How to Backup Your Salesforce Data

OwnBackup is committed to helping our communities in any way we can. We understand that this is a challenging situation and there are lots of things you may be concerned about. At OwnBackup, we are doing everything possible to make sure your Salesforce data isn’t one of them. 

This is part one of a five-part series on methods for backing up your Salesforce data.

Salesforce is a secure place to house and manage data, but it has limitations when it comes to data backup and recovery. There are DIY options for backing up and recovering Salesforce data, but these can be time-consuming and less secure. Plus, the costs of allowing your company data to get deleted or corrupted in the first place can add up.

Salesforce replicates your live environment in real time, which means that any records you delete (accidentally or not) will no longer be available to recover. This is great for Salesforce's own uptime and availability, not great for your company's backup and recovery.

Salesforce recently announced that they will be retiring their last-resort data recovery service, effective July 31, 2020 because it has not met their high standards of customer success and trust. For customers who aren’t proactively backing up their data, Salesforce currently offers this last resort Data Recovery service. However, at a cost of over $10,000 and a 6-8 week recovery time this service is not an adequate option for many customers. The upcoming retiring of this last resort Data Recovery service is an excellent opportunity to remember that a proactive backup and recovery has always been a required and recommended best practice. 

Salesforce provides you with a recycle bin, but this also has numerous restrictions. Your deleted data is held in the recycle bin for 15 days. If your recycle bin is full, deleted data is permanently deleted. Also, users can delete their own recycle bin data, so your data won’t be safe against malicious users.

There are actually several ways to backup your Salesforce data using standard Salesforce functionality. Each have their own benefits and limitations that admins should be aware of when deciding on a backup and recovery strategy. The list includes the following in no particular order.

1. Salesforce Weekly Export and Reports
2. Data Loader
3. Full Sandbox
4. DIY Salesforce API Backup
5. Integration to On-Premise SQL Database

Data loss happens, but it is avoidable. Salesforce recommends working with a “partner backup solution that can be found on the AppExchange,” like OwnBackup. With OwnBackup, you can schedule full Org backups, including metadata, multiple times per day.

Restoring your data is just as simple. Find and isolate deleted/corrupted data, restore parent/child relationships, and restore only the corrupted data, leaving everything else intact.

Next: Read Part Two: 

Backing Up Your Data Using Salesforce Weekly Export and Report Exports