Understand Application Backup
In a Nutshell
Application Backup helps save copies of an app’s data, configuration, and code to prevent loss during system failures or updates. It ensures automated and cloud-based backups for rapid recovery and business continuity, essential for safeguarding app integrity.
Availability
- Application backup is only available in the paid plans of Creator.
- Application backup can be created and managed by the super admin and admins.
Overview
In Creator, application backup allows you to safeguard your app by creating copies of its schema, data, and files. With this feature, you can easily restore your application to a previous state, ensuring business continuity and data security. Backups can be automated or performed manually, giving you full control. This ensures that, in the event of data loss or unexpected issues, you can recover your app quickly and efficiently, minimizing downtime.
Use Case
Rollback Mechanism
If your customer contact details are stored in your application report, accidental deletions can lead to data loss. However, regular backups provide an efficient rollback mechanism, allowing you to restore data to a previous day's state, removing any unintended changes while keeping essential information intact. This ensures smooth recovery and minimizes disruptions to your operations.
Navigation Guide
Access Backup under the Applications section in Operations under Manage in the left panel of the Zoho Creator Dashboard.
Backup In Zoho Creator
Application Backup includes three tabs to manage and view your backups:
- Backups: Displays successful backups for each application, containing all relevant details for easy reference and restoration.
- Scheduled Backups: You can schedule backups to create an automated backup system that runs based on your specific requirements. Shows all scheduled backups, with options to activate or deactivate each backup as needed, offering flexibility in backup management.
- Backup Logs: Displays detailed logs for each backup, including the status (success or failure) and all relevant information needed for auditing and troubleshooting.
Backups
The Backups tab contains key information about each backup, organized as follows:
- Application: The name of the application being backed up.
- Backup Date: Shows the date and time of the most recent backup in your timezone. To adjust the timezone, navigate to the Organization tab. Learn more
- Includes: This specifies the components included in the backup like:
- Schema Only: Backs up the application without any data, saving the .DS file of the application. Learn more about .DS Files
- Schema + Data: Backs up both the application schema and associated data.
- Schema + Data + Files: Backs up the entire application, including data and any attached files.
Note: This option is only applicable when the backup frequency is set to Now. - Version: Indicates the backup version, where the highest number is the most recent.
- Expiry: Displays the date when the backup will expire. Backups are automatically deleted after their retention period that was selected while creating the backup, but you can delete them manually anytime. To retain a backup indefinitely, download it to your local storage. Learn how to download a backup
- File Size: Specifies the size of the backup file.
Manage Backups
To manage your backups, hover over a backup and click on the three-dot (meatball) menu. From here, you’ll see additional options to help you effectively manage your backups.
- Download: Obtain a copy of your backup files to your local storage for safekeeping or offline access.
- Restore: Bring back a previous version of your application from a backup, ensuring your data and settings are reverted to the desired state.
- Delete: Remove backups that are no longer needed permanently. This helps to free up storage space and maintain an organized backup system.
Learn how to perform all these actions
Note: Once the application is restored, you can ensure that your users can access the new application via the URL by editing the link to match the one users are familiar with. Keep in mind that two applications cannot share the same link, so modifying or deleting the old application link will facilitate this process. Learn how to change the URL of an application
Filter Backups
You can apply the following criteria to filter backups, and each filter option works independently:
- Application: Select specific applications to view only their corresponding backups.
- Backup Date: Filter by a specific date or within a designated date range to narrow down the backup history.
- Expiration Period: Choose backups based on their retention periods, allowing you to easily find backups that are nearing expiration.
Size Limit for Backups
The file size of downloaded ZIP backups is limited as follows:
- Schema only (without widgets): 50 MB
- Schema only (with widgets): 100 MB
- Schema with application data: 1 GB
- Schema, application data, and files: 4 GB
Scheduled Backups
You can schedule backups to create an automated backup system that runs based on your specific requirements. This ensures that your data is consistently backed up without the need for manual intervention.
The Scheduled Backups section provides essential details about each backup schedule, including:
- Application: The name of the application for which the backup is scheduled.
- Frequency: Indicates how often the backup is set to occur, with options including:
- Now: A backup is triggered immediately.
- Daily: Backups are scheduled to occur every day.
- Weekly: Backups are scheduled on a weekly basis.
- Monthly: Backups are scheduled to occur once a month.
- Scheduled Time: Displays the specific time (in Indian Standard Time) when the backup will be executed. You can choose a convenient time for the backup to occur, including options for scheduling a nightly backup to minimize disruption during business hours.
- Expiry In: Shows the retention period for the scheduled backup, indicating when it will be automatically deleted.
- Status: Indicates whether the backup schedule is currently active or inactive, allowing for easy management of backup operations.
Learn how to activate or deactivate a backup
Backup Logs
The Backup Logs section provides detailed information about each backup operation, including:
- Application: The name of the application associated with the backup.
- Time (IST): The timestamp indicating when the backup operation occurred, displayed in Indian Standard Time.
- Status: Indicates the outcome of the backup operation, with possible statuses including:
- Initiated: The backup process has started.
- Completed: The backup has been successfully completed.
- Failed: The backup encountered an error and did not complete successfully.
- Message: This message provides detailed information on the status of your backup operation. If a backup or restore process fails, it includes the specific reason, such as Error Occurred for general issues or Backup Size Limit Exceeded if the data exceeds the allowed size limit.
Download Format
When you download a backup, the application's relevant files are compressed and saved as a ZIP file. Upon opening this ZIP file, you'll find a folder that includes a meta file containing the DS script of your application's schema. Additionally, there will be a folder containing all the data collected within the application, as well as another folder with all associated files, including documents, images, and videos gathered.
Each zip file in the backup download is limited to 256 MB. If the content exceeds this limit, it will be split across multiple zip files.
Points to Note
- Currently, there is no support for Integration field data handling in backup and restore.
- In case of scheduled backups, files in your Creator applications will not be backed up.
- For applications with environments enabled, only the Production environment can be backed up. Backups for the Development and Staging environments are not available. Learn more about Environment
- Portal users will not be included in backups; however, you can manually export portal users if needed. Learn more on how to export portal users
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