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December 31th, 2023

Georgi Matev
Georgi Matev
Head of Product

As 2023 draws to a close, the Alcion team is sending off the year in style with a great set of new capabilities and improvements.

Features​

Email PST Export​

One of our most requested features is finally here! It's now possible to export one or more emails and email folders as a PST file which can then be accessed through Outlook or another PST-compatible mail client.

PST exportPST export

For more details, see the relevant documentation.

Preview Backup​

Alcion is optimized for high-throughput when performing backups, but the first backup for a resource with a significant amount of data can take upwards of 30 minutes. This is normal and usually fine for a steady state deployment but can be really inconvenient when looking to quickly evaluate the full range of functional capabilities of any backup solution. To speed up their testing, we've seen users setup test environments or test resources with a limited amount of data. Such approaches work well, but do require a level of preliminary planning and extra work.

At Alcion, we greatly value the time of our users, which is why we introduced Preview Backups. During the first 5 days of a new trial, when the first backup for each resource type is requested, Alcion will create a partial, yet representative, backup of the resource. A Preview Backup typically completes in under 2 minutes, and a subsequent full backup automatically follows. Users don't have to wait and can use the Preview Backup like any other backup to evaluate the browse, search, restore, and export workflows.

Preview backup detailsPreview backup details

Preview backup browsingPreview backup browsing

For more details, see the relevant documentation.

Backup Calendar Selector​

For any resource enabled for backups, Alcion allows you to select and browse all previously created backups. As the number of backups for a resource grows, it becomes more challenging to navigate to the desired backup. To address this issue, we introduced a calendar-based backup browsing control.

Backup calendar browserBackup calendar browser

Improvements​

  • Improved the ability to trace when a previously failed backup has been followed by a subsequent successful operator initiated retry.
  • Sped up loading of all key user interface pages.
  • Introduced statistics in export action details.
  • Added activity score for teams and groups resources.
  • Enabled the ability to restore OneDrive files from shared mailbox backups that were created before the resource was converted to a shared mailbox.
  • Disabled in-place and different location restore options which aren't applicable for archived resources.
  • Upgraded to the latest version of Corso which brings a number of functional, performance, and robustness improvements. For more information on Corso specific changes please see the Corso changelog.

Notable fixes​

  • Fixed incorrect protected user count when the number is below the minimum licenses required for a tenant.
  • Fixed cases of incorrect negative compliance score.
  • Fixed inconsistencies with how In Progress backup actions are counted in the recent and full activity panels.
  • Fixed cases where paging controls were shown even when no additional pages are available.
  • Fixed missing sign out button on mobile devices.
  • Fixed an issue where the trial expiration notification wasn't always visible.