Considerations and Limitations

This section covers considerations and known limitations of Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint.

General

• When Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint is installed on a server on which both Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 are installed, the notification settings will be inherited from the Veeam Backup & Replication Global Notification settings.

• Restore using PowerShell Direct, VIX API or vSphere Automation API is not supported.

• Restore of backed-up Microsoft SharePoint data to another Microsoft organization cannot be performed to a target Microsoft SharePoint organization whose version is earlier than the version of the restored backups.

• To use an internet proxy server to restore backups created in Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365, make sure to provide appropriate proxy server address and the port number. For that, go to the Control Panel > Internet Options Connections tab, click LAN Settings, select the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box and specify a proxy server you want to use. Credentials for such a proxy (if needed) will be taken from the Control Panel > Credential Manager > Windows Credentials console.

Using an internet proxy server is only possible in Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange that comes as part of the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 distribution package.

• For VMs that run Microsoft SQL Server backed up by Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft SharePoint backed up by Veeam Backup & Replication, to perform SharePoint item recovery, you must start Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint from the Veeam Backup Browser. To do this, start File Level Recovery for the backup of the required SQL Server VM, and then launch Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint from the toolbar in the Veeam Backup Browser.

If you start item-level recovery directly for the backup of the SharePoint VM, mapping of a SharePoint site to a content database in the Restore wizard will fail, and Veeam Backup & Replication will display the following error: "Unable to find SQL Server VM hosting the content database for the selected SharePoint site".

Backup of the same VM by both Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows may be required, for example, if Microsoft SQL Server running on the VM operates as part of a failover cluster.

Status Recovery Limitations

Consider the following when planning recovery of documents and list items:

• If a document/item was in Check Out state when the backup was created, item's last version will not be restored to the target SharePoint and will be available for viewing only. Previous versions (if any) will be restored.

• If the Declare this item as a record action was originally applied to list item, the corresponding status will not be preserved. Instead, the restored item status will be set in accordance with the target list/library content approval workflow.
• Original On Hold status will not be restored.

Restore of Documents, Libraries and Lists

• Versioning settings of SharePoint lists are not preserved during restore.
• Restoring Generic List and Pages Library may fail with the "No content type 'XXX' found in web YYY" error.
• Modified By field of restored documents is updated with the account performing restore.
• Some Rating Settings of Discussion lists values are not restored.

• Make sure to view information about unsupported Microsoft SharePoint lists before restoring them. In particular, hidden lists are not displayed in Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint after a site backup. Thus, such lists cannot be exported. For more information, see Unsupported SharePoint Lists.

Restore of List Items

Consider that when restoring a list item, Veeam Explorer works in the following way:

1. Deletes an existing item.
2. Creates item's latest version anew using data from the backup.
3. Checks whether it is declared as a record.
4. If the check is a success, the process finishes.
5. If not, the created version is deleted and item versions are restored sequentially.

This logic leads to several peculiarities of list item restore, as described below.

If a list or list items column is used as a lookup column in the dependent list, consider that restoring an item from the source list causes corresponding items deletion in the dependent list.

If a lookup column in the dependent list has the enforced relationship behavior set to Cascade Delete, then restoring an item from the source list may cause item deletion in the dependent list due to Microsoft implementation. For more information, see this Microsoft article.

To prevent this issue, it is recommended to turn off enforced relationship behavior. As a work-around, you can roll-back the SharePoint database using Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SQL Server (as described in the corresponding section of this guide) or roll-back the whole SharePoint server VM to the desired state using any Veeam Backup & Replication recovery option.

Also consider the following limitations:

• If a lookup column in the dependent list has the enforced relationship behavior set to RestrictDelete, then item restore with Veeam Explorer will fail.
• If an .ASPX page references an item using ItemID, this reference may fail to restore (as the item will be created anew with a different ItemID).
• If a list item cannot be deleted (for example, site's "Welcome" page), consider that restore process will recover all versions of the item sequentially without deletions, adding them to Version History.
• Restored Issue list items are assigned new Issue ID.
• Restore of Time Card list is not supported.

Restore of List Items with Links (Attachments)

Consider the following when planning for the recovery of list items with links (attachments):

• If the retention policy for target list/document library was configured to Declare record automatically, only the last version of the item will be restored to target list/library. Target retention policy settings will be applied to restored item (Declare record). However, links (attachments) will not be restored.
• Alternatively (with different retention policy settings), all versions of the original item will be restored to target list/library; item links (attachments) will be restored only if such item does not exist on target SharePoint.
• If Declare this item as a record action was originally applied to list item, such item will not be restored.

Restore of Items with Custom Content Type

For item restore, Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint uses content types that exist in the target library or list. If you restore an item with a custom content type, and the target location does not contain this content type, the restore process will fail with the following error: "Cannot find corresponding Content-Type for: 15_.000. Original ContentTypeID: ‘XXX’".

Restore of Surveys

Consider the following limitations when planning for the recovery of surveys, survey questions and responses:

• Survey item(s) can be restored to a new survey, created automatically by Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint in the specified destination instead of the previously deleted survey. However, if a new survey is created by user from scratch (not replacing a deleted one) – items cannot be recovered to such a survey.
• A survey can be restored to an existing target survey only if that target survey includes at least one item (question) same as survey questions stored in the content database.
• If a survey question was not answered completely in the source survey, after restore the response status in the target survey will be set to Completed, anyway.
• When restoring a single response to a survey, target response item with the same number will be deleted and restored item will be placed in the target survey after the last numbered response.

For example, if the target survey has responses #1-15 and you try to restore a response that used to be #6 on source – then target response #6 will be deleted and restored response will be assigned #16.

Restore of Sites

• Web features restore is not supported for SharePoint 2010 sites.

• If you plan to restore SharePoint site pages, consider that Veeam Explorer does not support recovery of items which are not stored in the SharePoint content database (in particular, pages, page references and items based on default templates). Such items cannot be restored (neither by Restore nor by Save menu option), except for data from Wiki Content (text and images) which is stored in the database. Thus, site pages containing only text and/or images can be restored and displayed properly.

Export and Import

• Export is unavailable for backups created in Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. The operation is available only for backups created in Veeam Backup & Replication.

• Importing exported Picture Library may result in IDs changed for some items.
• Importing exported Project Tasks list does not preserve column order.
• Importing exported SharePoint list does not preserve Validation Settings.

• Make sure to view information about unsupported Microsoft SharePoint lists before exporting them. In particular, hidden lists are not displayed in Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint after a site backup. Thus, such lists cannot be exported. For more information, see Unsupported SharePoint Lists.

Data Type Limitations

Consider the column (field) data type when planning for the recovery of your SharePoint libraries/lists:

• If source column (field) data type was set to Lookup, but the referenced list/library was deleted, such columns (fields) will not be restored even if you recover that referenced list. The reason is that if referenced list is deleted, the reference (link) to that list is no longer valid.
• If source column (field) data type was set to Managed Metadata, such columns (fields) will not be restored.

Workflow-Related Considerations

You may need to restore the item(s) originally belonging to a list with no content approval required, to another list. If you try to restore such item(s) to a list that requires content approval, item version and status will be modified in the following way:

1. If a target list is configured to include major versions only, then all versions of restored item will become major (despite the original versioning); item status will be set to Pending.
2. If a target list is configured to include both major and minor versions, then all versions of restored item will become minor (despite the original versioning); item status will be set as follows:

• If the last version (original) was major, status will be set to Pending.
• If the last version was minor, status will be set to Draft.

Also, consider the following when planning for the recovery of list items (with or without content approval originally required):

1. If the retention policy for target list/document library is configured to Declare record automatically, only the last version of the item will be restored to target list/library. Target retention policy settings will be applied to restored item (Declare record).
   Besides, if Require content approval for submitted items was enabled for the original list, then after recovery item status will be set to Pending.
2. Alternatively (with different retention policy settings), all versions of the original item will be restored to target list/library.
   Besides, if Require content approval for submitted items was enabled for the original list, then after recovery item status in the content approval workflow will be also restored, except for the states listed (see "Status Recovery Limitations" above).