Active Backup for Google Workspace Admin Console

The admin console of Active Backup for Google Workspace allows IT administrators to back up accounts and shared drives on Google Workspace and monitor the task status from a centralized interface.

Before You Start

  • Visit here to see if your Synology NAS is compatible with Active Backup for Google Workspace.
  • Make sure your Synology NAS is running on DSM 6.2 or above.
  • Refer to this article to prepare your Google Workspace for backup.

Create Backup Tasks

To create a backup task:

  1. Go to the Task List page and click Create to launch Task Creation Wizard.
  2. Select Create a new backup task and enter the Domain for backup and the Domain admin email address. You also need to upload a Service key to authenticate the domain.
  3. Configure the following task settings:
    • Task name: Enter a task name as you like.
    • Backup destination: Choose a shared folder from the drop-down menu.
    • Backup list: Click Edit to select backup items.
    • Enable Active Backup for Google Workspace Portal: IT administrators can decide whether to grant users access to run restore tasks by themselves.
  4. Enable services for auto-discovery. New drives added to the domain or the selected services of new domain users can be automatically included in the backup list.
  5. Set up backup and retention policies:
    • Backup policy:
      • Continuous backup: Based on the API request rate detected from the last backup, the system dynamically adjusts the backup intervals from one to ten minutes. Data are backed up continuously in an infinite cycle.
      • Manual backup: Data are backed up immediately once you manually run the task.
      • Scheduled backup: Data are backed up based on the schedule you set.
    • File version retention policy:
      • Preserve all versions
      • Number of days for historical file versions to be preserved: When a backed-up file is updated to a new version, the previous version will be preserved for the retention period you set.
        For example, when the first backup version is generated on Jan. 1 and the second one on Oct. 1, if the retention period of this task is set to 30 days, it starts from Oct. 1 and ends on Oct. 30. Therefore, the first version will be deleted on Oct. 31.
  6. Check the task summary and click Done to finish the task creation.

Note:

  • Active Backup for Google Workspace supports the backup of multiple domains. However, the Domain for backup must be either a primary or a secondary domain. Domain aliases are not supported.
  • For the Domain admin email address field, the administrator's role has to be Super Admin, Groups Admin, User Management Admin, or Help Desk Admin. If the role is one of the last two types, make sure that the administrator account is a member of the organization.
  • The services and users that can be backed up in the task are based on both the entered domain and the administrator's privileges.

Relink Backup Tasks

To relink a backup task:

  1. Go to the Task List page and click Create to launch Task Creation Wizard.
  2. Select Relink an existing backup task and click Next.
  3. Select the previous task you wish to relink and click Done.
  4. Once the task has been successfully relinked, it will appear on the Task List.

Note:

  • You cannot relink tasks deleted in versions earlier than 2.1.1.

Manage Backup Tasks

In the Task List page, you can see a list of all the backup tasks. You can manage them using the upper toolbar.

To manage a backup task:

  1. Select the backup task you wish to edit and click Edit.
  2. At the General tab, you can perform the following:
    • View the domain for backup.
    • Modify the task name.
    • Enable and disable Active Backup for Google Workspace Portal.
    • Enable and disable auto-discovery for drives and each service.
  3. At the Policy tab, you can configure backup and retention policies.

To edit users' services to be backed up:

  1. Select a backup task and click Edit > User.
  2. If you have enabled auto-discovery for any of the services, the specified services of new domain users will be automatically backed up. You can include or exclude certain users' services by manually selecting or deselecting them.
  3. Active Backup for Google Workspace updates the Google Workspace user list from time to time. If you wish to have the latest user list, click Update Google Workspace User List.

To edit shared drives to be backed up:

  1. Select a backup task and click Edit > Shared Drive.
  2. If you have enabled auto-discovery for shared drives, new shared drives added to the domain will be automatically backed up. You can include or exclude certain shared drives by manually selecting or deselecting them.
  3. Active Backup for Google Workspace updates the list of Google Workspace shared drives from time to time. If you wish to have the latest shared drive list, click Update Google Workspace Shared Drive List.

To delete users' backup data:

  1. Select a backup task and click Details.
  2. Select User from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click on a backed-up user and click Storage Management to delete the user's backup data for any of the services. The deleted service data will be removed from the backup list.

To delete shared drives' backup data:

  1. Select a backup task and click Details.
  2. Select Shared drive from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click on a backed-up shared drive and click Storage Management to delete its backup data. The shared drive will be removed from the backup list.

View Task Information

Overview

In the Overview page, you can monitor the following information:

  • Protected Service: The number of items protected in each service.
  • Backup Summary: The summary of all the backup activities in the past 35 days, including the backup status and the number of backup activities on each day. You can check detailed logs by clicking on any of the following status icons:
    • - No backup history
    • - Upcoming backup
    • - Success
    • - Warning
    • - Error
  • Activities: The current backup and restoration activities. When clicking the arrow icon in the upper-right corner, you will be redirected to the Activities page.
  • Log: The most recent logs. When clicking the arrow icon in the upper-right corner, you will be redirected to the Log page to view more logs.
  • Service Usage: The total storage space consumed by each service.
  • User/Drive Usage: The amount of storage space consumed by users or shared drives that have used the most capacity.
  • Transferred Size: The transferred size of each task displayed by Day/Hour.

Task List

In the Task List page, you can see a list of all the backup tasks along with the following statuses:

  • Successfully completed: All items have been backed up.
  • Completed with skipped items: The backup is completed but some items cannot be backed up. You can click Attention to check the details.
  • Canceled: The backup task is manually canceled by an administrator.
  • Failed: No items have been successfully backed up.

You can expand a task to find the following information:

  • Tasks that are being executed: The elapsed time and backup items along with the usage consumption and statuses.
  • Tasks that have been fully executed: The last backup time, task results, and backup items along with the usage consumption and statuses.

In the menu of each backup task, you may see the following icons:

  • - Success
  • - Warning
  • - Error
  • - No items selected for backup
  • - Preparing for backup
  • - Ready for backup

Activities

  • Administrators can easily monitor current backup and restoration activities in the Activities page.
    • Backup task: The backup policy, elapsed time, and progress of each running backup task.
    • Restoration task: The elapsed time and progress of each running restoration task as well as the accounts that executed them.
  • Administrators can click Cancel to stop a running task.

    Note:

    • Any tasks with the continuous backup policy applied have an infinite backup cycle. Administrators cannot cancel such tasks by clicking Cancel.

Log

The Log page allows you to keep track of the backup tasks that have been performed. You can view all logs or use filters to search for the logs of certain tasks.

To search through log records with a filter:

  1. In the Log page, click the magnifying glass icon in the search bar in the upper-right corner.
  2. In the drop-down menu, you can filter events by:
    • Keyword: Enter the keyword you wish to search for.
    • Type: Select the type of logs you wish to view from the drop-down menu.
    • Date: Enter a start and end date to find logs created within a specific period.
  3. To reset the filter, click Reset and start searching again.

To view log details:

  1. Select a log and click the arrow icon on the right end to view the detailed logs.
  2. For a backup activity, you can view the following information in the pop-up window:
    • Status: The duration, transferred size, and status of each backup user and shared drive. You can select User or Shared drive from the drop-down menu to view their status.
    • Log: The detailed logs related to each service. You can select a service from the drop-down menu to view the logs.
  3. For a restoration activity, you can view the following information in the pop-up window:
    • Restore Information: The source and destination account, duration, transferred size, etc.
    • Log: The detailed logs related to a restoration task.

Detailed Task Information

To view the status and logs of a task:

  1. Select a backup task in the Task List page and click Details.
  2. In the Details window, you can view the following information:
    • Status: The last backup time, used space, and status of each backup user and shared drive. You can select User or Shared drive from the drop-down menu to view the status. (Users/shared drives with a blue dot on the left side are the ones that have been processed through the latest backup run.)
    • Log: The detailed logs of the service selected from the drop-down menu.

Note:

  • The definition of each user/drive status is as follows:
    • Successful: All items have been backed up.
    • Partially successful: Not all but at least one item has been backed up.
    • Failed: No items have been successfully backed up.
  • You can click a user status to view the backup status of each service:
    • Successful: All service items have been backed up.
    • Partially successful: Not all but at least one service item has been backed up.
    • Failed: No service items have been successfully backed up.

Manage Notification Services

To enable notification services:

To receive task-related notifications, go to DSM > Control Panel > Notification and configure settings for the selected delivery media: email, SMS, and push service.

To manage events for notification:

To manage events for notification, go to DSM > Control Panel > Notification > Rules and configure settings for the events that you wish to be notified of.

Note:

  • Active Backup for Google Workspace Portal needs to be enabled in the Active Backup for Google Workspace admin console for users to restore data by themselves. To allow specific users access to Active Backup for Google Workspace Portal, go to Control Panel > Application Privileges, select Active Backup for Google Workspace Portal, and click Edit to give permissions.
  • Only users with admin privileges can cancel other users' restoration tasks from Active Backup for Google Workspace admin console.
  • If you wish to copy the backup data to a remote server, use Snapshot Replication to create a replication task for the folder that stores the backup data. Do not use Hyper Backup to create a backup task or manually move the data. Otherwise, data such as extended attributes may be lost.
  • Block-level deduplication is only supported on shared folders in Btrfs volumes, with the exception of encrypted shared folders. Likewise, single instancing for mail and calendar attachments is only supported on shared folders in Btrfs volumes. For detailed information on the support of the two features, please refer to the table below:
    Single instancing Block-level deduplication
    Drive O O
    Mail Attachment only X
    Contacts X X
    Calendar Attachment only X
  • Files or folders will not be backed up or will be skipped by Active Backup for Google Workspace under the following circumstances:
    • The file/folder path on DSM is longer than 4,016 characters.
  • Files or folders will be renamed when being backed up but remain the same file/folder name or path in Active Backup for Google Workspace Portal under the following circumstances:
    • The file/folder name or path contains "#SynoVersionRepo", "#SynoRepo", or "#SynoVersions".
    • The name of any files or folders in the backup destination exceeds 255 characters.
    • The name of any files or folders in the encrypted backup destination exceeds 143 characters.
  • The following items and online services cannot be backed up:
    • Third-party shortcuts
    • Google forms larger than 10 MB
    • Google Earth
    • Google My Maps
  • The table below shows the backup and restoration formats of each supported online service:
    Online application Backup format Restoration format
    Google Docs .docx Google Docs
    Google Sheets .xlsx Google Sheets
    Google Slides .pptx Google Slides
    Google Forms .zip .zip
    Google Drawings .jpeg .jpeg
    Google Apps Script .json .json
    Google Jamboard .pdf .pdf
  • The following file types are supported for content search:
    • .pages/.key/.numbers
    • .rtf
    • Microsoft Office formats (e.g., .docx/.doc; .pptx/.ppt), except for Microsoft Excel file formats (.xlsx/.xls/.xlsm/.xltx/.xltm/.xlt/.ods/.ots)
    • Text files (e.g., .cpp/.c/.txt)
    • .epub
    • .lit
    • .mobi/.azw3/.pdb/.prc
    • .pdf
    • .rar
    • .chm
    • .slk/.gnumeric
    • .eml/.msg
    • .7z/.bz2/.gz/.zip/.tgz/.tbz/.tar
  • The following variables are not supported for content search:
    • Stop words, regardless of case: "a", "an", "and", "are", "as", "at", "be", "but", "by", "for", "if", "in", "into", "is", "it", "no", "not", "of", "on", "or", "such", "that", "the", "their", "then", "there", "these", "they", "this", "to", "was", "will", and "with"
    • Symbols such as "@", "#", "*", "/", and "\"
    • Punctuation marks such as "!", "?", and ":"
    • Dates such as Birthday and Anniversary in Contacts
    • Emoji
    • Synology Universal Search operators:
      [X] and [Y] are variables that may represent numbers, alphabetical letters, word segments, words, or phrases.
      Operator Example Description
      * [X]*
    • Lists matches that contain [X], and [X] is followed by zero to more random characters (represented as "*").
    • ? ?[X]
      [X]?
    • Lists matches that contain [X], and [X] is preceded or followed by one random character (represented as "?").
    • "" "[X][Y]"
    • Lists matches that contain exact and case-insensitive [X][Y].
    • && [X] && [Y]
    • Lists matches that contain both [X] and [Y].
    • || [X] || [Y]
    • Lists matches that contain [X], [Y], or both.
    • Matches that contain both [X] and [Y] will be listed on the top.
    • + +[X]
    • Lists matches that contain [X].
    • Applies to folders indexed at Preferences > File Indexing.
    • - -[X]
    • Lists matches that do not contain [X].
    • Applies to folders indexed at Preferences > File Indexing.
    • ! ![X]
    • Lists matches that do not contain [X].
    • Applies to folders indexed at Preferences > File Indexing.
    • \ \[SpecialCharacter]
    • Special characters: + - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \
    • Lists matches that contain a targeted special character above.
Before You Start
Create Backup Tasks
Relink Backup Tasks
Manage Backup Tasks
View Task Information
Overview
Task List
Activities
Log
Detailed Task Information
Manage Notification Services