Sign in to submit new ideas and vote
Get Started

Ensure Backup Downloads Include Attachments

I recently went through a support engagement where our backups would not download, and the root cause turned out to be A) the backups were configured to include attachments, and B) there were either too many attachments or some attachments were too large. In the end, Support offered me these ideas:

  1. Configure the backups to exclude attachments (not desirable)
  2. Split the workspace up into smaller separate workspaces (not possible with Control Center provisioned projects)
  3. Proactively monitor the size or # of attachments in the workspace (by going sheet by sheet… not realistic)

This leads to some ideas for tools that Admins of workspaces need in order to manage this proactively. Curious to see the Community talk about alternatives or any ideas not listed here:

  1. Document the thresholds of what a backup/restore can support
    1. How many is too many revisions to be included in a restore?
    2. What is the max size for a single file to be included in a restore?
    3. What is the total max size of all files combined to be included in a restore?
  2. When the weekly backup link is delivered via email, include a readout of which sheets/rows/attachments are at risk due to size or revision count
  3. When restoring a backup, for any file with multiple revisions, only restore the latest revision
  4. When restoring a backup, instead of the restore failing, download the backup without the attachments that could not be retrieved, but provide the user with an alert report of which files were excluded, so they at least know, and maybe they could download those files directly from the sheet they're attached to
  5. In Smartsheet reporting, provide a method to filter for rows with attachments
  6. Provide Workspace reporting of file sizes and revision counts
  7. In a sheet, provide an Admin with the ability to purge revisions older than X. In my scenario, with Data Shuttle loading files nightly or multiple times/day, there can be hundreds of older revisions that could be purged
  8. As a general theme, create reporting in Admin Center or proactive alerts to Plan Asset Admins so they can coach users on storage management and file bloat
4
4 votes

Idea Submitted · Last Updated

Comments

  • Rich Coles
    Rich Coles Community Champion

    Very insightful request - gets my support for sure. I had not considered those implications until now, and they are things most of us won't consider until we suddenly need them and then discover our back-ups are not as we expected.

    A great reminder to test back-ups - invariably I am confident knowing the back-up is there in case I need it, but would be pretty devastated to discover I needed it in anger and couldn't download it

    Rich Coles

    Prodactive | Smartsheet-aligned Platinum partners

    Check out our Smartsheet-dedicated YouTube channel for tips, tricks and inspiration