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Running an archive, screen by screen

On Demand Archive, from the tile to the report

Setup builds the machinery once. This is what happens every time you actually archive something - four screens, and nothing is changed until the last one.

Makes changes. With Report only unticked, a run replaces files in SharePoint with placeholders.
On this page What it does How it runs How it works What you need What it will not do Read next

What it does

  • Only organisations set up under your ShareMaster account appear in the list, whichever computer set them up. If yours is missing, it has not been set up yet - there is a link straight to the setup wizard.
  • You are asked to sign in when you CHOOSE an organisation, not when you open the tile: the list itself is read from your setup records and touches no tenant.
  • You can tick whole sites, individual libraries, or single folders - any mix.
  • Report only is NOT ticked by default: the run this tile starts is the archive. Tick it if you want the list of what would happen first - it changes nothing at all, and offers to archive what it found when it finishes.

How it runs

  1. Choose the organisation. The list shows what has been configured, when each step was last confirmed, and where that tenant's archive is stored.
  2. Sign in. Once, for that tenant. Archiving reads SharePoint and writes to your Azure storage as you, so it needs your own account rather than a certificate.
  3. Choose what to archive. Drill into a site for its libraries, or into a library for its folders. Lists & libraries and Subsites are separate buttons: content and subsites never appear in one mixed list.
  4. Set the options. Which files qualify, what a click on a placeholder should do, and whether this run reports or archives. The storage account it will write to is shown here - it is fixed by setup and not a per-run choice.
  5. Watch it run. The run screen lists every file it examines, with the reason for each one it leaves alone, and counts what it found. Stopping is a choice, not a kill.

How it works

The organisation list is read from the setup records on this computer and the copies kept against your ShareMaster account; no tenant is contacted until you choose one. The run then works as you: it reads SharePoint with your sign-in and writes to your storage with your own Microsoft identity. Before archiving it checks that it can write to the container by staging an upload it never completes, and if it cannot, it says so and offers to give your account write access. If any chosen library requires check-out, it asks once whether to turn that setting off on those libraries; whatever the answer, the run goes on, and files in a library that still requires check-out are refused one by one.

Each location is read through the same paged reader every ShareMaster report uses, which copes with libraries past SharePoint's list view threshold, and a folder is read as a folder rather than as its whole library. Site Pages is never archived, whatever was ticked. Every file gets a verdict with a reason. When archiving, each page of files is handed to the archive pass as it arrives rather than after the whole read, and a location that cannot be read is named while the files that were read are still archived; the run then ends amber.

For each file the facts are read again live and the same rules the report used decide again, so a file checked out, labelled or replaced since the read is skipped, not failed. Its bytes are downloaded to a temporary file on this computer, uploaded to the container under a name built from the site, library and item ids and a hash of the content, then read back from Azure and hashed again. Only after that check passes is SharePoint touched: the file is renamed in place to its placeholder name, its contents are replaced with a small text placeholder naming the archived copy and what a click should do, and its original Created, Created By, Modified and Modified By are put back. The item keeps its id, permissions, metadata and place in the library. If the file turns out to have been replaced since its bytes were read, the placeholder is not written and the original name is put back.

When the run is set to recycle previous versions, they are sent to the site recycle bin only after the placeholder is confirmed as the run's own, and the current version is never touched. The hidden columns you opted in to are added to each library the first time the run reaches it; failing to add one is reported and does not stop the run. If you chose whole-folder links, a link that restores the folder is written into each folder once a file archived in it is settled. A file interrupted between its rename and its content write is found and finished by a later run over the same location.

The run's record is opened before the first file and written to as it goes, so a run that is interrupted still shows what it had done and can be resumed from the history. Each file's row, with its reason, is kept in that history and in the Excel report. A speed limit set on the run screen applies to both the download and the upload.

What you need

  • The three setup steps completed for that organisation.
  • An account that can read the libraries you tick, and write to the archive storage account.

What it will not do

  • Whether a site is under a retention policy or a legal hold is not checked - only each file's own retention label is. See Which files qualify.
  • A ticked site is expanded to its libraries. If its contents were never loaded, the run reports it as a location it could not read rather than quietly covering less than you ticked.

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