Self-manage backups

Note: This feature will soon be made available for all products.

You can self-manage engagement backups. Depending on your role, you can create, restore and delete backups directly. Previously, restoring an engagement from a backup required contacting Caseware. This process was labor-intensive and backups were created based on a predetermined schedule.

Self-managed backups provide faster and more efficient access to your data and track its history. You can still request backups from Caseware; this feature provides the option to manage backups manually.

Features:

Restore points

Return an engagement to the exact state captured at the time of the backup.

Automatic pre-restoration backup

Before a restore occurs, the system automatically saves the current state of the engagement. This allows you to reverse the restoration if needed.

Audit logging

All backup activities, including create, restore, and delete actions, are logged with timestamps and user details to provide a transparent audit trail.

Backup limits

You can store up to 10 backups per engagement. Backups remain available until you delete them.

Backup retention

Backups are retained indefinitely until you delete the backup or the engagement.

When an engagement is deleted, its backups are retained for 90 days, consistent with automated backup retention.

Backup workflows

The following workflows outline how to access, create, restore, and delete backups. Use these processes to manage backups consistently and ensure data can be recovered when needed.

Access a backup

The backup feature can be accessed as an icon []on the bottom left of the Documents page.

Update queries before creating a backup

Some query statuses must be updated before you can create a backup.

To update queries before creating a backup:

1. Open the engagement.

2. From the Documents page, select Manage Backups.

3. Start the backup creation process.

   • If the engagement includes queries with a status of Open, Reopened, or Responded, a Query status update dialog appears.

4. Review the listed queries.

5. For each query, select a new status from the drop-down menu.

6. Available statuses are:

   • Draft

   • Complete

   • Canceled

7. Continue with the backup creation.

The system updates the listed queries in the current engagement and creates the backup:

Create a backup

To create a backup of your engagement:

1. Open the engagement in Caseware Cloud.

2. From the bottom left of the Documents page, select Manage Backups.

3. Click Create new backup. The button will be in the center of the screen if this is your first backup; otherwise the button is available in the top-right of the page.

4. Enter a name or description for the backup.

5. Select Create.

   • The Status will change to Complete once the backup is complete. If an Error status is indicated under Status, perform the backup again.

   • The engagement is locked from editing and will exit any other user on the engagement during the backup process.

6. Select the More actions icon [] and select View details, to see the description and log history of the file.

7. The backup appears in your catalog of available backups.

Create first backup:

Create backup:

Backup status:

Backup details:

Backup logs:

Restore a backup

To restore a previous version of your engagement:

1. Open the engagement in Caseware Cloud.

2. From the bottom left of the Documents page, select Manage Backups.

3. Review the list of available backups.

4. Select the More actions icon [] and click Restore.

5. Select the backup that you wish to restore.

6. Click Restore.

   • A backup of the current engagement will automatically trigger during the restore process in the case that you wish to return to this point.

   • The engagement is locked from editing and will exit any other user on the engagement during the restore process.

   • The current engagement state is replaced with the backup you selected.

Delete a backup

To remove a backup you no longer need:

1. Open the engagement in Caseware Cloud.

2. From the bottom left of the Documents page, select Manage Backups.

3. In the table, find the backup you wish to delete.

4. Select the More actions icon [] and click Delete.

   • The backup is permanently removed.

Note: you must have permission to delete backups. The ability to perform backup actions depends on the Staff permissions assigned in Collaborate. The table below shows how these permissions align with each role. To learn more about built-in roles, refer to: Built-in roles.

Staff role	Permissions in backups
	View	Edit	Create	Delete	Restore
Entities Admin	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Owner	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Editor	Y	Y	Y	N	Y
Viewer	Y	N	N	N	N

You will be prompted when you have reached the maximum limit of backup files (10 per engagement) held within storage. When this occurs, you will not be able restore or create any new backups until you have deleted some backups.

Update queries when restoring a backup

The status of queries may need to be updated when restoring a back up.

To update queries when restoring a backup:

1. Open the engagement in Caseware Cloud.

2. From the bottom left of the Documents page, select Manage Backups.

3. In the table, find the backup you wish to restore.

4. Select the More actions icon [] and click Restore.

   • If your backup contains Queries (client requests) with a status of Open, Reopened, or Responded, all affected queries are listed in the dialog box to restore a backup.

   • Choose a new status from a dropdown menu for each affected query. The available status options are:

     • Draft

     • Complete

     • Canceled

5. Continue with the restore.

The current engagement state is replaced with the backup you selected.

Limitations (beta period)

Trial Balance Sync engagements

• If you restore an engagement used as a source for Trial Balance Sync, links to destination engagements break. Trial balance changes no longer synchronize.

Central Planning engagements

• If you restore a Central Planning engagement, links to destination engagements break and synchronization stops.

External consolidation links

• If you restore a linked engagement used in an external consolidation, the link to the consolidated engagement is lost. Consolidation updates stop.

Analytics and metadata

Backups do not include transaction or embedded analytics data.

• If an engagement contains this data, a warning dialog appears during backup creation.

• Analytics data always reflects its current state and is not restored from a backup.

• You can choose to cancel or proceed with the backup.