Restoring an administrative unit will update its attributes, role assignments, and links to member users and groups.

Restore an Entra ID administrative unit

Before you restore, ensure the Entra ID service account that was used to create the connector is assigned the global admin role.

1. Locate the administrative unit in your connector.

2. Optional: If you want to restore an older version of the object, click the Snapshots Viewer icon, and then select an earlier snapshot. You will now be viewing data from that particular time.

3. Select ••• > Restore.

Tip: To preview the attributes and relationships and to compare them to older versions, select ••• > Object metadata. You can also restore directly from the previewer. 

4. Select whether to restore subobjects.
Subobjects can be member groups and member users.

• If you select Restore only this object, click Next.
• If you select Also restore subobjects, click Next. Then select the restore method and click Next. 

5. Review the summary and click Restore.

Note: Administrative units can be restored in bulk, but the option to restore related items will be disabled. 

What happens when I restore an administrative unit

Restoring an administrative unit will restore its attributes and reestablish the following relationships:

• Members - links to all users and groups that are members of this unit
• Scoped-role assignments - links to all roles that are assigned to this unit

A relationship can be reestablished only if the linked object still exists in Entra ID.

If the unit has been deleted from Entra ID, attributes and relationships will be recreated. The unit will receive a new object ID.

This diagram shows the relationships that are restored:

Restoring an admin unit together with subobjects

An administrative unit's subobjects are users and groups that are members of the unit. 

Enabling subobjects restore will create missing subobjects. This means for each missing user and group we will restore attributes, licenses, and relationships. All recreated users and groups will receive new IDs.

Groups or users that exist in Entra ID but are not present in the snapshot will have their links to the unit removed, but the objects themselves will not be deleted from Entra ID.

If you select create missing and update existing subobjects:

• We will create users and groups that have been deleted.
• For each existing user, we will update its attributes, link to manager, role assignments, group ownerships, group and unit memberships, and licenses.
• For each existing group, we will update its attributes, links to members and owners, group and unit memberships, role assignments, and licenses.

If you select only create missing subobjects:

• We will create users and groups that have been deleted.
• The attributes, relationships, and licenses of existing users and groups will not be updated.

Note: We cannot reestablish deleted users' memberships to distribution and mail-enabled groups. In this case, the restore job will be marked as incomplete, and these relationships will be skipped.