Squadron - Backup & Restore Permissions

Squadron is a Free SharePoint Administration tool available at www.sharepointcto.com.





What is Backup & Restore Permissions Add-in?

This is a new add-in in SharePoint that allows backing up existing permissions in SharePoint securable object & restoring it elsewhere.

The following are the levels of backup possible:

• Web Application
• Site Collection
• Site
• List
• Item

Squadron also provides URL based filtering for backing up permissions. This will enable speed, context & reduce the size of the backup data.

What is contained in Permissions?

The following are the content of a Permission:

1. Title
2. URL
3. User/Group Name
4. Members in Group
5. Owner if Group
6. Role Assigned

How to perform Backup?

Please use the following procedure to perform a backup:

Step 1 : Execute Squadron

Execute Squadron from "Start Menu" - "SharePointCTO" folder. In the screen that appears use the URL.



Step 2 : Click Permissions

From the left pane, click the Permissions item.



Step 3 : Click Backup

Click on the Backup button in the appearing screen. You will get the following wizard.



Step 4 : Check the Items

Expand the Web Application root item & check the items to be backed up. You can right-click & choose the "Check All" command to check the sub-items.



You can also use the "Filter By URL" on the bottom to filter by URL.

Click the "Next" button to continue.

Step 5 : View Permissions

In the next page you will see the Iterated Permissions as in the following:



The first column shows the Title of the Site / List / Item. The Type is displayed in the second column. The URL column is the key-column that will be used to identify the item uniquely.

The PermissionType column displays whether the permission is Unique or Inherited. The remaining rows contain the SharePoint Group / Domain User along with the role assignment.

The Role Assignment can be Full Control, Contribute, Read or Custom Level.

Click the "Next" button to save the file.

Step 6 : Choose File

In the next page, choose the file name for saving the backup.



Step 7 : Final Page

On clicking "Next" button you will see the last page that displays a summary of the export.



It displays the number of web items, list items and, library items along with unique/inherit permission types.

Click the "Finish" button to close the wizard.

Now we have successfully performed the Backup operation.

The file generated is in Microsoft Excel format & you may edit it for further optimizations. Please ensure the format of columns is retained while editing.



You can right-click on the initial page to see the Expand All / Check All / Uncheck All options. This will aid quick selection of items.



How to perform a restore?

In the Restore Wizard, we are using a previous backup file to restore in a UAT/Production system. Click the "Restore" button from the Permissions Add-in.



You need to select the backup file in the next page.



The next page displays the file contents, as in the following:



In the next page choose the URL of the site to perform the backup.



Please note that the URL column of the backup file will be used to match the target items.

Please note that this feature is only available for SharePoint 2010.



On clicking "Next" you will see the matching objects. A match is performed through URL & Type.



You can verify the Source Objects in the file & the Destination Objects in the destination Site URL specified.

On clicking "Next" you will see the Confirm prompt.



Click the "Yes" button to continue.

The restore operation will be performed & you will see the result as in the following:



This concludes our Restore Operation.

References

Permissions & Permission Levels http://bit.ly/YoKoX8

Summary

In this article we have explored the new feature in Squadron 2010. I believe this feature will be useful in backing up existing permissions before applying new ones. The Backup & Restore can be applied combined in scenarios of UAT Backup & Production Restore OR vice-versa.