Backups & Restores

James Underwood

Modified on: Mon, 2 Sep, 2019 at 2:25 PM

Overview

The use of Backups and Restores is somewhat limited for particular uses on the system, but this can be a very useful feature to use if appropriate. The main 2 uses for backups and restores are to enable you to backup a Course with all the user information if you need to make changes to activities or content, please note that any changes made to modules that remove data by accident will still have a knock on effect to the Course Completion even if a backup is used to revert the data. The second use is to move parts of Courses to other Courses on your site, allowing you to save time when creating custom Courses from multiple locations.

The "Backup" and "Restore" function can be accessed from multiple places and depending upon where you are when activated will allow different functions.

Backup Function

The Backup function will only be possible to access from within a Course or within the Site Administration > Courses > Manage Courses & Categories area.

The Backup allows you to save user data contained within a Course at the time of the Backup, while also allowing you to save all of the formatting and the activities. There are options that will allow you to choose whether you save the user data within the Backup, as well as allowing you to pick and choose the activities you wish to Backup within the file that will be created. You can also Backup everything and then pick and choose what to restore when restoring the Backup to speed up the process of the Backup function.

Once you have completed a Backup you will be sent to the system Backup area, the Backups you create will exist on the site within the Course that you created them, please be aware that by default the Backups held on the system will only be visible to only yourself, while there is a function to allow you to make visible for every Admin on the system.

Restore Function

The Restore function will only be possible when you first have a file from a completed Backup, this can be accessed from within a Course or within the Site Administration > Courses > Restore Course area.

This particular function is slightly more complicated than creating the Backup file itself, this requires a file from a backup made on your Moodle platform, meaning you cannot simply use a backup made on another Moodle site as the Backup is specifically linked and only able to be used on the Site of creation.

Restoring with a Backup file

Once you have a Backup and wish to Restore then you will first need to access the Restore Course area and upload your Backup file to the area provided, or use a Backup already saved to the system and held below if available.

The Restore Process 7 Steps

The Restore function has 7 steps for completion of a restore following the upload of the Backup file you wish to use for a upload into the system.

1. Confirm

This page will show you what is contained within the backup file, including all options and settings that may have been set when creating the backup and also if the backup contains any user data.

2. Destination

The “Destination” page will offer options for restoring a whole new course, restoring into the current course and restoring into a course on the site that you can find and select.

3. Settings

The “Settings” page will allow you to turn off settings and user data contained within the backup file.

4. Schema

The “Schema” page allows you to change the course name contained within the backup file and de-select modules and activities that you do not wish to be imported.

5. Review

The “Review” page will allow you to have a final check on what you are importing and then allow you to activate the restore process at the bottom.

6. Process

The “Process” step will be automated for the backup processing and adding the content.

7. Complete

The “Complete” page will outline if there were any errors and if the backup went into the system fine and without issues hopefully.

Step 2 - Destination Options

Restoring as a New Course

To restore a Backup into a Course that the Backup creates you will need to choose a Category for the Course to be created within the "Destination" step of the Restore process, this will mean the Backup will automatically create the Course for the Backup information to be Held.

Merging within an Existing Course

The Merging function allows you to merge the Backup within the Course that you have accessed the Restore function from within, this method needs you to be completely confident that you have access the correct Course for the Restore process to take place within.

Restoring into an Existing Course

To Restore the Backup file and its data into an existing Course you will need to either access the Restore function from within the Course you wish to add the Backup into or select the Course from the "Destination" area settings to write the Backup into the existing Course.

General Information

The Restore process will allow you to check and ensure you have allowed and disallowed anything you may or may not want to be restored on several occasions throughout the Restore steps, while also allowing you to rename the Course if creating a new Course on your site. The Topics within the Backup will be created if merging onto a existing Course where they do not already exist, while also merging any activities into existing Topics if already created on the Course, this can mean that for best restore purposes into existing Courses that you count the Topics that already exist and count how many Topics are to be restored and push the existing content further down into Topics that will not have content restored into to stop confusion creating by merging several topics together.

If you are restoring New Courses with user data attached to activities then be aware that this will automatically enrol users to the new Course and they may be able to access this Course, it is best advised that if you are creating new Courses to no bring any user data over when restoring the Backup.