The System Administrator User can perform an Export of your data to use as a backup of your system. This is done using the 'Data Export' feature within your system. This will allow you to schedule weekly exports of your data, if so desired. You can perform data exports, as often as once every 7 days but not more frequently than 7 days. This is a native limitation of the Salesforce platform.
To get started with the tool, go to Setup and look for the 'Data Management' menu under 'Administration Setup.' There you'll click on 'Data Export'.
On the Data Export screen, you can either choose to 'Export Now' or 'Schedule Export'. As mentioned previously, data export is limited to once every 7 days, so if you choose to export now, that one export will use up your weekly allotment. Be careful if you need a copy of your data ASAP. For this example, we'll choose 'Schedule Export'
The Schedule Export menu includes a variety of options that should be straightforward. You should generally keep the 'General US & Western European' Encoding unless you know that you need something different. Note that the start and end dates are the range that this schedule will continue, and that the frequency will be determined by the choices you make. Also, preferred start time is not the guaranteed delivery time of the export. The system needs time to process the export, and other scheduled jobs such as scheduled reports or dashboards can delay the export. Preferred Start Time will be an approximation of when your export will be available.
Below the scheduling options you'll find a matrix of checkboxes for all the objects in your system. Many of these Objects come standard with Salesforce. If you're backing up your whole system, the best choice is selecting 'Include all data' in your export. If you want to export only specific objects, you'll want to go into the Setup menu and find the object's API name to match it up here. Remember, you only have one chance to export each week, so it's important to choose the correct object(s) here. improveit 360 recommends exporting all data, to be on the safe side.
When the Data Export is ready the Admin User who scheduled the export will receive an Email alerting them when the export file is ready for download. Your Admin will need to click the link, or Login to the system to download the Zip file.
Your Zip file will include multiple spreadsheets of relational data.
If you have any questions about the 'Data Export' tool, please contact our support team!