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How to Recover a deleted Item in Office 365

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How to Recover a deleted Item in Office 365

(and) Why Microsoft Recycle Bin Is Not a Backup Option

It is very easy to select a group of emails to discard only to discover later you have clicked on one that you needed to keep. Sometimes you catch it immediately and can quickly reverse what you just did. Sometimes, you don’t notice it is gone for a few days, maybe even weeks. This guide shows you how to recover deleted items in Office 365 and why their system is quite limiting.

Using Recycle Bin

Most Microsoft users are familiar with the recycle bin, also known as the deleted items folder. This temporary holding destination stores data deleted from the account for 30 days or the time limit set by the administrator. During this time, if the bin is not emptied by the user, how to recover a deleted item in Office 365, is simple.

  1. Click the Deleted Items folder
  2. Find the file you need
  3. Right-click the document, select Move and Inbox to return the file.

If you are using an Outlook program on your computer, instead of accessing Office 365 exchange directly from the web app, you must select Move and then Other Folders before choosing Inbox.

In addition to retrieving deleted messages and attachments, use the deleted items folder to retrieve contacts, events, or tasks. The steps are the same, the only difference is instead of moving data to your inbox, choose contacts, calendar, or tasks for appropriate placement.

Using Recoverable Items Folder

By default, Microsoft Exchange purges the Deleted Items folder every 30 days. If it has been more than a month since you deleted the file, you no longer have the option to recover it from the deleted items folder. However, Microsoft does offer a limited recovery option in their Recoverable Items folder.

To recover items from the Recoverable Items folder

  1. Right-click Deleted Items and select Recover deleted items from the menu
  2. Search for the file you wish to recover
  3. Select file and choose Recover

Unlike recovering from the recycle bin, these files automatically return to their default location, i.e. messages go to the user’s inbox, events go to the calendar and so forth.

Items only remain in the Recoverable Items folder for 14 days. After this time, the files are no longer accessible by you. In some cases, the Office 365 administrator may have access to deleted files after the retention period.

Limitations of Relying on Office 365 Exchange

While Microsoft’s built in recovery may seem like enough, the limitations offered make it a less than desirable choice for long term retrieval. Some of these limitations include:

Why Microsoft Recycle Bin Is Not a Backup Option

  • Limited retention time. The deleted items folder only retains files for 30 days, the recoverable items folder only holds files for 14 days.
  • Manual deletion can affect recovery. Users can empty deleted items folders or purge recoverable items folders. If this happens, reclaiming lost files is impossible.
  • Limited storage. Most Office 365 email accounts have a limit of 50GB, including data in the recycle bin. Users with an Enterprise E3 or E5 service have a limit of 100GB.
  • Recovery limited to original user. If a user deletes a file and another user needs that message, there is no way to transfer it directly to the second user. First, you restore it to the original user and that user must send it to the new person. Not a difficult process, but a frustrating middle step for all involved.

There is a better way to ensure your Office 365 files remain retrievable.

Office 365 Recovery Solutions

Microsoft’s recycle bin is not a true backup solution. It’s intended use is to help you recover items accidentally deleted within a short time frame. CloudAlly is a permanent back up option that gives you full access to information from your Office 365 account, regardless of when it may have been removed.

Files stored within CloudAlly from a connected Office 365 account, remain indefinitely. There is no method for end users to access their storage and manually alter or delete data. Administrators can, however, removed user accounts from backup if necessary.

Unlike the Office 365 deleted items folder, CloudAlly allows you to recover messages, events, contacts, and tasks from any period, not just the last 30 days. Administrators have the option of restoring messages back to the original owner, restore to a new user, or export the file in a compatible PST format.

How to recover a deleted item in Office 365 from CloudAlly is very simple. After logging into the CloudAlly account, navigate to the Restore and Download page by selecting the link on the left side of the screen.

  1. Select the account from which you need to restore data. Then select the user.
  2. If you want to search for a specific email, contact, event, or task, choose Via Item Search.
  3. Select the type of file.
  4. Fill in the search bar with one of the following:
    1. Email sender
    2. Email subject
    3. Contact name
    4. Even title
    5. Task title
  5. Click Search
  6. Select the required file from the list and click Restore.
  7. If you wish to restore this item to a different use, change the email address in the Restore box to the appropriate user email. Otherwise, leave the address as is and click restore.

You can also choose to download the files instead. You can export mail files as Outlook compatible PST format or standard EML, VCF, or ICS.

Once complete, the you receive an email informing you of the restored item.

View this video demo on: How to recover deleted items in Office 365

Office 365 does not recommend relying solely on the recycle bin for backup support. Instead, you need to have a third-party automated backup solution in place to ensure you never lose an important email or attachment. CloudAlly’s Office 365 backup service runs automatically to save valuable information daily. Seamlessly restore missing messages, contacts, or events with just a few clicks of a mouse. Give us a try for 15 days free.

Office 365 administrator

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Getting started – Office 365 administrator

Best Practice Guide: For the Office 365 beginner admin.

office 365 administratorAfter you adopt Microsoft’s Office 365 as part of your company’s operations, you have to choose an administrator to run the day-to-day. As an Office 365 administrator, it’s your job to know what your employees are doing in Office 365 each day, answer any questions about the software, and ensure that it continues to run smoothly within your organization. It’s a job that has a lot of moving pieces, and it can be hard to keep up to date.

By following these Office 365 administrator best practices and using some of the tools that we recommend, you can ensure that you stay on top of everything.

  1. Utilize – Office 365 Administrator – Usage Reports

As an Office 365 administrator, it is extremely important to know how your users are interacting with Office 365. That’s where Activity Reports are beyond helpful. These varied reports can tell you exactly what each user is up to within their account and within your organization as a whole.

Out of all the reports, you’ll most want to pay attention to Email Activity, OneDrive for Business usage, and SharePoint activity. These reports provide you with an activity overview while also allowing you to drill down into more granular insights about the activities specific to each product.

In particular, the Email Activity report lets you determine trends in the number of emails sent and received by your users. This will help you determine if there are unauthorized users or if someone has been using one of your Office 365 email addresses for personal use or to steal data. For OneDrive and SharePoint, the reports let you see if there’s a spike in data stored or deleted that could indicate unauthorized access or inappropriate user usage. The key is to investigate any strange activities.

Take a look at this video by Microsoft Ignite about the new Office 365 usage reporting to learn more about what you can do.

  1. Become and Expert on Office 365

Another Office 365 administrator job is to be the touch point for your entire organization. Your employees might expect you to know everything about the product, including how to navigate it and use all the little-known features, which can be found in this tips and tricks video.

However, there’s also a specific community just for Office 365 administrators to communicate with each other: the Microsoft Tech Community. This is a public forum that allows you to connect with other administrators to ask questions and get answers about how to accomplish a variety of Office 365 administrator tasks. It’s an invaluable tool for helping you keep up with best practices.

  1. Protect Your Office 365 Data

Ultimately, the best Office 365 administrator tool that you have in your pocket is a backup and restore solution such as CloudAlly. This is because Office 365 doesn’t protect you from malicious activity, data corruption, or empty recycle bins, all of which can cause you to permanently lose data with no chance of recovery. Eventually you’re going to lose data—employees make errors—but an automatic daily backup with a secure, third-party solution can keep all of your critical data safe.

CloudAlly’s Office 365 backup is incredibly simple to setup and offers unlimited storage for all your mail, calendars, contacts, tasks, as well as your SharePoint team sites, public sites, private site collections, and OneDrive for Business sites. No matter if you face an error or an attack, CloudAlly can keep you safe and as an Office 365 administrator, that’s your number one goal.

Being an effective Office 365 administrator doesn’t have to feel like an impossible task. All it takes are a few tools and best practices to provide your organization with everything it needs.

MS Office 365 Backup Video

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Introducing Our Office 365 Exchange Backup Demo Video

Take control of your Office 365 Exchange data with CloudAlly. Our automated daily backup services ensure that you always have access to your data and that you can restore and recover your data at any point and from any point in time.

Our backup services are compatible with all Office 365 plans and features including Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks. It’s simple and easy to backup your Office 365 data with CloudAlly, and our newest demo video we’ll show you exactly how uncomplicated the process is.

About Our Office 365 Backup Video Demo Video

Everyone always claims that their software is “easy” and “simple” and “requires little to now time to set up.” The problem is that many of these claims are false, but you don’t realize you’ve been duped until you’ve made the commitment.

That’s why we’ve decided to prove how convenient it is to use CloudAlly as your Office 365 backup and restore solution. We’re removing the guesswork and offering complete transparency with our latest demo video.

Not only will we walk you through the easy steps to activate your backup, but we’ll show you how it works in real-time, on a real account. This isn’t a demo with a “sample” system. This is CloudAlly at work, in real life.

Activating your Office 365 Exchange backup on your CloudAlly account can be completed in just a few steps. All you need is access to a computer and your CloudAlly login information. From there, you just follow the step-by-step activation process that we’ve laid out for you.

In this two-and-a-half-minute video, you’ll learn how to set up our Office 365 Exchange backup and restore solution like an expert. We cover everything from:

  • Correctly setting up your application impersonation using OAuth or Global Admin.
  • Choosing which accounts you’d like to backup (you can choose to backup each account and/or user individually or select all for a quick backup of every Office 365 user including all shared and public folders).
  • Checking the appropriate backup preferences including “automatically detect and activate new accounts,” scheduling, etc.
  • Picking a friendly name for each backup
  • And indexing your archived data.

And if you’re still concerned about using CloudAlly’s Office 365 Exchange backup solution, don’t forget, we have a risk free 15-day trial available! We want to show you how easy it is to protect your data from all threats.

Don’t choose software to protect your data that you haven’t seen in action. Choose CloudAlly as your Office 365 backup and restore solution, and rest easy knowing that you’ve already seen how it works and don’t have to worry about hidden processes or errors.

When you’re ready to know more, contact CloudAlly by calling +1.917.338.0385 or filling out our Contact Form. We can’t wait to work with you to keep your Office 365 Exchange data safe and sound.

MSPs – Boost Office 365 Migration to Cloud Revenue by Including Cloud Backup

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Office 365 migration to cloud, for MSPs

In today’s high-tech marketplace there are more MSP businesses than ever, which means that it’s more difficult than ever before to stand out in the space and to increase your revenue. As such, it’s vitally important for MSPs to shift their business models to include data protection. By adding a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution to your: Office 365 migration to cloud plan, you can increase your revenue but 15% per job.

Let’s talk about why this is so important.

The Importance of Data Protection

“Data is not just an important part of business—many firms consider it to be their most critical asset,” revealed a 2015 CompTIA 2015 Outlook research report.

No matter if your main customers are multi-national corporations or small- and medium-sized businesses data is what makes the wheels turn. By offering data protection, you’ll see ripple effects that increase your revenue, grow your business, and improve your customer and supplier relationships. The reason why is because data protection safeguards your customers’ data everywhere it lives, meaning that, suddenly, you’re not just an MSP business, you’re a partner in helping your customers navigate and succeed in the digital age where data is on premise, in virtual environments, in the cloud, and within third-party SaaS applications.

Data Protection as an MSP Cornerstone

Did you know? 22% of IT decision makers say that they are or will be employing cloud as part of their backup process, according to Enterprise Strategy Group, 2015.

The truth is that you cannot be an effective MSP business offering Office 365 migration to cloud services without a way to protect your customer’s data. MSPs that don’t offer a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution only partly service their customers. That’s why it’s vital to make data protection—such as CloudAlly offers—an integral part of your business.

Backup and disaster recovery is a key component every MSP business. Without it, what are you managing? Imagine if your customer goes down and loses connection to their data during your Office 365 migration to cloud service. If you don’t have a data protection strategy in place, you’ll be fighting a batter with no solution to offer. The reality of the situation is that if you’re an MSP business, your customers are going to put you on the hook to recover their data if they suffer a loss. So, by having a cloud-to-cloud backup plan already in place, you ensure you’re for any eventuality.

The Benefits of Adding Data protection to Your MSP Business

Adding data protection to your MSP business isn’t just about making sure you can compete, there are a myriad of benefits that will directly impact your bottom line. Offering your customers a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution will end up playing a large role in your success, and here’s how.

1. Increased Customer Referrals

Your customers know the value of data to their business. They know that 47% of enterprises have lost data in the cloud and had to restore their information from backups and that those losses can cost thousands of dollars and hundreds of staff-hours if they’re unprepared. By offering data protection as part of your Office 365 migration to cloud bundle, you provide a new “entry point” for potential customers.

Customers in pain want to hire companies that offer a total solution to their issue. They don’t want to have to go to five different businesses to find what they want and need; they want a one-stop shop that fulfills all their needs. By delivering the highest level of service—including offering a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution—you’ll demonstrate your willingness to go “above and beyond” for every customer, which will increase the likelihood that you’ll be recommended to other businesses down the road.

2. Deeper Customer Relationships

You won’t receive additional customer referrals unless you first build a deeper relationship with your current customers. The essence of the MSP and customer relationship is service, and we’re not just talking about hardware and software services. The success of your MSP business is based on your customer service orientation. An exceptional customer service orientation means more frequent and better customer communication and more solutions to potential pain points.

By offering a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution as part of your Office 365 migration to cloud service, you increase the confidence your customer has in what you offer. Think about it this way, what happens if your customer goes down and you can’t get them back up? In most cases, you’ve violated the trust your customer has placed in you, and they’ll cancel their contract and never give you another opportunity to work with them again. What’s worse is that that customer will probably share their bad experience with anyone who will listen.

That’s why data protection is so important. It’s a client data safeguard that protects both you and your customer from potentially dire consequences, and that customer service investment directly impacts your bottom line. When you build deeper relationships with your customers, you can charge higher rates, gain more business, and build your reputation.

3. Recurring Revenue

Already, many MSP businesses have developed recurring-revenue models, but that model is only possible if you have a service that someone is will to pay for month-over-month. Data protection is a linchpin for recurring-revenue models. Customers will be far more willing to pay you a fee every month if you give them the confidence to believe that their data and infrastructure will always be available.

And another benefit of the recurring-revenue model is that it means you can lower the price barrier to entry for your Office 365 migration to cloud customers. If you know you can charge a monthly fee for backup, recovery, and business continuity, then you can make it easier for your customers to acquire your service in the first place.

4. Less Work

The easiest way to be more profitable is to do less work. When you purchase CloudAlly’s backup and recovery solution, you don’t have to add any extra work to your own staff yet you increase your reliability and the confidence your customer has in your business.

CloudAlly allows you to manage all of your customers from a single account. This means that you can activate backups for all users with a single click, and even set auto-detect options for new users. And if you have to perform a restore, CloudAlly offers non-destructive restores from any point in time.

When you partner with CloudAlly, you gain the support of a vendor that understands and supports your need to resolve all of your customer issues clearly and quickly. Once your customers have signed up, you can sit back and relax and allow CloudAlly to worry about protecting all the necessary data.

Conclusion

Cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery is no longer just a “nice thing to have” when it comes to MSPs and the Office 365 migration to cloud service. It’s a necessary cornerstone of your business. If you lose your customer’s data, you’ll lose all their business forever, and they’ll tell their friends to avoid you as well.

Boost your profits, and protect your business and keep your customers happier by becoming a CloudAlly partner today.

Contact Us about how to add our cloud backup solution to your services and increase your profits.

Office 365 backup is bare without essentials from CloudAlly

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Part I – Deficiencies with existing default solutions

Office 365 cloud backup

Microsoft Office 365 provides businesses with a simple to use interface where employees can collaborate on files from anywhere at any time. Backing up these files without the addition of CloudAlly’s Online Backup tools, however, is severely restricted. Users are forced to use the built-in tools of the recycle bin or the Exchange Online Archiving tool.

While these Office 365 data backup options have their uses, they are limited in their disaster recovery abilities. So, what about your Office 365 cloud backup?

Did you know ? Recycle Bins Are Not Recovery Options

A lot of people throw items in the recycle bin and then allow it to sit there until they are certain the data is no longer needed. By not hard deleting the file, they feel confident restoration is possible should an issue arise.
However, the recycle bin is not designed to be a holding place for Office 365 backups. The design is simply a place to put rubbish.

  • Recycle bins are only good for short-term recovery which can be restored by the user. Unlike other programs, there is no file level or mailbox level restoration option. Each document must be hard restored by locating it in the bin, selecting it, and choosing restore. The files are irretrievable once the user purges files from the recycle bin.
  • Recycle bins should not be used to backup the mailbox for Office 365. Information from deactivated mailboxes remains for 30 days. After that time, the system permanently deletes all messages.

Unlike other Office 365 backup solutions, there is no charge to have a recycle bin. Every Office 365 account includes a recycle bin. However, it is not designed to be a long-term option to protect data from loss or corruption.

Exchange Online Archiving Offers Slightly More Protection
When comparing to the general recycle bin, the Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) feature does offer greater protection. Microsoft Office 365 data backup located in the EOA is on their redundant servers offering some protection against loss and corruption. Users with an E2 or E3 plan have the EOA included in their service plans. All other accounts must pay an additional $3 per month per user.

Recoverable items folders are limited to 100 GB. However, once you reach the storage limit, you may not be able to permanently deleted items, empty the deleted items folder or use the versioning process.

Holds must be activated by the administrator for each employee, as they are not there by default. An administrator must remove a hold before deletion of any affected mailbox.

The best EOA security is an in-place hold. The hold is a legal protection for data needed for discovery as it preserves information.

In-place holds are indefinite and remain in place until canceled. However, there are no true recovery options for an in-place litigation hold. The data moves into a recoverable item folder. The information remains in the folder until one of two situations arise: the administrator removes the data or the hold time expires.

Export of data for Office 365 email backup is limited to an Outlook compatible .pst file. You can also create a search query to run discovery on documents stored within the hold folder. The search results can be exported to a .pst file as well. However, this is as close to an official backup for exchange online for Office 365 the service provides.

All in-place holds require support eDiscovery for litigation. There may be other legal requirements that your company may need to follow. However, these requirements and eDiscovery support may not provide the recovery of information due to corruption or loss.

EOA also offers an in-place archive as an alternative solution to a hold. An In-place archive is slightly different. Unlike with the hold, the archiving feature has an unlimited storage option for those using the Office 365 E3 plan. Other plans have a limit of 50 GB per user, which is sufficient. Users reaching this limit must delete files to archive more data.
Each user has an archival mailbox for older messages. Like all other mailboxes, there is a recoverable items folder for deleted emails. However, that is the extent of the recovery options for an archive.

In our next blog post; How Cloudally completes the needed slack – we’ll show you how CloudAlly can help you protect your data from accidental deletion. Recycle bin and EOA are limited in what they can offer as far as defense against malware and loss. You can get more coverage by using our automated Office 365 backup service.

Subscribe to our next blog post …

The Foundation of a Successful Office 365 Migration

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Office 365 Backup and Restore – Migration Plan

Migrating to Office 365 has become common practice. Businesses large and small have been attracted to the online environment as a way to save money, increase efficiency, and improve business continuity. The issue is that too many organizations take Office 365 migration lightly and don’t include such basic foundational items as: Office 365 backup and restore.

Office 365 migrations are not simple cookie-cutter processes. To do it correctly requires experience in Exchange, Office 365, archives, security, DNS, storage, firewalls, proxies, networking, backups, and more. And with so many different products in the Microsoft Office 365 Suite, comprehensively covering the entire migration process can be a challenge.

So, what makes a successful Office 365 migration to cloud? It’s all about having a solid foundation and avoiding these common pitfalls.

4 Tips for Successful Office 365 Migration

1. Choose an Appropriate Migration Method

There are four different migration methods that companies can choose from, and each method has its pros and cons. For example, there’s a lot of hype surrounding Exchange Server migrations to Office 365, stating that it can be completed in six easy steps. But the reality is that only the smallest organizations can get away with such a simplified migrations. The key to success is choosing the right method for your business.

  • Cut-over Migration: This is considered the easiest of all migration methods. Basically, it transfers all mailboxes, users, contacts, and mail groups to Office 365 in one fell swoop. The downside to this migration type is that it’s limited. It works best for small business owners because cutover migrations can only handle up to 1,000 mailboxes and may take several days to complete.
  • Hybrid Migration: This is a much more complicated migration method and involves moving only some on-premise capabilities to Office 365 while leaving the rest to be managed on-location. The biggest difficult with this migration type is deciding what should be transferred and strategically planning for it. For example, with a hybrid migration you can decide to keep your SharePoint data in-house while moving your mailboxes online.
  • Staged Migration: This migration works best for those companies who can’t afford any downtime and want to opt into only migrating a few resources at a time. Just like the cut-over migration, staged migration is limited to fewer than 1,000 mailboxes, but there is little disruption for users.
  • Third-Party Migrations: The final migration approach, and our recommendation, is to use a data migration expert. Many cloud partners have their own Office 365 tools with a dedicated team of experts to ensure the migration goes as smoothly as possible.

1. Understand Office 365 Limitations

There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to Office 365 migration plans. That’s because every business has different needs, and require you to perform due diligence on what Office 365 can handle before you move forward.

For example, Office 365 offers a variety of support plans and they were not all created equal. If you’re going hybrid, it’s essential that you have a support plan in place that supports Azure Active Directory Synchronization. The solution:

Another limitation is the inability to keep legacy archive solutions on-premise. The reality is that when you move your mailboxes to the cloud, you break the stubs and so users are unable to access archived email. The solution is to use your own third-party Office 365 backup and restore archive solution to handle the export, rehydration, and upload process. That’s where CloudAlly comes in handy. With the click of a button, we make it easy to create a zip download containing Outlook compatible PST format.

And if you choose the hybrid migration method, you need to understand the differences between the Exchange environments. If you have an Exchange 2007/2010 environment set up, then you’ll need at least one Exchange 2013 Client Access and Mailbox server ready to run the Hybrid Configuration wizard. And if your business doesn’t have Exchange 2013, you’ll have to update before going hybrid.

Finally, Office 365 is limited in its message recovery ability. Office 365 cannot perform message retrieval beyond the deleted item retention period. This can be a major problem for admins, but there’s an easy solution. Use CloudAlly to perform daily-automated backups of all your Office 365 information and keep it forever with unlimited storage and unlimited retention.

2. Don’t Skimp on Migration Infrastructure

When planning a migration, there are some infrastructure requirements you have to adhere to. Technically, a migration can run solely on virtual hardware, but it t4ends to result in performance problems except for smaller organizations. Microsoft recommends that larger businesses use Exchange 2013 and 2010 hybrid servers. We also recommend having a server that is running Active Directory Federation Services. This server can be used to handle identity management between the Office 365 cloud and your on-premise environment.

3. Implement a Cloud-to-Cloud Backup Service for Exchange Online

Office 365 Exchange Online lacks the daily backup and point-in-time recovery process that was probably present in your hosted Exchange environment. This means that you no longer have the ability to recover data lost or corrupt data once you’re up and running in your new Office 365 online environment. The recycle bin provides short-term recovery of individual items but can be hard deleted by a user. Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) provides immutable protection of individual items, but lacks the ability to recover a complete mailbox, folder, calendar, etc. Individual Items must be queried using eDiscovery, exported to an eDiscovery mailbox, and then downloaded, before moving back to the source mailbox.

CloudAlly’s Office 365 backup and restore service is compatible with all plans, includes Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks, and you can backup user and shared mailboxes, as well as public folders.

CloudAlly’s restore process allows you to non-destructively, recover lost or corrupt data, or export it in Outlook compatible format. You can even drill down through each backup by date or keyword to quickly search and located specific data, or perform a complete point-in-time recovery at an hierarchical level.

In the end, a successful Office 365 migration is dependent on using the right tools and having a complete backup and recovery solution in place once the migration is complete. While Microsoft provides some decent tools for migrating Exchange Server mailboxes to Office 365, they don’t provide everything. Familiarize yourself with all available migration tools, understand Exchange Online limitations, and consider CloudAlly’s Office 365 Exchange Backup to provide ongoing protection of your Exchange Online data.

It’s worth it.