Getting started

Before you start

• A Windows 10 computer you're signed in to when backups run.
• A Rowtrace trial code. Sign up and Eskley emails you the code and the download link.
• A Smartsheet account on smartsheet.com.
• A Smartsheet API access token. In Smartsheet: Account → Personal Settings → API Access → Generate new access token. Copy it; Smartsheet shows it once.
• Somewhere to save: a local drive, a OneDrive folder, a network drive or a SharePoint library.

Rowtrace backs up what the token's user can see. Use a token from an account that's shared to everything you want backed up; Your token and your data explains which account to use.

Your first backup

1. Open Rowtrace

   Download Rowtrace.exe from the link in your sign-up email and double-click it. It opens in its own window.

   The first time, Windows may show Windows protected your PC. Choose More info, check that the publisher reads Eskley LLC, then choose Run anyway.

2. Sign in

   Rowtrace opens on Sign in. Paste the trial code from your email.

3. Connect

   Paste your token and choose Connect to Smartsheet. Rowtrace saves the token on this computer, encrypted to your Windows user, so you paste it once.

4. Choose what, when and where

   Choose New backup:

   • Select items. Tick the workspaces, folders, sheets and reports to back up.
   • When. Now, once to try it out, or On a schedule: every day or on the weekdays you pick, at a time you choose.
   • Where. Pick a save location and a folder layout: By row number, flat works for any sheet; By primary column, keep row hierarchy names folders from the first column and nests them like the sheet.
   • Review, then Back up now or Save schedule.

   Backing up a large account for the first time? Choose Plan a first backup. It counts what you have and spreads the first full copy over the nights you allow.

5. Open the result

   Choose Open backup folder. Each run is a new folder named for its date and time. History lists every run.

What a backup doesn't include

Rowtrace backs up what Smartsheet lets an API token read. These aren't in a backup made by the Windows app today:

• Dashboards.
• Formulas, automations, forms, cross-sheet references, cell history and sharing. The Excel copy of each sheet holds each cell's value, not its formula.
• Files in a workspace's File library. Smartsheet gives no way to read them through its API. Files attached to rows and sheets are backed up.
• DataTables and scenario plans. Smartsheet doesn't let an API token read them.
• Files linked from Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, Dropbox or a web address. Their links are listed in the manifest. The files stay where they are.

Some things are backed up in part:

• Collections. The sheets and reports in a collection are backed up with their workspace. The collection itself, meaning which items it holds and how it's laid out, isn't kept.
• Portfolios. Each project in a portfolio is a workspace, and it's backed up. How the portfolio ties those projects together isn't kept.

Archived workspaces are backed up in full, like any other workspace. The backup doesn't mark them as archived.

Keep scheduled backups running

• Stay signed in. Lock the screen instead of signing out.
• Keep the computer awake and plugged in at the scheduled time.
• If you move Rowtrace.exe, save each schedule again.