Protecting and Restoring SharePoint Data

Spanning Backup for Microsoft 365 backs up the document libraries and files contained within site collections in SharePoint. Backups automatically run each day, and you can run a manual backup at any time.

As part of the backup, Spanning discovers all site collections in SharePoint, including Team Sites, Group Sites, and Microsoft Teams, and then conducts a backup of the document libraries and files in your tenant. Optionally, you can select specific site collections to include in the backup process. This is great for scenarios where you don’t want specific site collections to be included in your backups. You can also choose to backup all new site collections, which preserves your selection and protects new site collections automatically.

SharePoint backup is only accessible to Spanning administrators. Select the SharePoint tab on the left to manage your SharePoint backups.

See these procedures to protect and restore SharePoint data:

  1. Log into your Spanning Backup for Microsoft 365 account as an admin user.
  2. Click SharePoint.
  3. Click Manage Site Collections.
  4. Choose the toggles next to the site collections you want to protect or click Activate Backup for All to select them all.
    • indicates backup is enabled.
    • indicates backup is disabled.

NOTE  During the trial period you are limited to 10 site collections. Once you have purchased Spanning Backup for Microsoft 365, you can protect all site collections (including new site collections automatically).

  1. (Optional) Enable Auto Backup All Site Collections to ensure that new site collections are automatically protected. (This feature is not available in trial mode.)
  1. Log into your Spanning Backup for Microsoft 365 account as an admin user.
  2. Click SharePoint.
  3. Locate the site collection you want to back up.
    To filter the list by site collection name or URL, enter text in the Search Site Collections Title/URL field.
  4. Click the site collection's icon and select Back Up Now.

Once a backup has completed, a list of the site collection backups displays on the SharePoint Backups page. From here, you can browse or search for the desired site collection you want to view. The number of new files and any problems encountered during the backup are displayed below the backup time.

  1. Log into your Spanning Backup for Microsoft 365 account as an admin user.
  2. Click SharePoint.
  3. Locate the site collection whose data you want to restore.
    To filter the list by site collection name or URL, enter text in the Search Site Collections Title/URL field.
  4. Click the site collection's icon and select View Backups.
  5. Contents of the backup display. Check boxes to select items to restore.
    • You can choose a specific date that you would like to restore from.
    • You can find files by searching by file name or navigating to where the file or files were located at the time of the backup.
    • You can select one or multiple files, or entire document libraries to restore.
  6. Select Restore from the Select Action list.
  7. Choose whether to restore to the same site collection or a different site collection. Click Next.
  8. If you are restoring to a different site collection, select the site collection and click Next.
  9. Click Restore. A notification displays at the top of the page indicating that the restore was initiated.
  10. When the restore is complete, you receive an email notification. The restore displays on the Activity page in the Past items. Click the activity to view details about the restore, including the number of items restored and a link to access the newly created site.
  11. Spanning restores the content in a non-destructive manner, creating a new site containing the restored content. From here, you can move the content to your OneDrive or another site in SharePoint by selecting the content, clicking Copy, and selecting the target location.

NOTE  OneNote Notebooks are fully supported by Spanning Backup for Microsoft 365. Due to the design of Microsoft OneNote they do require an extra step to restore them back to their original location. For details, see our guide for Restoring Microsoft OneNote.