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    Home > restore-and-recover-your-data > AvePoint Cloud Backup > Restore Microsoft 365 Groups Data

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    Restore Microsoft 365 Groups Data

    AvePoint Cloud Backup service for Microsoft 365 Groups now provides a new option allowing to restore a Microsoft 365 group from the Microsoft 365 recycle bin to its last known good state. AvePoint will perform a check for the group status in Microsoft 365 to ensure Microsoft has this data and clearly present the options for you to decide the best way to recover data: using Microsoft native restore function within that 30-day retention period or using AvePoint backup data to roll back the entire group or granular contents.

    *Note: The check will only happen when you select the group as both the restore scope and the search level.

    AvePoint Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365 Groups service supports restoring the group, group team site, group mailbox, and planner data to another location. You can also restore the files in a Group site to another Group site. Additionally, AvePoint Cloud Backup now supports out-of-place restore operations between SharePoint Online sites, OneDrive, Teams sites, and Group sites. For more information on the supported restore types for Microsoft 365 Groups objects, refer to Restore Options for Different Object Types. For the supported data types of Microsoft 365 Groups, refer to Microsoft 365 Groups Data Types.

    If you want to restore the backup data to a storage location, you must have your own storage location configured. The default storage provided by AvePoint cannot be the destination of the restore. Additionally, only the Microsoft 365 Group lists or libraries, folders, items, or documents support being restored to a storage location.

    Complete the steps below to restore the Microsoft 365 Groups data:

    1. Navigate to the Restore > AvePoint Cloud Backup page, and then click the Microsoft 365 Groups 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 – Select a restore object scope and search for the data to restore. Follow steps 3 to 4.

    • Calendar mode – Select a recovery point (backup job) and select data from that backup to restore. Proceed to step 5.

    1. Define a Microsoft 365 Group as the search scope. You can enter the Group’s name or email address to search, and then select the Microsoft 365 Group from the Name list. The default search condition is to search the backup data for the Microsoft 365 Group within the last backup cycle. The drop-down list will remind you of groups with unusual activities or under potential ransomware attacks.

    2. You can choose to use the properties on the same page to search for the contents within this group for granular data roll-back, or you can directly proceed to the next step to search and select the data to restore.

    *Note: If the group you want to restore has been deleted from Microsoft 365, you can let AvePoint Cloud Backup check if the group is still in soft-deleted status in the Microsoft 365 recycle bin to help you decide the best way to restore. In this case, select that group and directly click Search.

    If the group is still in the soft-deleted status in Microsoft 365, you can choose the following methods.

    • If you choose to restore the entire scope from Microsoft 365, click Next and then select a recovery point. Click OK to start the restore job. You can navigate to the Microsoft 365 environment to monitor and verify the progress.

    *Note: If you only want to restore the scope from the recycle bin for the last known status, we strongly recommend selecting this option for faster job performance and better data integrity.

    • If you choose to restore the selected scope or just content within this scope from backup data, click Next, and you can configure search settings to search for the granular contents.

    For the details of using the properties on the first page or the Search feature, refer to the following:

    1. In the Name field, you can enter or select another Microsoft 365 Group to change the search scope.

    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 Microsoft 365 Group, Group Mailbox, Folder in Mailbox, Mailbox Item, Group Team Site, Site, List/Library, App, Folder in SharePoint, Document, Plan, or Task from the Level list for the items you want to search. If you want to search for all objects at the level you select from the selected Microsoft 365 Group. You can leave the search conditions empty.

    4. Click Search to search the items according to the conditions you configured. The search conditions and the search results are displayed. The search results table will display a maximum of 2000 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 the Unusual activities detected icon or the Potential ransomware attack detected icon.

    6. You can preview a file’s content by clicking its document name, which will open the file in a new tab. While on the Preview page, you can use the buttons located in the upper-right corner to download or print the file. Additionally, you can generate a public link for the file and set expiration date and password for added security.

    7. The preview function supports the following file types: Word (DOC, DOCX, RTF, DOT, DOTX, and DOTM), Excel (XLS, XLSX, XLSB, XLT, XLTX, CSV, and TSV), PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX, PPS, POT, PPSX, PPTM, PPSM, POTX, and POTM), and PDF.

    *Note: Files that have sensitive labels with encrypted data, contain archived data, or exceed 10 MB in size cannot be previewed.

    1. Click the Restore button above the search result table to restore all selected items.

    2. Proceed to step 6 to continue with the Restore settings.

    3. 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.

    4. In the calendar, all backup jobs of Microsoft 365 Groups are displayed. You can select whether to display the 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.

    5. Select a backup job. All backup data of Microsoft 365 Groups 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 icon or Potential ransomware attack detected icon.

    6. You can enter keywords to search the items, or you can click the backup data to browse the items you want to restore.

    7. You can preview a file’s content by clicking its document name, which will open the file in a new tab. While on the Preview page, you can use the buttons located in the upper-right corner to download or print the file. Additionally, you can generate a public link for the file and set expiration date and password for added security.

    8. The preview function supports the following file types: Word (DOC, DOCX, RTF, DOT, DOTX, and DOTM), Excel (XLS, XLSX, XLSB, XLT, XLTX, CSV, and TSV), PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX, PPS, POT, PPSX, PPTM, PPSM, POTX, and POTM), and PDF.

    *Note: Files that have sensitive labels with encrypted data, contain archived data, or exceed 10 MB in size cannot be previewed.

    1. Select the items you want to restore, and then click the Restore button above the table to restore all selected items.

    *Note: If you want to select multiple items to restore at the same time, you can only select the items at the same level.

    1. Continue to step 6 to configure the Restore settings.

    2. If necessary, you can enter a description 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 detected in the Suggested field below to enter it in the Description text box directly.

    3. If you have selected items from a Microsoft 365 team site to restore, you can select what you would like to restore for the selected items. You can choose to restore all content and security from the backup, or you can choose to only restore the security. 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.

    4. Choose where to restore the backup data.

    • Restore the data to its original location – Restore the backup data to where the data is backed up.

    • Restore the data to another location – Restore the backup data to another destination. Configure the following settings:

    • Select a restore destination – If you select a Group site or site item, you can select to restore the backup data to SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Microsoft 365 Groups, or Teams. For others, select a container as the restore destination. 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.

    • 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. This option is not available if the default storage location is used.

    *Note: Only the Microsoft 365 Group lists or libraries, folders in SharePoint, items, or documents support being restored to a storage location.

    1. Select how to handle the conflicts in the restore job. The available options for conflict resolution will vary for the items you select to restore.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    1. 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 allow you to update the permissions and metadata or language.

    2. 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.

    3. 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.

    4. Choose how you would like to restore the version history if file versions are backed up by AvePoint Cloud Backup. You can select to 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. AvePoint Cloud Backup service can restore up to 20 versions of one document. For the best performance and simplest experience, AvePoint recommends restoring only the latest version.

    5. 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 AvePoint 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.

    1. 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 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 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

    Turn on/off the switch to define whether to restore the sharing permissions. This feature only works for the sharing of items with 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 navigate 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 the AvePoint Cloud Backup service 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.

    1. Turn on/off the switch to define whether to restore the hub site connection. This option is only available when you select the Group or Group team site to restore.

    *Note: Cloud Backup cannot restore the hub site connection for the selected site, if it is a cross-tenant restore or the destination hub site requires approval for the associated sites to join.

    1. 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 AvePoint default storage, the restore job will automatically rehydrate data.

    2. 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.

    3. Click Next to view the restore summary.

    4. 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.