How to Back Up Your Metadata in Salesforce

Every successful business strategy is going to include contingencies for disaster recovery. Preparing for the worst ensures you aren’t left without a plan when disaster strikes. And while it might not be pleasant to think about massive losses of data, it’s essential to have a clear direction of how to proceed should this situation occur.

Many businesses recognize the importance of backing up their data. Losing customer information and other system data could be catastrophic to daily operations.

However, there’s another layer of this that needs your attention: Metadata.

Salesforce provides options for data backups. However these measures don’t cover all of your needs. For instance, the Weekly Export option allows you to schedule weekly or monthly backups of your Salesforce data, but it doesn’t address metadata.

Other methods exist within Salesforce for backing up your data. However, these methods are labor-intensive. Manual backups require a lot of time and attention, and your team has enough to manage as it is.

Salesforce provides a lot of amazing capabilities for your company, but there are limitations when it comes to a proper backup strategy. It’s best to be very intentional about your Salesforce metadata backups.

But how do you properly address backing up metadata in Salesforce? And why is it so important?

We’ll look at everything you need to know about backing up your Salesforce metadata.

Why Back Up Metadata?

Your Salesforce metadata has a direct impact on how your employees and customers interact with your platform. It controls the environment and behavior of various functionalities. Losing your Salesforce metadata means all this functionality disappears.

Metadata is just as important as regular data to your Salesforce platform.

Regulations are in place to protect the use and handling of data. The fact that metadata largely exists outside of these regulations leads many companies to place less importance on it.

However, damaged or lost metadata can lead to a degradation of service to your customers and redundant work for your team.

Your company has likely integrated a series of customizations and specific considerations for your Salesforce platform. All this information lives within the metadata. Backing up this information will save you from having to manually reconfigure all of these settings to simply get back to baseline in the event of a disaster.

Salesforce data objects often have specific relationships that live within the metadata. For example, input fields relating to other objects can lose their connectivity if the metadata is corrupted. This can lead to lost records.

Outages, hacks, or corrupted files can have disastrous effects on your metadata, which in turn damages your Salesforce platform as a whole. Metadata runs just below the surface of your platform. And while it can be easy to ignore, it’s essential to back this information up to minimize potential negative effects.

A Third-Party Service Is Necessary

Salesforce allows you to backup your metadata by setting up an unmanaged package. This allows you to create a snapshot to which you can revert should a loss or corruption of metadata occur.

Manually setting up your metadata backups will provide a base level of security, but it’s far from the constant attention that is needed. This process can be time consuming and requires a person to set personal reminders to perform the function.

Repeatable, automated, and complete metadata backups are the best way to ensure you have a relevant and recent backup to rely on.

And while Salesforce provides the ability to take snapshots, a third-party backup and restore service is necessary to properly address this need.

AutoRABIT’s Vault, for instance, provides everything you need to be confident your data and metadata are there when you need it. Cost-effective cloud storage gives you the infrastructure your company needs to keep your Salesforce systems operating without the risk of revisiting completed operations.

Have a Recovery System in Place

Backing up your Salesforce metadata is only the first step in minimizing the damaging effects of a data disaster. Think of it like a safe. Sure, keeping your valuables secure is a great idea. But what happens when you can’t get the valuables out?

Restoring your metadata is how you capitalize on the useful functionality of your stored repository.

Rolling back your Salesforce platform to a recent backup point maintains your data relationships and functionality of customized systems.

Salesforce offers the ability to set up snapshots for reverting back to old iterations of your system. However, these manual snapshots can fall out of focus, leading to unsatisfactory restore points. Implementing these snapshots can be difficult and messy.

Downtime needs to be minimized as much as possible in order to reduce the impact on your business. A reliable restore and recovery system is essential to addressing this issue.

Set Up Repeating Backups

Contemporary backups are an asset when it comes to data disaster recovery. You want your pool of metadata and data to be recent, updated, and analogous to your current needs and operations.

Scheduled and automated backups are the best way to ensure your metadata reflects your current needs and operations. And while Salesforce offers the ability to make your own metadata backups, it doesn’t provide the option to set up repeating metadata backups.

AutoRABIT’s Vault allows you to set your preferences for how much data and metadata you’d like to back up, and how often you’d like this to occur.

How much time are you willing to spend between the moment of data loss and returning to normal operations? How much information are you willing to lose should an even occur?

These types of considerations will help you figure out the best cadence of backups for your particular needs.

Backups Don’t Have to Be Difficult, But They Need to Be Complete

Your Salesforce metadata is important. Continuous access to your Salesforce platform and a minimization of redundant work relies on frequent and secure backups.

And while Salesforce itself offers rudimentary tools to address this, it doesn’t go far enough.

The important task of backing up your metadata doesn’t need to be difficult. Third-party services such as AutoRABIT’s Vault make it as easy as setting your preferences and automating the process.

Metadata might be behind the scenes, but it is an essential aspect to an optimized system. Losing this data can set your platform back and cost you money. Address these issues now before they become a liability.