Company Administrators can perform a workspace backup at any time. A backup is a good way to save all of the information from a workspace to your local drive.
Note: Backup files cannot be re-imported to a workspace in bulk. Should you need to recover information from a backup back to a workspace, the data will need to be manually uploaded back into the workspace.
To perform a backup:
- Go to the company admin menu (gear icon in the top right) and select Manage Workspaces.
- Click the drop down arrow on the far right side of the workspace you want to backup.
- Select Backup.
- Click OK on the next window to confirm.
To perform a backup of multiple workspaces at one time:
- Go to the company admin menu (gear icon in the top right) and select Manage Workspaces.
- Click the checkboxes to the left of the workspaces you wish to backup.
- From the List Actions menu at the top of the page, select Backup.
- Click OK on the next window to confirm.
A confirmation notice will appear notifying you of the request for backup. When the backup process is complete, you will receive an email with a link to download a .zip file. The email can arrive within a few minutes or take up to two hours, depending upon the size of the workspace(s) being backed up. The link in the email will only be active for 24 hours after the time it was requested.
Backup data format
- Uploaded files: Uploaded files are contained in the .zip file in their original, native format. For example, if you uploaded a .pdf document, the file will be a .pdf document in the backup .zip file. Folders and files will be displayed in the current folder and file naming structure.
- Discussions, Wiki pages and online documents: These are all exported in an HTML format. The file can be opened in any Internet browser. To restore a wiki page or online document, open the backup file in a text editor and copy the HTML code. Paste the code into the HTML tab of the WYSIWYG editor in iMeet® Central.
- Milestones and task lists: milestones and task lists are exported to the meta folder and can be opened via XML files. If you need to work with the milestones or tasks lists in Excel, we recommend exporting the projects in the workspace directly.
- Databases: Databases are included in the backup file as a CSV (comma separated values) file. You can open a CSV file with a spreadsheet program like Excel to view it in a row/column format. Database backups can be restored using the database import option.
- Spreadsheets: Spreadsheets are included in the backup as .xls or Excel formatted files. They can be restored by opening in MS Excel and then copying/pasting it into an online spreadsheet in iMeet® Central.
Large backups (more than 10GB)
Backups larger than 10GBs of data are not supported on older operating systems like Windows XP. Workspaces over 6GB may take a few tries to back up. If you encounter an error your backup may have failed due to internal server errors or timeouts related to the volume of data. We suggest trying the backup again during off-peak hours when server usage is lighter. If your workspace backup email has not arrived within the hour please contact iMeet® Central Support requesting that we reset the backup for you to start again.
Alternatives to workspace backups for files
- If you just need all the files in a specific folder, you can perform a bulk download by navigating to the folder, checking all the files you'd like to download, selecting More, and choosing Download.
- Read more about workspace backup alternatives
Error with opening .zip file from backup
If you receive an error while opening the .zip file after the download is complete, we suggest trying a third party application to open the file. Here are a few applications we recommend:
7-Zip: https://www.7-zip.org