Why Backup if you can't restore?

Good question Majorie! You're correct, there's no current process for importing Wrike backups back into Wrike. We are constantly backing up to our secure servers so that your data is safe in case something happens.

The back up you're talking about is really to have a hard copy of the information but it's not possible to move it back to Wrike.

Hi Stephen and team,

I was wondering if there're any updates to being able to restore a full backup back into Wrike. Thank you,

Sam

Hi Sam, welcome to Community! 🙌

This has been thought about a lot internally. However, the team is focused on ensuring that our secure servers remove any need to keep backups. There is no scheduled time with our Product Team to work on re-uploading from JSON file as the secure servers are constantly backing up your data in near to real-time.

What's helpful for us to know now, is why you might need this, so if you have a use case in case pass to the team, that would be great. Thanks 🙂

Hi Stephen & Team!

<<However, the team is focused on ensuring that our secure servers remove any need to keep backups.

[snip]

What's helpful for us to know now, is why you might need this, so if you have a use case in case pass to the team, that would be great. Thanks >>

I think you're raising a very good point here and I want to follow it up with a question that's tied to that the "why?" you're asking about. 

"What's the process for recovering from the situation when someone does something they shouldn't and the company's Wrike Workspace winds up needing either a partial or complete restore?"

I've been looking around the Community at multiple similar inquiries but that's useful information that I think may not be clearly understood (or just be assumed) and therefore leading to this recurring question/request.

I worked for a Managed Service Provider for 6 years and we were responsible for a variety of data backup processes.  So, I understand the types of processes and the different types of backups (full, incremental, differential, etc.) that can be involved in the overall data backup process.  But, in general, my customers didn't really care about the underlying "how" of the backup process.  Those were the details we managed and that they didn't need to bother with.  Their area of concern was "When things go wrong, will I be able to get back what I was lost?  What do I do when it goes wrong?  How far back can something be undone?  And, how quickly/soon will things be back to normal?"

I never consider backups a "What if ...?" scenario.  They're a "... when I need them ... because I will need them at some point ... what do I do?" scenario.  I'm not in an emergency situation right now.  Which means, right now, I have plenty of time to think clearly and research things without anybody panicking and asking "Is it fixed yet???"  ... so that, when the emergency does arise, I will already know what the emergency game plan is to follow.  When I saw the Backup Tool, I started working on what sort of gameplan would be needed before an emergency so that there is a recurring backup to be restored from after an emergency occurs.  I downloaded the tool, ran it, examined the results, and was left with the question of "OK.  What's next?  What is the next step I take from here to recover?"  That's when i started searching the Community pages and found out that this was not intended to be a true backup and that we're instead dealing with a server-side backup.

But, the question still remains.  "Ok.  What is the next step I take from here to recover?"  You have your server based systems with the various backup processes for both the data and hardware side of things.  That tells me that I don't need to setup a backup system myself.  That's great!  What I would now like to know is "What's next?"

Let's go for a worst-case scenario.  I have our Owner account.  I click a wrong link.  Someone gets into my account and therefore takes control of our Wrike Workspace.  That person just starts deleting entire Spaces in Wrike and going into the Recyling Bin to permanently delete them.  I find  this out.  I have an emergency on my hands.  Now people are panicking and wanting resolution ASAP.  What is my next step? 

Since I don't have direct access to a Backup/Export and Restore/Import process, that means the restore process is out of my hands and that the baton needs to be passed to you all for resolution.  What is the specific process for that?  Do I go to the Help Center and Submit a Request to report it?  Go I also e-mail my Account Manager with an "Important!" flag on the e-mail message?  What is the proper procedure for me to reach out to you to start the ball rolling on the recovery?  Because, ultimately, that's my main concern and priority.  Having that emergency gameplan in place before I need it ... so that, when I need it and people panic, I can reassure them that there is a plan in place and then start to implement that plan.

I've already been through a very similar type of scenario earlier this year ... with a different program.  There was an assumption that a process we managed (copying a Company file) was actually a backup process.  We learned differently when a database got corrupted during a conversion process, we had to restore to a pre-conversion copy we'd made, and discovered that 5 years worth of data from a particular table was lost because those tables weren't part of the Company file that was copied.  Thankfully, our service provider had a full backup solution in place on their side and we were able to recover everything ... including people being able to continue to work during the recovery process and nothing having to be re-entered.  As far as data recovery processes were concerned, that was about the ideal situation.  Because, a plan was in place and it was clearly known what all 3 parties involved managed.

While we have been using Wrike in an isolated (just some teams) degree since last June, with the ramp-up to not only using it Company-wide but also using the more advanced features as well, I am looking for a similar "In case of emergency, break glass, and follow the Wrike Recovery Game Plan" approach.  If that doesn't require me to manage local backups or having to do a restore myself, all the better.  But, I do still need to know what to associated the emergency Red Phone with.  🙂

Hi Shawn Reynolds, sorry for the late reply! 

As emergencies can potentially be very different, the general advice is to contact our Support team as soon as possible. They can be reached at https://help.wrike.com/hc/requests/new. Our agents should be able to provide guidance for a particular case. And here's Wrike Security Overview page, please check it out https://www.wrike.com/security/

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Ok.  Thanks!  That's exactly what I was looking for.

What about visualizing the JSON data in some other way? We'd really like to be able to have some decipherable summary of each project with comments and descriptions that we could archive as part of our ISO:9001 process. The folder/project data and task data are stored in separate JSON files though with nothing that I can see which connects the two. Is Wrike aware of a program or procedure available out there to organize the data in a way that it can be used?

Hi Henrik Lyder, welcome to the Community!

Currently, backup files are only available in JSON format as described here https://help.wrike.com/hc/en-us/articles/209605749-Account-Backup

I can create a Support ticket for you if you'd like and our agents might be able to advise what can be done in your case, although I can't promise anything, unfortunately. Please let me know! 

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Yes, could you please put in a support ticket for me? My question is that I have two methods of extracting project data: by using API calls I can extract folder information, task info, and comment info separately. I can associate comments with tasks using the task ID but there is nothing that connects folders/projects and the tasks within them. The same problem is there with the JSON account backup; there’s separate files for tasks/comments and folders/projects with no information in either file to link the two.

I need to create a project summary to archive as a part of our ISO:9001 certification requirements. I’m currently testing Wrike out for potential use in our product development and this is kind of a make it or break it issue

Hey again, Henrik Lyder! Sure, I'm raising a ticket for you now 🙂 Please let me know if you have any other questions, I'll be happy to help!

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Respectfully, I assert that the ability to export and import at the project and folder level should be a core feature. It's staggering that this is not possible and I strongly suggest you reconsider the decisions behind it. Holding client data for ransom is ethically questionable.

I've had a scenario where data was lost through the reallocation of a subaccount by our administrator. There is also the issue of organisations moving upward to different systrems, contractors migrating to client project management systems, user error leading to data loss or reorganisation, importing complex templates, clients who wish to discontinue using Wrike but wish to preserve data etc.

The list supporting portable, project-level imports/exports is long.

thank you

Hi Sarah Tai, welcome to the Community! Thank you for sharing your use case here.

I would recommend adding your voice to this Product Feedback thread in relation to Wrike backups. This way, other Community members can show their support and the Product team will be able to find your feedback easily.

If you have any other questions, let me know!

+1 to Online Campus' position. 

The ability to backup and restore is a critical business process. The ability to export data in a format that you can import into another tool creates further redundancy. This feels like a decision that benefits Wrike at the expense of customers' interests. 

It's really unclear why Wrike wouldn't allow importing a backup. Can you please explain the reasons for disallowing this? 

Sholto Macpherson DigitalFirst.com

Hi Sholto Macpherson, apologies for the late reply here.

I've passed your feedback to our Product team, thanks a lot for sharing it. 

I'd like to mention here that it's also possible to import and export your Wrike data to Excel. Please let me know if that can be helpful in your case.

Also, please let me know if you'd like to discuss your use-case with your Customer Success Manager.

Let me know if I can help you with anything else.

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Hi Lisa from what I can see the Wrike to Excel export only works for individual projects and folders. It's not a system-wide export.

Here's another use case. I would like to downgrade my licence and want to backup everything on my side before that happens, as there may be some features that are affected in the process. If Wrike to Excel works for one folder, it seems like it should work for the whole lot. This feels like a design/business decision in Wrike's interests rather than users.

Sholto Macpherson DigitalFirst.com

Hi Sholto Macpherson, the Excel export feature can be used on Spaces as well. It's important to note, however, that there a limit based on the maximum size of an Excel file. If the exported Space contains more than 65,000 rows, then you will need to perform the export of individual projects/folders.

It's also possible to archive your data with API queries, as Henrik Lyder mentioned, or set up an API integration with Wrike and another tool your team uses to map the data.

I'd also like to mention that account data is not deleted when users downgrade a subscription. It stays in the account, however, specific features available for advanced plans might get locked. You can check features for each subscription type on our pricing page.

I agree that it would be more convenient to have the ability to easily perform a backup that could be imported back to Wrike. This enhancement is not included in our short-term roadmap, and I'd love to see your suggestion in the Product Feedback section. Please let us know if we can move your comment there 🙌

Hi. I came across this question when looking for a solution to backup a programme plan before a workshop. This may not be exactly what you need but for me, I created a folder "Backup", then a subfolder with the date and time "181121 1011". I then right-clicked the programme and selected "Duplicate", ensuring the location was correct. I am lucky as in the "Assignee" field I don't use named users (it's a high-level plan only 4 levels down) but job roles, so no duplicates created/assigned to actual users. Hope this helps.

Thanks so much for sharing this Stephen Fish! 🙌

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

The real use case for this would be if someone screws up a project and you want to restore it back to a point in time restore.

This is something I have currently in Project Online and NEED it for Wrike if we are going to buy it.

We would have ensure we have full backups of our entire Wrike environment once per week and should be able to restore a backup if someone screws up.

Alternatively, is this capability support would have, if we wanted to restore a Project to its copy from 30 days ago

Hi Jon Towles, welcome to the Community 👋

Please check out my colleague's suggestions above - maybe the Excel export can help you? Also, you can contact our Support team to discuss in more detail what other options there might be. I can create a ticket for you if you'd like, just let me know 🙂

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Hi Lisa,

That would mean we would have to manually do that for each and every project manually. The idea is to export all at once. Have you seen anyone try converting the json files to CSV to add back to Wrike?

Hi Alex Olinger, welcome to the forums!

I understand this may not be a perfect solution, but I'm afraid this is the current solution. We appreciate your feedback and we'll pass it on to our team.

Please let me know if I can help you with anything else! 

Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover