Get Started with Backup & Recover
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the concept of shared responsibility in cloud data management.
- Identify common data loss scenarios within Salesforce and their potential business impact.
- Describe how Backup & Recover provides a solution for Salesforce data protection.
- Recognize the key benefits of using Backup & Recover.
This module focuses on the backup functionality of the Backup & Recover solution. The recover features will be covered in a separate module.
The Challenge of Data Protection in Salesforce
Nina Brown starts her Monday morning as she always does: reviewing notifications and preparing for the week ahead. As the Salesforce Administrator at Cloudy College, a growing community college with over 15,000 students, Nina manages their entire Salesforce instance, which houses critical student data, enrollment information, financial aid records, and more.
While scanning her inbox, Nina notices a frantic email from the Admissions team. Apparently, a new team member attempted to streamline records by running a mass update, but accidentally overwrote hundreds of prospective student statuses in the process. The team needs those original values restored immediately, as recruitment events are scheduled for the coming weekend.
Nina's heart sinks. She knows Salesforce provides certain data protection capabilities, but she's unsure if she can recover the specific data that was overwritten, especially in the timeframe required. This situation highlights a critical aspect of cloud data management that many organizations overlook: the concept of shared responsibility.
Understanding Shared Responsibility in Cloud Data Management
When you use cloud platforms like Salesforce, it's important to understand the shared responsibility model. This model defines which security and data protection responsibilities belong to the cloud provider and which responsibilities belong to you, the customer.
In a shared responsibility model, Salesforce takes on the responsibility of protecting the infrastructure that runs its services. This includes the security and availability of the platform itself. Salesforce ensures the underlying systems are robust and reliable.
As the customer, you are responsible for protecting the data you put into Salesforce. This includes the records you create, the files you upload, your metadata—including the business meaning of specific fields and how objects interact within your operational workflows and processes—and all of your customizations. Your responsibilities include user access management, data governance, protection against accidental or malicious user actions, backup, and recovery of specific data. Think of it like a secure building. Salesforce is responsible for the gated entrance and clean, functioning public amenities, and you are responsible for your private apartment in which you store your valuable assets—your data. Salesforce provides the secure space, but you are responsible for ensuring your assets within that space are safe and recoverable.
Many Salesforce customers mistakenly believe that their data is fully protected against all scenarios, when in fact, they bear significant responsibility for data protection. While Salesforce does provide limited data recovery options through features like the Recycle Bin and weekly exports, these have important limitations.
- The Recycle Bin only retains deleted records for a limited time and doesn't help with record changes or data corruption.
- Weekly exports are manual, point-in-time snapshots and lack automated recovery tools.
These limitations also include a lack of granularity for specific recovery scenarios, like restoring related records from other objects or reverting metadata to pre-corruption states.
Common Data Loss Scenarios and Their Business Impact
Nina's situation with the overwritten student statuses is just one of many data loss scenarios that organizations face. Common scenarios include:
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Accidental Deletion or Modification: Users with appropriate permissions can inadvertently delete or modify critical data.
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Failed Integrations: When implementing new integrations, errors can result in data corruption or loss.
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Malicious Activity: Disgruntled employees or bad actors who gain access can intentionally delete or corrupt data.
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Application Errors: Bugs in custom code, third-party applications, or automation tools can cause unexpected data modifications.
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Data Corruption During Imports: Large data imports can sometimes fail partially, leaving data in an inconsistent state.
The business impacts of these scenarios can be severe. For Cloudy College, lost prospect data means potential students may never receive follow-up communications, directly impacting enrollment numbers and revenue. Missing financial aid information could delay processing for students, affecting enrollment decisions and the college's reputation. Corrupted course catalog data might create scheduling conflicts or prevent students from registering for required classes.
The most common business impacts of data loss include the following.
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Financial Losses: Downtime, lost productivity, the loss of important data such as leads and opportunities, and the cost of trying to recover data manually can significantly impact your organization's bottom line.
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Reputational Damage: Losing critical customer or constituent data can erode trust and damage your organization's reputation.
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Compliance Violations: Many regulatory bodies require organizations to have adequate data protection measures in place. Losing data could lead to fines and legal repercussions.
Each of these scenarios represents not just a technical challenge, but also a significant business risk that can affect business continuity and operations, compliance, customer satisfaction, and ultimately, the bottom line.
Introducing Backup & Recover: A Comprehensive Solution
After experiencing several stressful recovery situations, Nina convinced Cloudy College to implement Salesforce Backup & Recover, a solution that provides comprehensive data protection specifically designed for Salesforce environments. Now, instead of panicking about the overwritten student statuses, Nina simply logs into the Backup & Recover dashboard.
Within minutes, she's able to:
- Identify the exact time before the mass update occurred for an impacted object.
- Select the specific records that were affected.
- Restore the overwritten field values without affecting other updates.
- Verify that the restoration was successful.
- Set up alerts to proactively notify her of changes to specific objects.
Now, the Admissions team can proceed with their recruitment events as planned.
Key Benefits of Backup & Recover
Backup & Recover offers several advantages.
For Nina at Cloudy College, these benefits translate into peace of mind, knowing that regardless of what happens—whether it's user error, a problematic integration, or any other data issue—she can quickly recover the exact data needed with minimal disruption to the college's operations.
Nina now understands that relying solely on Salesforce's native platform features leaves significant gaps in her overall data security strategy and that Cloudy College has a shared responsibility to take proactive steps to protect their Salesforce data. However, before creating her first backup, she needs to understand all of the considerations and user settings required to meet her organization's specific backup needs.