This article describes what data and metadata are restored when you restore an entire organization. It also covers possible restore limitations, which may depend on how you configure your restore. 

For more information about what happens to records, see: What happens to your Salesforce records after you restore

What data is restored

When you restore your entire organization, we restore:

• Custom objects 
• Custom fields 
• Records

When restoring, you can choose what to do with your objects, fields, and records:

• Create missing items
  This means we will create items in Salesforce that are in the snapshot but missing from Salesforce
• Update all existing items
  This means we will update items that exist in Salesforce to match the versions of these items that are in the snapshot
• Delete new items
  This means we will delete items that have newly appeared in Salesforce and which are not in the snapshot

What related metadata is restored

When you restore your entire organization, we also restore certain metadata. What precisely we restore may depend on how you choose to restore your data.

Global value sets

If fields are selected for restore (create missing and/or update existing), all global value sets are also restored.

• If a global value set is missing, we will create it.
• If a global value set exists, we will merge the changed version with the original value set.

Layouts

• If missing objects are created, missing layouts are also restored.
• If missing fields are created and/or existing fields are updated, layouts are also restored.

Custom tabs

If missing custom objects are restored, we also restore custom tabs. You can then add the custom tabs to an app.

Profiles

We restore profiles to their original states. This means we restore:

• Field permissions for the restored fields.
• Tab visibilities for the restored tabs.

What to consider when deciding how to restore your data

Certain data may not be restored depending on your restore configuration. Keep in mind the following limitations when deciding how to recover your data. 

What happens to records if you choose not to restore fields to their original states:

If you choose not to create missing, update existing, and delete new fields, we may be unable to create or delete certain records. 

Two possible reasons for this are the following:

1) If the properties are different between the objects we are restoring and those in Salesforce, data in the snapshot may not meet the new requirements and we may be unable to restore it.

2) If there are circular dependencies between records (when records are both child and parent to one another and have mandatory links), we may not be able to restore them:

• If we restore custom fields to their original states, we temporarily remove the extra dependencies during the process to help ensure the records will be restored properly.
• If we do not restore custom fields to their original states, we are more likely to encounter issues when restoring the records.

What happens to records if you choose not to delete new records:

If you choose not to delete new records, we may be unable to restore certain records:

• We may be unable to restore duplicate records if they have the same values for unique-constrained fields, despite them having different IDs.
• We may be unable to restore all records if the resulting amount of data (which could be the sum of the current organization state and the backed up state) will reach the storage limit.

What happens to fields if you choose not to delete new fields:

• In case of a field name conflict for incompatible field types, some fields may not be restored.
• In case of a relationship name conflict, we will add a numeric suffix (e.g., "_1") to the relationship name before restoring the field.