1️⃣Getting Started

Welcome to SmartBackup docs. SmartBackup is the solution for organizations who want to use the Industry’s leading platform for securing their Smartsheet data. SmartBackup is a comprehensive solution for company-wide deployments, addressing business needs such as data backup and export, business continuity, audit trails, disaster recovery, data migration, and other key scenarios. It is available in a tiered pricing model, based on the number of Smartsheet Members in the organization.

SmartBackup Overview

SmartBackup is the most sophisticated, capable, and comprehensive backup solution for Smartsheet customers available in the industry.

The purpose of SmartBackup is to create incremental backup copies of a customer’s Smartsheet data (Sheets), and optionally Dashboards and Reports – automatically, for all users in the customer’s Smartsheet account, and to save those copies in Smartsheet itself and/or to save copies outside of Smartsheet.

Note that SmartBackup is not designed to make daily backup copies of ALL the customer’s data in Smartsheet. In general, for SaaS solutions like Smartsheet – trying to make a copy of ALL the data becomes less and less viable as the amount of data grows over time. Backing up SaaS based data requires a modern approach, as older approaches no longer work effectively. Read our article for more details here: https://qr1.be/UVCB

Our recommended approach is to adopt a modern, thoughtful process which includes a combination of tools and techniques. In the case of Smartsheet customers, this could be using both SmartBackup and our High Speed Offloader/Onloader (HSO) solution.

1. HSO can be used to create a “snapshot” copy of all the customer’s Smartsheet data, then...

2. SmartBackup can be used to establish a regularly scheduled incremental backup of the Smartsheet data.

These two combined will address most customer requirements for a backup, DRP, and BCP solution. Additionally, HSO can also be used for several other use cases, such as Data Center Migration, Blueprinting, Daily solution copies, Solution stepping, etc.

In this documentation, we will describe how to install, configure, run, and manage SmartBackup to secure your organization’s Smartsheet data. Refer to the HSO website for details about the HSO solution or reach out to us for more information.

Getting started

Getting started with SmartBackup is very simple and could be achieved in three easy steps.

1. Download and install the latest version of SmartBackup, which can be found here.

2. For Business Edition and Enterprise Edition, you will need to use a Smartsheet sysAdmin Token to generate a list of all Smartsheet Users automatically.

3. Run your first Backup or further customize scheduling and other options.

Watch Demo

When working with a Backup application like SmartBackup, it's important to be comfortable with the interface and to know how to perform basic tasks. Watch the video below to learn how to navigate the SmartBackup interface and complete your first backup.

The demo will familiarise you with the interface and show you how to create your first backup. It also introduces you to the settings required to run SmartBackup. Later in the video it introduces you to other data management operations like Archive and Export.

Why Backup?

There are various reasons for having backups. In climbing, a backup can save your life, but with data, a backup can save your business.

1. More Smartsheet users means more people are sharing. People are not infallible. They make mistakes, and actually, they make them quite often. There’s no reason to fear this if you take frequent incremental backups.

2. Regulatory bodies like the IRS do not consider data disasters as valid excuses for non-compliance. This could result in fines and penalties. Therefore, having an offline backup of critical Smartsheet information is crucial to protect your organization in case of data loss.

3. You are responsible for your Smartsheet data. In the event of a minor or major mishap, having a backup ensures your operations can recover quickly.

4. As a Smartsheet Admin, you're likely aware that Smartsheet offers a convenient backup capability. However, the challenge arises when you need to recover from those backups and realize that features like automations, column settings, forms, cell formats, and links cannot be restored because the copy is limited and outside the Smartsheet environment. With SmartBackup, recovery is easy-peasy.

Biggest Threats?

Let's take a look at some of the biggest threats to your Smartsheet data.

Scenario	Description
User Deletion	A collaborator may accidentally delete a shared attachment, or you may delete some rows and then later learn that the data is still required.
Data Overwrites	Smartsheet sheets typically contain large amounts of data that are constantly updated by multiple users. When large data sets are imported, accidental overwriting may become quite common.
Data Corruption	In some cases your data can get corrupted and become inaccessible, and you would be stuck without a robust backup solution in place.
Data migration issues caused by incorrectly mapped fields	If incorrectly mapped fields are imported, the correct data may be overwritten in your sheets.
Third-party application errors	Third-party applications can modify data in ways you didn’t intend. With Smartsheet's wider adoption and inter-operation in the Enterprise, this becomes a major risk.
Data Loss	Data can be lost due to reasons other than malicious intent. Under new data protection rules, data destruction and corruption of personal data are considered forms of data breaches and would require appropriate notifications.

Learning SmartBackup

People come to SmartBackup from different backgrounds and with different learning styles. Whether you prefer a more theoretical or a practical approach, we hope you’ll find this section helpful.

1. Get yourself orientated by watching the intro video: Watch Now

2. Familiarize yourself by watching the how-to-use-it video: Watch Now

3. Browse the Playbooks

4. Sign-up for a free, no obligation 30-day free, no-obligation trial of the full Enterprise Edition: Request Now

5. Start exploring by reading the various Guides, especially the Reference Guide

Latest Release Notes – R10.0.0

Due to unforeseen changes to the Smartsheet API which caused some existing functions to fail, it has been necessary for us to re-write large sections of our applications in a short amount of time. Because of this the latest release of SmartBackup should be viewed as an interim release in order to restore full functionality while positioning the solution to re-align with our overall product roadmap.

However, at the same time, we decided to take the re-write as an opportunity to integrate some of our latest approaches to how to backup SaaS solutions like Smartsheet, and this interim release includes several new functions.

Known issues:

Due to the time constraints forced on us by Smartsheet, there are several known issues in the latest release that we will address in the next release. These include:

• Invalid Sheet Count values in the console due to Smartsheet deciding to return a “-1” value for each API “sheetCount” request.

• Incorrect values in the Archive views in the Console UI.

• Export function will stop working for existing customers as Smartsheet rolls out their API changes over time.

• There is currently no status reporting for ShadowCopy. This will be added in a future release. For now, customers can use RunBooks to obtain notifications and status messages.

New and Updated Functions:

• ShadowCopy – the new, fast, reliable replacement for the earlier Export function. New customers should use ShadowCopy as the default “export” function to save copies outside of Smartsheet. Existing customers are encouraged to move from Export to the new ShadowCopy as soon as possible to avoid disruption and to take advantage of the improvements in speed and accessibility.

• Refreshmembers – the new standalone app that can be used to schedule updates to the Member list as needed and without having to rely on the Console to be active.

• DRP Report – the new reporting function which provides automatic and scheduled exports of key organization data in support of disaster recovery planning (DRP).

• Housekeeping Services – the new internal scheduling engine which allows for customers to automatically run functions such as ShadowCopy, Refreshmembers, and DRP Reporting automatically on pre-defined schedules.

• Archive updates – the updated Archive function is now greatly improved and stable and includes sub functions to retry operations when timeouts and other conditions are presented by the Smartsheet platform, and to better handle the deletion of many layers of folders and sheets in a fast, elegant manner. This update will be further enhanced in future release to better integrate and automate the “vault clean up” process.