Active Backup for Office 365 admin console

The centralized admin console allows IT admins to create backup tasks for Office 365 accounts and monitor the backup status from a single interface.

Create backup tasks

To create a backup task:

  1. Click Create to start the wizard from Task List.
  2. Select the endpoint for your Office 365 service. Read the instruction and click on Next. An Office 365 authorization window will pop up. Enter the Domain administrator email address and Password to complete the authorization process. A confirmation window will then pop up to confirm the location to store your authorization token, saving you the trouble of going through the authorization process every time before data backup.
  3. Enter your Task name, choose a shared folder from the Destination Shared Folder drop-down, select users and their services to be backed up from User List, and if needed, enable Account discovery for mail, contacts, calendar, and drive services as well as Active Backup for Office 365 Portal.
  4. Configure your backup and retention policies: 
  5. Check your task summary and click Apply to finish creating your backup task.

Manage backup tasks

In the Task list tab, you can see a list of all backup tasks that have been created. You can also manage them with the buttons at the top of the tab.

To manage a backup task:

  1. Select the backup task you want to edit and click Edit.
  2. On the General tab, you can
  3. On the Version tab, you can configure backup and retention policies.

To manage users to be backed up:

  1. Select a backup task, click Edit, and go to the User tab. You can then check the backup users' information such as license status, backup setting of each service, and storage consumption. Office 365 mail, contact, and calendar require license for backup, while Office 365 shared mailbox and OneDrive for Business don't. Below are the license status you might see and their corresponding meaning:
  2. If you have enabled Account discovery for any of the four services, all new users added to the domain with that service enabled will be automatically backed up. You can include or exclude specific users' services by manually selecting or deselecting them.
  3. Active Backup for Office 365 updates the status of Office 365 user list from Office 365 from time to time. If you would like to see the latest user list of Office 365, please click Update Office 365 user list.

To delete backup user data:

  1. Select a backup task, click Edit, and go to the User tab.
  2. Select a user and click Storage management to delete his backup data for any of the four services. Your service will be deselected for backup once your backup data is deleted.

To release license:

  1. Select a backup task, click Edit, and go to the User tab.
  2. Select a user in "activated" status and click Storage management to delete his backup data of mail, contact, and calendar. After backup data is successfully deleted, the user's license will be released.

View task information

Overview

In the Overview tab, you can monitor the following information from a single interface.

Note:

Regarding the category, Backup summary, there are three types of status, Error, Warning, and Successful. The status for a day will be displayed as Error/Warning as long as any single activity in that day shows error/warning, while the status will only be shown as Successful if all task results of that day are success.

Task List

In the Task List tab, you can see a list of all backup tasks that have been created. In the menu of each backup task, you will find the following information for the task, whether it is being executed or has been fully executed.

Below are all the icons you might see in the menu of each backup task and their corresponding meaning:

Note:

Regarding the definition of each task status, below you can find detailed information:

Activities

  1. Admins can easily monitor current backup and restoration activities on the Activities tab.
  2. Admins can also click on Cancel to stop a running activity. Please note that a task where the continuous backup policy is applied comes with an infinite backup cycle. Therefore, users cannot cancel such tasks directly using the Cancel button.

Log

The Log allows you to keep track of the backup tasks that have been performed. You can view the log in its entirety or use filters to search for certain tasks.

To search through log records with a specific filter:

  1. Go to the Log tab.
  2. Click the arrow next to the magnifying glass icon in the search bar on the top right hand corner.
  3. In the drop-down menu, you can filter events by:
  4. To reset your filter, click the Reset button and start searching again.

To view log details:

  1. Select a log and click the arrow icon on the right end of the entry to view detailed logs for an event.
  2. For backup activities, you can view the following information in the pop-up window:
  3. For restoration activities, you can view the following information in the pop-up window:

Detailed task information

To view the status and logs of a task:

  1. Select the backup task on the Task List tab and click on Details.
  2. In the Details window you can view the following information:

Manage notification services

To enable noitification services:

To receive task-related notifications, go to DSM > Control Panel > Notification, and configure settings for your desired notification channel, i.e. SMS, email, or push service.

To manage events for notification:

To manage events for notification, go to DSM > Control Panel > Notification > Advanced, and configure settings for the events that you would like to be notified of.

License

In the License tab, you can view the number of available licenses and the information of license keys, or you can add and renew Active Backup for Office 365 licenses.

Note:

  1. The Active Backup for Office 365 Portal needs to be enabled in the Active Backup for Office 365 package for users to restore data by themselves. To allow specific users the access to Active Backup for Office 365 Portal, go to Control Panel > Privileges, select Active Backup for Office 365 Portal, and click on Edit to give permissions. 
  2. Only users with admin privilege can cancel other users' restoration tasks from Active Backup for Office 365 Console.
  3. Block-level deduplication is supported only on shared folders in Btrfs volumes, with the exception of encrypted shared folders; single instancing for mail and calendar attachments is only supported on shared folders in Btrfs volumes. For detailed information regarding support for the two features, please refer to the below table:
  4. Single instancing Block-level deduplication
    Drive O O
    Mail Attachment only X
    Contacts X X
    Calendar Attachment only X
  5. Data will not be backed up or skipped by Active Backup for Office 365 under the following circumstances:
  6. The following endpoints are supported: Office 365, Office 365 Germany, Office 365 operated by 21 Vianet
  7. The following plans are supported: Business, Enterprise, and Education, and Exchange Online
  8. The following file type are supported for content search:
    • page/.key/.numbers
    • .rtf
    • Microsoft Office format (e.g. .docx/ .doc,.pptx/ .ppt,.xlsx/.xls)
    • Text files (e.g. .cpp, .c, .txt)
    • .epub
    • .lit
    • .mobi/.azw3/.pdb/.prc
    • .pdf
    • .rar
    • .chm
    • .slk/.gnumeric
    • .eml/.msg
    • .7z/.bz2/.gz/.zip/.tgz/.tbz/.tar
  9. The following variables are not support for content search: