This article will walk you through adding a Backup Plan* to your Backup Radar account.

*What's a Backup Plan? Backup Plans was beta-launched in June 2025 as a new, improved, and centralized method for activating and managing your backup results and system alerts, to eventually replace legacy features such as templates, schedules, ticket rules, status calculation, and the Audit page.

Think of a Backup Plan as a container that you create, customize with your expectations (such as scheduling, RPO, and SLA requirements), and group your devices within.

1. In Backup Radar, navigate to Manage > Backup Plans.

2. Click Add Backup Plan.

Step 1: General Info

Configure the following fields to describe and set identifiers for your Backup Plan, and choose the result type it will be ingesting. To save your progress at any point and finish creating your Backup Plan later, click Save (note: a Plan name is required before progress can be saved). When you're done, click Next.

a. Plan name (required): Name your plan anything you'd like (e.g. Datto Backup Plan).

b. What results will this plan be ingesting? (required): Choose the result type this plan will be ingesting: Backup Results or System Alerts. See Backup Type for more details on these two result types and how to determine your result type.

c. Description: You can optionally provide any additional details about this plan.

d. Tags: You can optionally assign one or more tags to your plan. This will apply each tag to every backup result ingested by this Backup Plan.

Step 2: Vendor & Categorization

Configure the following fields and click Next:

a. Backup Vendor: Choose the applicable backup vendor for this plan.

b. Backup Application: Choose the applicable backup application for this plan. The options in this menu will be dynamic depending on the backup vendor chosen.

c. Backup Source: Choose your backup source from the available options. The options and default selection in this menu will be dynamic depending on the backup vendor and application chosen.

d. Classification: Select each available backup classification that you'd like to include in this Backup Plan. Some classifications may be grayed-out and un-selectable to signify unavailability in the selected backup application.

e. Category: Optionally assign a category to each selected backup classification to choose your desired internal alias for each classification.

Step 3: Ingestion Criteria

To ingest all backup jobs from your vendor, click Skip this step and continue to Step 4: Schedule. To ingest only results that match specific criteria, click Add Condition or Add Group and follow the steps below to configure your criteria.

1. Select any of the following options to begin determining which results will be pulled into this Backup Plan:
   
   
   a. Email Address: Filter based on the outgoing email address for the backup.
   
   b. Job Name: Filter by job name. For more details, see Job Name.
   
   c. Device Name: Filter by device name. For more details, see Device Name.
   
   d. Company: Filter based on the assigned company. For more details, see Device Company.
   
   e. Client ID: Filter by Client ID. For more details, see Backup Client ID.
   
   f. Backup Metadata (Only available for certain* backup integrations): 
   • Backup Method: Drop-down of available backup methods.
   • Key: Keys determined from the API values.
   • Value(s): Values determined from the selected key.
   
   *We support Acronis, Axcient RMC, Datto BCDR, and MSP Backup (N-able Cove). If you have a backup method (or API keys for an existing backup metadata integration) we don't currently support, see Submitting Product Ideas to the ScalePad team for instructions on submitting your request to us.
   
   
2. Configure the following fields as desired:
   
   a. Add Condition: Click Add Condition to create a new rule for your ingestion criteria.
   
   b. Add Group: Click Add Group to organize your conditions into groups.
   
   c. Copy: Use this button next to any given condition to duplicate it.
   
   d. Delete: Use this button next to any given condition to delete it.
   
   e. Reorder handle: Click and drag the reorder handle to rearrange Backup Plan rules to different groups. This has no effect on the order in which Backup Plan rules are applied.
   
   f. AND/OR: Choose AND if you require every listed rule to be true for a backup result to be pulled into this Backup Plan. Choose OR if you only require at least one rule to be true for a backup result to be pulled into this Backup Plan.
   
   g. Test: Once you have finished building out your criteria, we recommend using the Test button to test your logic before saving it. Doing this will test your Backup Plan filters and display all inactive and active backups that have company assignment and match the Backup Plan criteria.
   
   

   Note: Backup Plans are applied in a priority order and by default, the most newly-created Backup Plans are the lowest priority. If you don't see a backup in your test results that matches your rules, it might already belong to a higher priority Backup Plan, so it can't be pulled into this one. You can modify this by customizing your priority order on the Backup Plans list view page using the Edit Priority button. Check out Understanding the Backup Plans page for more details.

Step 4: Schedule

Configure the following fields and click Next:

a. Timezone (required): Set your desired time zone. This field will default to your local time zone.

b. Backup classifications tabs: These tabs will only appear if you selected both Primary and Replication during Step 2: Vendor & Categorization; you can toggle between them to configure your individual schedule settings for each backup classification.

If you also assigned categories for your Primary and/or Replication classifications during Step 2: Vendor & Categorization, your categories will appear as the top tab labels here (for example, Local Storage and Offsite Storage).

If you don't see any tabs, this screen will only apply to your primary backup.

c. Date range (required): Set a start and optional end date for when backups in this backup plan are expected to run.

d. Schedule interval (required): Set your desired schedule (daily, weekly, monthly, or annually), associated day(s) of the week, and/or any unique cadence options as needed. This field will default to a daily schedule.

To reduce ticket noise, you'll want this schedule to match your actual backup frequency. For example, if your backups don't run on the weekend, there's no need for this rule to run on the weekend either.

e. Expected run days: This is a view-only illustration of your currently-selected schedule pattern. Use the arrows to scroll forward and backward to ensure your configurations match your goals.

f. SLA window: Set your Service Level Agreement (SLA) window to match the time frame during which you want tickets to be generated for non-compliance of SLA (you'll set your SLA compliance requirements later in Step 5: Service Level Agreement).

If your SLA falls out of compliance during your SLA window, a ticket will be generated.

If your SLA falls out of compliance outside of your SLA window, a ticket will not be created, but the event will still be logged in your Dashboard, Reports, and Daily Activity screens.

g. Recovery Point Objective (RPO): You can optionally set your RPO to match the outer limits of data loss that can be tolerated before causing harm to your business. Your RPO is essentially your maximum acceptable amount of lost data in the event of a system failure. The minimum RPO that can be assigned to a Backup Plan is 30 minutes.

If you want your RPO to be different depending on the day of the week, click the button to customize each day as needed.

h. Show advanced mode: In most cases, backups run on regular basis and you can simply set your backup's schedule to match in Backup Radar. However, some backups are scheduled more uniquely to occur on a specific cadence (for example, some backups may run on the third Friday of the month).

Use the Advanced mode feature to set your schedule to match your backup's unique schedule.

Step 5: Service Level Agreement

Now that you've set your SLA time frame window in the last step, your next step is to define your SLA compliance requirements.

1. Configure the following fields:
   
   a. Treat warnings as successful results: Select this option to require warnings to be treated as successful results.
   
   b. : Toggle between percentage or whole number as your number format.
   
   c. [ ] successful results: If you would like to define SLA compliance as a particular number or percentage of successful results, select this option and set your percentage or number. This field will default to 1 successful result per SLA window.
   
   d. Recovery Point Objective is met: Note: This option will only appear if an RPO was configured during Backup Plan setup. Select this option to require a successful RPO during the SLA window.
   
   e.  Last result is successful: Select this option to require a successful last result during the SLA window.
   
   
2. If you want early notification of your SLA being at risk of breaching your compliance requirements, click , set up your SLA at-risk criteria, and click Next.
   
   
   a. To capture data when insufficient successful results have been received by the time a certain portion of your SLA window has elapsed, select this option and set your percentage or number threshold.
   
   b. : Toggle between percentage or whole number as your number formats.
   
   c. This option will only appear if you set an RPO in Step 4: Schedule. To capture data when RPO is not met within a certain percentage of RPO time, select this option and set your percentage or number

Step 6: Ticket rules

As a last step, customize how tickets are generated by setting up your ticket rules and clicking Next:

a. Select this checkbox to create a ticket if your SLA is out of compliance.

b. Select this checkbox to create a ticket if your SLA is at risk of non-compliance. Backup Radar will define "at risk" as whatever you entered for SLA at-risk criteria in Step 5: Service Level Agreement.

c. Ticket profile: This drop-down menu will only appear if you selected one of the Create a ticket if... checkboxes above it. Select a ticket profile to populate your Backup Plan with a ticket profile you've already created. For a step-by-step guide to creating a new ticket profile, check out Setting up Ticket Profiles.

Step 7: Review

You're almost done! Review your changes and click Finish when you're done.

a. Enable backup plan: Select this option to activate this Backup Plan immediately upon finalization. Otherwise, you can enable it manually from the Backup Plans page.
b. Edit: Click the button next to any of the sections to jump back to that step and make changes.