A restore drill proves you can recover quickly and safely when incidents occur. This step by step guide shows how to plan and execute a realistic restore exercise without disrupting production, using sandboxes where possible and tightly scoped actions in live portals with clear guardrails, acceptance tests and a documented audit trail.
What is the short answer to running a safe restore drill in HubSpot?
Run your first drill in a sandbox, then practise a small, well‑scoped drill in production during a low‑traffic window. Pause automations and integrations, restore to a chosen timestamp, validate data, relationships and reports, then re‑enable services. Record timings against Recovery Point Objective, RPO, and Recovery Time Objective, RTO, and keep an evidence pack.
Who should run restore drills and what outcomes should they expect?
Executive sponsors, operations and IT owners, and functional managers should run drills together so business expectations match technical reality. You should expect proof that RPO and RTO are achievable, a runbook your team can follow, a clean evidence pack for audits, and higher confidence that recovery will be fast and controlled when an incident happens.
Which definitions matter before you plan the drill, and why?
A point in time restore returns data, assets and settings to a specific timestamp so the system behaves as it did before an incident. A targeted restore limits recovery to a defined scope, for example a set of records, an object or a configuration item. A non‑production environment is a sandbox or test portal where you can rehearse safely. RPO is the maximum acceptable data loss between backups. RTO is the maximum acceptable time to restore operations. Defining these terms avoids confusion, aligns success criteria and keeps the drill focused.
What pre‑requisites and guardrails prevent disruption in production?
You need named roles for owner, approver, implementer and validator, an approved runbook and a rollback plan. You must verify that a current backup exists for the target timestamp and you should define a maintenance window for any step that touches production. You should prepare a stakeholder communication plan with approvals captured, document which automations to pause and when to re‑enable them, and record data handling rules, including General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, considerations.
Which drill types can you run and when should you use each?
Record‑level drills suit early practice and low‑risk checks, for example a defined set of Contacts, Companies, Deals or Tickets. Object‑level drills test larger scopes, such as restoring a pipeline or list memberships. Configuration rollbacks cover workflows, properties, association labels or permissions. CMS drills focus on pages, modules, themes or HubDB data. Mixed incidents combine data and configuration and provide the most realistic rehearsal once you have mastered smaller drills.
How do you plan a restore drill step by step?
Start by choosing a scenario that reflects a real risk and define success criteria in plain language. Decide the environment, beginning in a sandbox and moving to production only with clear guardrails. Define scope precisely, including the timestamp to restore to, the objects and assets in scope, the exclusions and the dependencies. Set acceptance tests that cover data integrity, relationship checks, automation behaviour and a short business user validation. Prepare safety controls by pausing selected integrations and workflows and quietening alerts that might trigger during the drill. Confirm approvals and document the change ticket with owner and timing. Brief the team on roles, escalation routes and communication points so everyone knows what to do and when.
What execution checklist should you follow from start to sign‑off?
Before you start, verify the health of the backup for the chosen timestamp and export a small sample for later comparison. Pause relevant workflows, sequences, imports and integrations, and notify stakeholders that the drill has begun. During the restore, perform the targeted or object‑level recovery to the selected timestamp, track start and end times to measure RTO, and log each action with the owner and reason. During validation, check key properties, relationship integrity and list memberships, confirm that workflows did not re‑trigger unexpectedly, and validate the reports and dashboards that rely on the restored data. Ask a business user to confirm expected behaviour in a small sample. To close, re‑enable paused automations in the agreed order, monitor for thirty to sixty minutes for errors or re‑enrolments, notify stakeholders and record outcomes.
Which validation and acceptance tests confirm a successful drill?
A drill passes when the agreed data accuracy threshold is met for the sample, associations and list memberships are correct, no duplicate records are introduced, and no unintended re‑enrolments occur when automations resume. Key automations, reports and dashboards should behave as expected. RTO must be achieved within target and the RPO should match the chosen timestamp. Finally, the owner and approver should sign off the drill in writing.
What safety controls reduce risk during production drills?
Practise in a sandbox first, then keep the initial production drill small and tightly scoped. Choose a low‑traffic window and publish a brief notice to teams if needed. Prefer targeted restores over wider actions. Pause risky automations and integrations before restoring and resume them in a controlled order after validation. Keep a fast rollback plan ready so you can revert the drill if any acceptance test fails.
What goes into an audit‑ready evidence pack after the drill?
An evidence pack should include the change ticket and approvals, backup verification screenshots or logs, an action log with timestamps, users and outcomes, and the validation results, including data checks and user confirmations. You should add lessons learned and runbook updates so your process improves over time. Store the pack where leadership and auditors can access it.
What common pitfalls occur and how do you avoid them?
Duplicate creation during re‑imports is common, so favour targeted restores and use deduplication checks. Unintended workflow re‑triggers happen when automations are not paused, so always pause and test before you resume. Partial relationship recovery causes mismatches, so validate associations and list memberships explicitly. Downstream systems are sometimes forgotten, so inform data consumers and pause synchronisation where required. Missing permissions can block progress, so test access with least privilege before the drill begins.
How often should you run drills and what events should trigger one?
Run drills quarterly by default so your team stays confident and your evidence stays current. Schedule additional drills after major schema, workflow or theme changes, after new integrations go live and after any significant incident. Treat each drill as both a rehearsal and a learning opportunity.
Which runbook template sections should you include?
A concise runbook should include the scenario and objectives, scope and timestamp, roles and approvals, pre‑checks and safety controls, restore steps with timings, validation steps and acceptance tests, re‑enablement order and monitoring, and a final section for sign‑off, lessons learned and required updates.
FAQs
How do I choose a safe scope for the first restore drill?
Start in a sandbox with a small, low‑risk dataset such as a list of test contacts. When you move to production, keep scope limited, choose a quiet window and keep a rollback plan ready so you can revert the change if a validation check fails.
What should I pause before a restore drill to prevent re‑triggers?
Pause workflows, sequences, scheduled imports and key integrations that might act on restored records. Document the re‑enablement order so services return in a controlled way after validation.
Can I run a restore drill during working hours?
Yes, if scope is small and guardrails are in place. Communicate the window to stakeholders, apply a short change freeze to the affected area and keep the rollback plan ready.
How do I prove the drill met our RPO and RTO?
Record the backup timestamp you used, the start and end times of the restore and the validation results. Compare actual timings to your targets, document the gap if any and file the evidence pack for audit.
How do I involve business users without causing disruption?
Ask one or two users to validate a small, representative sample and provide a simple checklist for checks. Run this step during a planned window so the users are ready and aware of what to expect.
What evidence should I keep for an audit after a drill?
Keep approvals, backup checks, action logs, validation results, user confirmations and lessons learned. Store these with the updated runbook so auditors and leaders can see the plan, the proof and the improvements.
