The following article will provide a guideline on how to log-in to CloudAlly and prepare your backup tasks. Please read it carefully.


This Guide is only for Accounts with over 1000 mailboxes. If you have less than 1000 mailboxes please see our onboarding guide here.


Our Support team are available to help you:

  • You can book a deployment call with them here. 
  • Support contact details can be found here.


If you have not already got access to a CloudAlly account, please request a trial here. 


View CloudAlly Data Sheets & Other Resources here.


Stage 1 - Creating backup service accounts 


To begin, it is recommended to create a separate backup service account for each O365 service, this will provide better isolation for security. If you are only going to be using Exchange backup the other accounts are not necessary.
Each backup service account should be licensed, but this is not required in all situations. The accounts should be set up as follows: 


1 - Exchange Backup Account             

  • Set up a Global Admin account with a name such as exchange_backup@domain.com. This can be changed to an Exchange Admin account once the initial backup task is registered.
  • A licensed account is recommended, but not required unless you will be backing up Public Folders.     

2 - Sharepoint Backup Account

  • Create a backup services account with SharePoint Admin rights. Use a name such as sharepoint_backup@domain.com.
  • This account should be licensed                  


3 - OneDrive Backup Account

  • Create a backup services account with SharePoint Admin rights. Use a name such as onedrive_backup@domain.com.
  • This account should be licensed                            


4 - Groups/Teams Backup Account       

  • Create a backup services account with Teams Admin rights. Use a name such as teams_backup@domain.com.
  • This account should be licensed.




Stage 2 - Logging into backup service


Once you have received your account details, log in to your CloudAlly account here.


Stage 3 - Creating a new backup task for Exchange


  1. Once signed in to your CloudAlly account, click the Homepage option in the navigation panel.
  2. On the Homepage, click the service you wish to provision a backup task for.
  3. Fill in the name of the task, this will be used for notifications and reports.
  4. You will see OAuth based authorization, click Authenticate to start the process of granting access. You will be directed to the Microsoft sign-in page. Log in to your Global Admin backup account.


Stage 4 - Configuring the backup task for Exchange


  1. On the Homepage a new backup has been created, click the backup to configure its settings.
  2. The connected bar shows that connection has been successful to Exchange. 
  3. By default, the “Index all data for Search” option is selected, which enables CloudAlly to provide you with its granular search and restore functionality. In the process, your data is temporarily decrypted for a brief period of time, and then re-encrypted once the index is built. If this goes against your company policy and you would like to disable automatic indexing, please contact support@constantedge.com.
  4. In the Microsoft Exchange system, accounts can have an “Unlicensed” status (not to be confused with “Unlicensed product”). These can be the external accounts invited by users with an active license, accounts automatically generated for shared file storage, etc. You can find the license status of an account using the Admin Center. Check Backup Unlicensed accounts if you want CloudAlly to backup such accounts.
  5. Backups are automatically archived when an entire site is deleted.The Retain auto-archived backups option allows you to retain them for a specified number of days, after which they will be deleted. Otherwise, the backups will be retained indefinitely.                                                     
  6. The Automatically activate new mailboxes option instructs the system to detect new mailboxes, and begin backing them up automatically.      
                                                       
    

Stage 6 - Configuring SharePoint, OneDrive & Teams

 
SharePoint         
  • Click on "Add Backup Task",, and then click on SharePoint 
  • Enter the backup task name, enter the root URL such as “yourdomain.sharepoint.com”, select the “OAuth” option, click “Start” and approve the permissions.
  • The system will then auto-discover and display all SharePoint sites.
  • DO NOT ACTIVATE ANY BACKUPS AT THIS TIME.

OneDrive                                               
  • Click on "Add Backup Task",, and then click on OneDrive                            
  • Enter the backup task name, enter the root URL such as “yourdomain- my.sharepoint.com”, select the “OAuth” option, click “Start” and approve the permissions.                               
  • The system will then auto-discover and display all OneDrive sites. 
  • DO NOT ACTIVATE ANY BACKUPS AT THIS TIME.       
 
Groups/Teams            
  • Click on "Add Backup Task", and then click Groups / Teams
  • Enter the backup task name, select the “OAuth” option, click “Start” and approve the permissions.     
  • The system will then auto-discover and display all Groups and Teams.                                      
  • DO NOT ACTIVATE ANY BACKUPS AT THIS TIME. 
                                                                                    

Stage 7 - Notify the team


Any account with over 1000 users must follow the Enterprise onboarding process. Our Team needs to manually activate the backups to minimize the Microsoft API throttling.


Contact support@constantedge.com to schedule an onboarding call to get these backups enabled. Once this is complete CloudAlly will submit the initial backup tasks in batches on a daily basis. We will monitor the daily status & keep you informed on the progress.