value
  - Display Format
  - Allow multiple values
  - Require that this column contains information
  - Enforce Unique values
📝 Note
- Due to Microsoft API limitations, the restore of User alerts, Content Organizer Settings, Site Closure and Deletion, and Site output cache settings are not supported.
- Due to Microsoft graph API limitations, backup and restore for Term Group, Term Set, and Term settings is not supported.

Look and Feel
- Site Title and description
- Logo URL
- Logo Description
- Navigation Elements
- Master Page
- Site Templates
- Quick Launch
- Top Link Bar
- Welcome Page
- Device Channels
- Change the look
- Navigation
  
  📝 Note
  - Due to Microsoft API limitations, the restore of Welcome Page and Navigation settings is not supported.
  - In case of Device Channels, you can perform only In-Place Restore activity.

Site Actions
- Manage site features
Site Collection Administration
- Site Collection Features
- Variation labels
- Variation logs
List/Library Settings
- Rating settings
- Versioning settings
- Advanced settings
- Validation settings
- Title, description, and navigation
- Audience targeting settings
- Column default values settings
- Calendar View
- Datasheet View
- Gantt View
- Standard View
- Managed metadata and Enterprise keyword columns
Web Designer Galleries
- Site columns
- Site content types
- Web parts
- List templates
- Master pages and page layouts
- Themes
- Solutions
- Composed looks

📝 Note

In case of Web Parts, List templates, Themes, Solutions, you can perform only In-Place Restore activity.
For site content types, back up and restore are performed at root site collection level, subsite level, and list or document library level.

SharePoint Data

The following data is backed up for SharePoint Online:

Team sites (Microsoft 365 Groups, and Team’s hidden sites)
Classic sites

Within a site, inSync backs up the following:

Master Pages (Gallery)
Site Templates (Solution Gallery)
Subsites
Document Libraries
Lists
Form Templates
Assets
Site Pages
Site level terms in term store
Metadata associated with site collections, sites, libraries, list, templates, assets, folders, files, content types, and permissions
Audit data associated with Files, Folders, List items, Site Pages, Document Library, List, Subsite, and Site as follows:
- Files: Backup and restore of Modified By, Modified Time, Created By, and Created Time )
- Folder: Backup and restore of Modified By, Modified Time, Created By, and Created Time )
- List items: Backup and restore of Modified By, Modified Time, Created By, and Created Time )
- Site Pages: Backup and restore of Modified By, Modified Time, Created By, and Created Time )
- Document Library: Backup and restore of Modified Time
- List: Backup and restore of Modified Time
- Subsite: Backup of Modified Time, Created By, and Created Time
  
  📝 Note
  
  Due to Microsoft API limitations, the restoration of audit data for the Subsite is not supported.
- Site: Backup of Modified Time, Created By, and Created Time
  
  📝 Note
  
  Due to Microsoft API limitations, the restore of audit data for Site is not supported.

Microsoft API limitations for backup of SharePoint Online data

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.

Data excluded from backups for SharePoint Online

Exclusion of Teams Meeting Recordings ( Separately Configurable)

SharePoint backups will exclude all files from the default folder path of Teams Meeting Recordings (TMR) to ensure optimized backup speed.

For more information, see Exclusion of Teams Meeting Recordings from backups.

Supported inSync tasks for SharePoint Online

Backup of data	✅
Restore of data to a custom location	✅	❗ Important inSync Cloud administrator can do an in-place restore as well as restore as a copy for a site collection
Download of data by inSync Cloud administrator and inSync user	✅	❗ Important inSync user cannot download any data. As an Cloud Administrator, the download of bulk data is not recommended from the Admin Console. Browser download is a single-threaded session and is not recommended for downloading bulk data. Use Restore functionality to download the data as admin console has a default timeout of 6 hours.
Enterprise Search	✅	❗ Important By default, this feature is not supported. The availability of this feature may be limited based on the license type, region, and other criteria. To access this feature, contact your Account Manager or Support. For more information, see Enterprise Search backed up data to restore.
Legal Hold	❌
Scan the data for compliance risks	❌

Required permissions for access to SharePoint Online

For more information about the required permissions to access and protect SharePoint Online data, see Microsoft 365 App Permissions for Druva App.

Configure inSync to protect SharePoint Online

Backup SharePoint Online data

Restore SharePoint Online Data

Get started with Groups Data Protection

USER GUIDE: Preparing the Environment to Configure backup and restore for SharePoint Online.