Set up automated course backups

Totara has an automated course backup system that you can run on a nightly basis to export all course content for the entire site. The course backup tool in Totara actually runs the same functions as an individual course backup. It simply runs automatically on all of the courses on the site at a designated time. It’s a good idea to schedule backups for when your server isn’t usually busy. Running the backup tool with a large number of courses can be processor-intensive, so you shouldn’t run it when there are a lot of learners trying to access the server.

As a Site Administrator you can set up automated course backups on your site by following these steps:

1. From the quick-access menu go to Courses and categories > Backups > Automated backup setup.
2. You will then need to configure the settings as required, and select which data types you would like to include.
3. Click Save changes.

Once you have set up your backup schedule, Totara automatically creates archives of all the courses on the server at the time you specified. Once the backup is complete, Totara sends you an email describing the status of the backup. Any courses which are unavailable to learners and have not been changed in the last month are automatically skipped in the backup process.

In addition to setting automated course backup, we strongly recommend that you perform regular site backups.

Next steps

• Restore a course from a backup