Salesforce Metadata Backup

GRAX supports periodic backup of all possible metadata objects from Salesforce. GRAX stores all versions of your metadata in the customer-owned storage solution (S3, Azure etc).

Configuration Setup

To enable metadata backup, simply select a backup interval in the General Settings tab. GRAX recommends backing up your metadata no more frequently than daily.

Incremental Metadata Backup

You can enable incremental metadata backup by selecting the only backup changed metadata files option within the General Settings tab of the Settings page.

The frequency of metadata backup will stay the same as the interval previously set, but backup will only occur for changed metadata files while this is enabled.

Review Storage Folder

Once the metadata backup job completes, you can go into the storage provider you have set up to use with GRAX (S3, Azure etc) and navigate to the following path to see all the metadata files:

Amazon S3 > Vandelay Industries Prod Bucket > grax > audittrail > salesforce > Org ID of Salesforce Environment > metadata >

Above directory houses the Metadata backups that are occurring on a scheduled basis

You can see folders for each metadata component

You can see some sample metadata folders here. When you drill into each folder you are able to download the metadata files.

Open Metadata File in Preferred Editor

You may now want to review various pieces of metadata, compare to previous versions, etc. To do that we recommend downloading the metadata folder locally and opening in the editor of your choice (for example Visual Studio). This is the best way to interact with the metadata.

Download the metadata folder/files locally and open using your preferred editor.

Restore Considerations

To restore certain metadata components and deploy to your Salesforce environment, please have your Salesforce administrator/developers/vendor follow the established change management procedures you have in place. Companies use different tools and methods to deploy metadata; GRAX is agnostic to how you want to deploy the metadata that is backed up to your storage bucket.

Appendix

Supported Metadata Types

GRAX supports backing up any of the following metadata types below. Please note that there may be restrictions with archiving and restoring certain metadata types, even if they are supported for back up. For more information on each, please refer here.

GRAX Supported Metadata Types

AccountRelationshipShareRule
ActionLinkGroupTemplate
ApexClass
ApexComponent
ApexPage
ApexTrigger
AppMenu
ApprovalProcess
ArticleType
AssignmentRules
Audience
AuraDefinitionBundle
AuthProvider
AutoResponseRules
BaseSharingRule
Bot
BrandingSet
CallCenter
Certificate
CleanDataService
CMSConnectSource
Community (Zone)
CommunityTemplateDefinition
CommunityThemeDefinition
CompactLayout
ConnectedApp
ContentAsset
CorsWhitelistOrigin
CriteriaBasedSharingRule
Custom Metadata Types (CustomObject)
CustomApplication
CustomApplicationComponent
CustomFeedFilter
CustomHelpMenuSection
CustomLabels
CustomMetadata
CustomObjectTranslation
CustomPageWebLink
CustomPermission
CustomSite
CustomTab
DataCategoryGroup
DelegateGroup
DuplicateRule
EclairGeoData
EntitlementProcess
EntitlementTemplate
EventDelivery
EventSubscription
ExternalDataSource
ExternalServiceRegistration
FeatureParameterBoolean
FeatureParameterDate
FeatureParameterInteger
FieldSet
FlexiPage
Flow
FlowCategory
FlowDefinition
GlobalValueSet
GlobalValueSetTranslation
Group
HomePageComponent
HomePageLayout
InstalledPackage
KeywordList
Layout
LightningBolt
LightningComponentBundle
LightningExperienceTheme
ListView
LiveChatAgentConfig
LiveChatButton
LiveChatDeployment
LiveChatSensitiveDataRule
ManagedTopics
MatchingRule
MilestoneType
MlDomain (Beta)
ModerationRule
NamedCredential
Network
NetworkBranding
Next
OwnerSharingRule
PathAssistant
PermissionSet
PlatformCachePartition
Portal
PostTemplate
PresenceDeclineReason
PresenceUserConfig
Previous
Profile
ProfilePasswordPolicy
ProfileSessionSetting
Queue
QueueRoutingConfig
QuickAction
RecommendationStrategy
RecordActionDeployment
ReportType
Role
SamlSsoConfig
Scontrol
ServiceChannel
ServicePresenceStatus
SharingRules
SharingSet
SiteDotCom
Skill
StandardValueSetTranslation
StaticResource
SynonymDictionary
Territory
Territory2
Territory2Model
Territory2Rule
Territory2Type
TopicsForObjects
TransactionSecurityPolicy
Translations
WaveApplication
WaveDashboard
WaveDataflow
WaveDataset
WaveLens
WaveTemplateBundle
WaveXmd
Workflow

API Considerations

The metadata time machine process uses Salesforce API calls; there is 1 API call per sObject to download all the standard and custom object metadata. There is additionally 1 API call for every other metadata component type listed above.