Activation provides Backup Radar with the necessary details to know what to expect from each backup job. Along with the following information, you'll want to consult our Company Mapping Overview before you begin to understand the process thoroughly.

There are three ways to activate backups within Backup Radar;

1. Manually (per backup)
2. Manually (bulk)
3. Templates.

Templates automatically activate backups as they come into Backup Radar and improve the maintenance of your Backup Radar configuration by linking multiple backups to a single template. This allows you to change configuration once and affect all the linked backups in Backup Radar.

Manually activating backups, whether it's a single backup or in bulk, is done from the Activate Backups page. This is best used for unique jobs that aren't aligned with your standardized templates or if your naming conventions and backup job varieties make practical templating impossible.

Regardless of your method, the fields you'll need to program are the same. At its simplest, you need four fields to be set;

1. Backup Type: Backup Radar can determine this automatically when a backup job reports in, and you'll rarely need to change what's assigned. Click here to learn more.
2. Device Company: Where you’ll select the appropriate company to assign this record to. You should use either Automated Company Mapping Setup or Company Assignment Rules to automate the process; however, you can also set it individually at the job level.
3. Device Type: This field should contain one of the three recognized types (Server/Unit, Mailbox/O365, or Workstation) and requires you to create the label during initial setup. This field is tied into your subscription; therefore, varying from the suggested options is not advised.
4. Schedule: The schedule sets the expectation of when the job will report in Backup Radar. A schedule is how we determine a missed result; without it, Backup Radar can't properly surface your data.

Once activated, you will find the jobs on the Edit Backups page, where you can view and manage these settings and on the Audit page, where the results can be viewed. The remaining fields provide additional customization to be applied depending on the behaviour of the backup and your desired outcome. Those fields are;

• Device Name: Automatically populated based on what Backup Radar receives from your inbound results. We do not recommend editing this field. If you wish to change the device name for any reason, the best practice is to make the change at the source.
• Job Name: Also automatically populated based on what Backup Radar receives from your inbound results. We do not recommend editing this field. If you wish to change the device name for any reason, the best practice is to make the change at the source.
• Backup Categories: This field offers a few pre-set categories you can assign to the job. If you're looking for functional labels that will help you isolate and report on specific data, using Tags will provide a more fruitful experience.
• Tags: Optional feature that can be powerful when segregating data in reports, tickets or dashboards. User-generated, so it will often vary depending on your workflow/needs. They can be managed centrally under Configuration Tags and created/added on the job settings page.
• Notes: Simple note field, internal only.
• No Result Threshold: This field allows you to mask a No Result as Pending status based on the assigned schedule. The threshold works in days and is most commonly used for Workstations that may be set to backup every day but commonly encounter unreconcilable PEBCAK errors or backups that typically take longer than 24hrs to complete.
• Alert On Failure: Secondary or Same Day ticketing (for Primary Ticketing, see this link). This setting will allow you to trigger a same-day ticket or email notification based on a failure status. Typically used for incremental daily jobs, where you can set a threshold for acceptable number of failures. We recommend leaving this off at the initial time of activation.
• Status Calculation: Once-a-day jobs or completely uniform results from an incremental backup job don't require calculation; however, if the backup job can/will report more than once a day and the results are mixed (i.e., some success, some failure), you'll want to pay attention to how this field is programmed.
• Pause Backup: Otherwise known as a maintenance mode, this allows you to identify a specific stretch of days where you don't expect the backup to report it and log the reason. 
• Treat Warning as Success: Backup Radar cannot distinguish between Warnings; this field will automatically adjust any Warning status received for this job to show as Success.
• Ticketing Company: This field is specifically for PSA-integrated accounts. If you would like any tickets created associated with a different company than the Device Company you've set, you can specify that with this field.
• Start of Business Day: This field allows you to re-map the calendar day. When untouched or blank, the new business day begins at midnight. Adjust this field to later if you have backups that start running after midnight whose results you want to be associated with the previous day.

This is often where many partners find it beneficial to work with a dedicated Onboarding Specialist (submit a support ticket to set up an appointment).