1304 - How to backup and recover Google Classroom

Introduction

Backup and recovery of Google Classroom forms part of our Google Workspace service offering. 

Note:

• To use the service, you need to be both a RedApp company administrator, and a Google super administrator for your tenant organisation.
• Google recommends creating a new super admin email address for this that is not specific to a particular user. Read more here.
• Important: If a Google Workspace user leaves your organisation, do not delete the user. Redstor has no way of restoring a deleted user's Contacts or Calendar. Gmail can be restored to a different account. If you withdraw the departing user's Google Workspace licence, even if you do not delete the user, Google is under no obligation to retain that user's data. The data may appear to remain present but can be removed by Google at any time as part of cleanup. Consider assigning an archive licence or exporting the data for alternative storage instead.

What is supported?

Redstor currently supports the following:

• Backup of:
  • Courses, settings, material sets (including attachments), aliases, and announcements (including attachments, but not student replies)
  • Course invitations (including teachers and students)
  • Coursework (including links, forms, files, assignments, and student submissions)
  • Students (including student work folders, and guardians)
  • Teachers and teacher folders (including attachments)
  • Topics

Please note that due to Google API restrictions, we do not currently offer recovery back to Classroom (i.e. the original course location). Also note that the following is not currently backed up:

• Course calendar contents
• Google Meet

Guides

Use the guides below to manage your Classroom backups.

How to add a backup set

How to modify a backup set

How to configure the backup schedule for a backup set

How to recover a backup set

How to delete a backup set

How to change a backup set's name

How to add a backup set

Watch our video or follow the steps below.

1. On the RedApp home page, go to My Company or to the relevant customer company.

2. To add a new backup set, go to Google Workspace in the sidebar.

3. Click the Add button at the top right.

4. Select Classroom and click Next.

5. On the permission card, click Next. 

6. After logging into Google, you will see the following screen. Click on Get the Redstor app.

7. You will be taken to the Redstor Cloud Backup page on the Google Marketplace. Click on Domain Install.

8. Click Continue.

9. Agree to the terms and conditions and click Allow.

10. Click Done to exit the installation wizard.

As shown here, you can access the app at any time by going to the App Launcher at the top right of the screen. (Scroll down until you see Redstor Cloud Backup.)

11. Close the Google Marketplace tab in your browser to return to the RedApp. Our system will have picked up that permissions have been allowed and you will see a summary of your backup selection.

When a new backup set is created, we include all courses by default. To make changes to your backup set, go to Backup selection > Edit.

12. Select/deselect the relevant course(s) and click Save.

The Backup button will be enabled. Click to start your first backup. 

You can customise which columns you see on the backup set home page by going to Customise display.

You can also view an audit trail of key actions and which users performed them by clicking on the inspect icon at the top right of the page.

How to modify a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant Classroom backup set, click on Backup selection > Edit.

2. Select/deselect the name(s) of the course(s) you want to add to/remove from this backup set and click Save. Click Backup to start a backup or Cancel to go back.

3. The number of courses selected will show under Backup selection on the backup set's home page.

Note: Courses that have been removed from the backup selection are still retained on the Storage Platform until you request that they be permanently deleted. Read more here.

How to configure the backup schedule for a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant Classroom backup set, click on Backup Schedule > Edit.

2. You can retain the default of a single daily backup, or you can set your backups to only run on specific days (custom). In either case, use the drop-down menu to set the backup time. Set your preferences and click on the check mark.

How to recover a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant Classroom backup set, locate the course you want to recover. Click on the menu icon and select Recover.

You can also select multiple courses to recover. When you're ready, click Recover.

Note: If you need to recover multiple courses, it is advised to recover them in bulk and not in sequence. It is not possible to queue a recovery while another recovery for the same backup set is in progress. 

Note: You will need to authenticate before you can proceed with a recovery.

For each course, a shareable link will be generated that can be used to recover the course's data. Use the Copy option to share the link to the InstantData application, or Download the application. 

Run the application on the machine where you want to recover the data. Each application can only be used to initiate one recovery.

Select between Permanent and Temporary recovery, and click Next. The application will open a window where you can see all files and folders available for recovery. Simply drag and drop these from the application into your File Explorer to recover them. You can then use the recovered files to re-populate a new course.

If you are looking to recover student submissions, navigate to the CourseWork directory. Look for a folder whose name starts with the number 7. Within that folder, locate the Submissions folder. This will contain the student submissions.

How to delete a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant Classroom backup set, click on the menu icon to expand more options, then click Remove.

2. Confirm the deletion by clicking Remove.

How to change a backup set's name

1. On the home page for the relevant Classroom backup set, click on the menu icon to expand more options, then click Rename.

2. Enter the new name for the backup set and click Update.