First steps to protect Microsoft 365 with Afi Backup

With Afi Backup for Microsoft 365, you can configure periodic backups of your Microsoft 365 resources in a few easy steps.

1. Set up Afi service

Install Afi application for your Microsoft 365 domain. To do it sign up at https://app.afi.ai/register with a Microsoft 365 global administrator account and then grant permissions requested by the application:

In rare cases, it might take up to several hours for changes to take effect for a Microsoft 365 domain.

Configure protected resources

Choose resources (User or Shared Mailboxes, SharePoint sites, Groups or Teams) which you want to protect and their protection policies (SLAs). Protection policy defines what Microsoft 365 data will be backed up, how often backups are scheduled and how long backup data is retained.

Afi Backup for Microsoft 365 application provides several pre-defined backup policies that you can use right away or modify/create new policies:

Then assign protection policies to all resources in Microsoft 365 domain or select specific resources or AAD groups to be protected.

Assign SLA per resource

or per AAD Group

2. Backup

With Bronze, Silver and Gold protection policies backups are performed automatically in accordance with the schedule defined by SLA policy. Afi service shows the time of the next scheduled backup on the Protection screen for every protected resource.

Run backup

With the Manual protection policy backup will not be automatically performed, so you should trigger it manually by pressing the Backup now button for a user or resource on the Protection screen or the Backup all now button on the Overview screen to initiate full domain backup. Backup now button allows initiating the out-schedule backup process for any resource protected by any available protection policy.

Monitor backup progress

Backup status can be monitored both on the Service -> Protection screen (see progress wheel in the Status column) or on the Activity -> Tasks screen:

To simplify progress monitoring, you can filter out In Progress Status on the Activity -> Tasks screen:

Once a backup is finished, you can access backup data by clicking on Recover button next to a resource name on the Service -> Protection screen.

3. Data browsing and preview

The recovery screen enables live preview, search and browsing for the backup data:

• user and group mailboxes;
• OneDrive and SharePoint file/folder structure;
• contacts list;
• calendar events;
• MS Teams chats and channels.

4. Data download

Afi application allows to download all the data from a backup in different formats including:

• Mail data (mail folders, individual emails or the whole mailbox) in PST, MBOX and EML formats;
• OneDrive and Sharepoint data in ZIP format (for several files or folders) or as individual files;
• Calendar data in ICS and PST formats;
• Contacts data in VCF and PST formats;
• Team chats and channels in HTML format.

Choose emails to download and press Download button:

Choose files and/or folders to download and press Download button:

5. Data restore

Restore can be performed for:

• a full user account or Sharepoint site or Team;
• selected Microsoft 365 services (for example, only user mailbox without OneDrive data);
• selected items (for example, specific emails or folders inside a OneDrive or SharePoint site).

To initiate a restore process:

• (optional) choose specific items for restore by enabling checkboxes across item names (for example, choose emails to restore);
• press Recover button;
• choose if it is required to restore a full account/service or only specific items;
• choose recovery destination (new user or the same user, new site or the same site);
• choose if to perform in-place recovery or restore data to a separate folder.

You can monitor recovery progress at Activity -> Tasks tab and Afi will send you an email notification once recovery is completed.