Overview
You can restore Groups data within your Microsoft 365 tenant - ensuring business-critical data is always available when you need it.
You can view all the available snapshots and restore data. You can restore an entire snapshot or only group settings. You can also restore groups’ data to the same location or to a new group.
📝 Note
If a Group Site is quarantined then the corresponding entire group is quarantined. You cannot perform a full restore on this quarantined group data.
You cannot restore or download the data if the associated group site is quarantined.
Order of Restore in Groups
Here's the logical order for restoring a Microsoft 365 group, including Planner and SharePoint data:
Group Metadata Restore: The process begins by restoring the group metadata. This essentially creates a new group with the same configuration as the original one before deletion.
Planner Restore: Once the group foundation is established, the system then restores the Planner data. This includes tasks, buckets, and comments, but not attachments.
Group Mailbox: After restoring Planner data, the system sequentially restores the Group Mailbox, starting with emails and followed by attachments.
SharePoint Restore: Finally, the system tackles SharePoint restoration. This ensures that all attachments associated with Planner tasks, which are stored in the corresponding SharePoint site, are recovered as well.
Restore considerations
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. You cannot restore the owners of these groups. For more information, see Back up Groups data.
You can restore a deleted group on the Microsoft 365 portal as a new group only.
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.
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.
Microsoft Planner Limitations:
Microsoft Planner restore may not recover the "completed by" information associated with tasks, requiring users to rely on alternative methods like change history or manual updates. This is due to a limitation in the Microsoft API.
If a SharePoint site has a sub-site named 'Documents,' granular restore with Planner is not possible. This is because 'Documents' is the default folder for storing attachments. For example, if the folder name is changed to 'New Folder' and there is a sub-site with the same name ('New Folder'), the restore process will fail.
If a Planner attachment is deleted or updated from the SharePoint site, but the associated Planner task or bucket remains unchanged, the Planner attachment will not be restored during a Planner restore operation.
Granular restoration of attachments in the form of links is not supported, regardless of whether they originate from the same site, a different site, or an external source.
Group Mailbox Restore Limitations
Restoration Details:
Restored posts will be sent from the Admin account that set up the Druva application, timestamped with the restore API trigger time. The restored post will include metadata such as the original sender and delivery time in the mail body.
When a post is first restored (Restore 1), a metadata block with information like the 'Original sender' and 'Delivered on' is added.
If this post (now containing one metadata block) is restored again after an incremental backup (Restore 2), an additional metadata block is added. This new block will show the 'Original sender' as 'admin' (the one who restored it) and the 'Delivered on' as the time of the first restoration.
For example, if an email originally sent by 'User A' on August 1st is first restored by the admin on August 3rd, the metadata will display 'Original sender: User A' and 'Delivered on: August 1st.'
If the email is restored again on August 5th after an incremental backup, a new metadata block will be added, showing 'Original sender: admin' and 'Delivered on: August 3rd.Multiple metadata blocks can appear due to incremental backups of restored conversations and repeated restorations of deleted items. In these cases, the oldest metadata block offers the most accurate details about the original sender and delivery time.
Administrator Access:
After a restore operation, the configured app administrators gain access to the restored emails within a group mailbox, even if they are not members or owners of that specific group. However, if an administrator was not originally a member or owner, they will only receive replies to the restored email threads. New threads created in the group mailbox will not be accessible to these administrators.
❗IMPORTANT
Privacy Consideration: When a non-member administrator restores emails for a group, the restored messages also appear in the administrator’s personal mailbox (Sent folder). This exposure occurs regardless of the administrator's membership status in the group, which could lead to unintended access to sensitive information.
API Limitations:
Due to API limitations, recipients originally listed in the CC field cannot be restored to that field. Consequently, these recipients will be added to the ‘TO’ recipient field in the restored items.
The Microsoft Graph API does not support restoring voting data or custom app-specific content, such as polls and Loop components, for group mailboxes.
Due to API limitations, several group mailbox settings are excluded from backups. These include custom views, rules, 'Follow inbox' and 'Stop following inbox' settings, and custom folders where users can manually move conversations or have them automatically moved by rules. Consequently, neither these custom folders nor the conversations within them can be restored.
Due to API limitations, only the forwarded message can be restored when forwarding a conversation thread. The rest of the conversation thread cannot be restored.
Duplicate Restorations:
In the event of multiple (n times) in-place restore operations of a conversation, the restored conversation will contain 'n' duplicate copies.
Restore considerations due to Groups naming policy
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: The custom word you have blocked in the naming policy will be appended with a three-digit randomly generated number when the new group is created. So, the new group will be created with the name <blocked word><three digit number>. For example,
Word blocked in the naming policy: 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: The prefix or suffix you have defined in the naming policy will be appended to the new group. So, the new group will be created with the name <Prefix>Name of the team<Suffix>. For example,
Prefix string: Company Name | Suffix string: Cost Code
Original group name: Development Sample
Restored new group name: CompanyNameDevelopment SampleCostCode
📝 Note
Ensure that the restored group has no more than 256 characters, or the restore will fail.
Restore specific Groups data
📝 Note
Ensure that the Group is in the enabled state.
Exclusive support for Site restore is coming soon. Stay tuned for the latest updates!
Procedure
Select the group or Planner that you want to restore. Or
Click the group name hyperlink that you want to restore.📝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
The snapshots are displayed only when a Group and associated sites are backed up completely. The snapshots are not visible if the backup is in progress.
Select group settings. View the snapshot details for the SharePoint site; select the site data you want to restore.
Click Restore. A dialog displaying the restore location appears.
To restore to the same Group:
Select Restore to the same Group on the Restore Groups window.
Click Next.
Select the group’s settings to restore; you can restore the owners’ or members’ group settings.
📝 Note
It is recommended to keep the Group settings options selected. If any of the options are not selected, the restore may fail in some cases.
Click Restore.
To restore to a new Group:
Select Restore as a new Group on the Restore Groups window.
Enter the new group name to restore data.
Specify the group visibility type: Private or Public. Select None if you are restoring a Security group.
A private group requires permission to join, while a public group is open to any member of the organization.📝 Note
If the "Azure AD roles can be assigned to the group" setting is enabled on the Microsoft 365 portal, then you can restore data to a new group with the Private visibility type only.
Click Next.
Select the group’s settings to restore; you can restore the owners’ or members’ group settings.
📝 Note
It is recommended that the Group settings options be selected. If any of the options are not selected, the restore may fail in some cases.
Click Restore.
📝 Note
If a group doesn’t exist, the data is restored as a new group.
Restore full Group
You can restore an entire group, which restores Group Metadata, Planner and Site data.
📝 Note
Ensure that the Group is in the configured state.
Procedure
Select the group that you want to restore. Or
Click the group name hyperlink that you want to restore.
Click Restore Data.
From the Snapshot Viewer, select a snapshot to restore data.
Select the item that you want to restore.
Click Restore Full Group. A dialog displaying the restore location appears.
To restore to the same Group:
Select Restore to the same Group on the Restore Groups window.
Click Next.
Select the group’s settings to restore; you can restore the owners’ or members’ group settings.
Click Restore.
To restore to a new Group:
Select Restore as a new Group on the Restore Groups window.
Enter the new group name to restore data.
Specify the group visibility type: Private or Public. Select None if you are restoring a Security group.
A private group requires permission to join, while a public group is open to any member of the organization.
📝 Note
If the " Azure AD roles can be assigned to the group" setting is enabled on the Microsoft 365 portal, then you can restore data to a new group with the Private visibility type only.
Click Next.
Select the group’s settings to restore; you can restore the owners’ or members’ group settings.
Click Restore.