Scheduling Automated Power Platform Backups using PowerShell

Regularly backing up your Power Platform environments ensures data protection, disaster recovery, and compliance. Using PowerShell, you can:
✔ Schedule automatic backups for environments
✔ Retrieve existing backups for restoration
✔ Automate backup management via Task Scheduler or CI/CD

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Step 1: Prerequisites

1.1 Install Power Platform PowerShell Modules

Ensure the required PowerShell modules are installed:

Install-Module -Name Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell -Force
Install-Module -Name Microsoft.PowerApps.PowerShell -Force

1.2 Authenticate to Power Platform

Log in to your Power Platform admin account:

Add-PowerAppsAccount

1.3 Identify Available Environments

List your environments and note the Environment Name:

Get-AdminPowerAppEnvironment | Select-Object DisplayName, EnvironmentName

Output Example:

DisplayName      EnvironmentName
------------     -----------------------------
ProductionEnv    12345678-90ab-cdef-1234-567890abcdef
DevelopmentEnv   abcdef12-3456-7890-abcd-ef1234567890

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Step 2: Creating an Automated Backup

2.1 Create a Manual Backup

Use this command to trigger an on-demand backup:

$environmentName = "12345678-90ab-cdef-1234-567890abcdef"
New-AdminPowerAppEnvironmentBackup -EnvironmentName $environmentName

This creates a backup for the specified environment.

2.2 Verify Backup Creation

Run the following to list existing backups:

Get-AdminPowerAppEnvironmentBackup -EnvironmentName $environmentName | Select-Object Name, CreatedTime, State

Sample Output:

Name               CreatedTime           State
------------      -------------------   -------
Backup-Prod-001   2025-03-24 10:00:00   Completed

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Step 3: Automating Backups via PowerShell Script

3.1 Create Backup Script (Backup-PowerPlatform.ps1)

param (
    [string]$environmentName = "12345678-90ab-cdef-1234-567890abcdef"
)

# Authenticate
Add-PowerAppsAccount

# Create Backup
New-AdminPowerAppEnvironmentBackup -EnvironmentName $environmentName

# Log Backup Activity
$timestamp = Get-Date -Format "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"
$logFile = "C:\PowerPlatform\BackupLog.csv"
$logEntry = "$timestamp,$environmentName,Backup Created"
Add-Content -Path $logFile -Value $logEntry

Write-Host "Backup for $environmentName completed and logged."

This script automatically backs up an environment and logs the activity.

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Step 4: Scheduling the Backup Task

4.1 Open Task Scheduler

1. Press Win + R, type taskschd.msc, and hit Enter.
2. Click Create Basic Task → Name it Power Platform Backup.
3. Choose Daily or Weekly.
4. Set the time for automatic execution.
5. Select Start a Program and enter: powershell.exe -File "C:\Scripts\Backup-PowerPlatform.ps1"
6. Click Finish.

Now, backups will run automatically based on the schedule.

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Step 5: Automating Backups in Azure DevOps

To integrate backups into CI/CD Pipelines, use the following PowerShell task:

- task: PowerShell@2
  inputs:
    filePath: 'Backup-PowerPlatform.ps1'
    arguments: '-environmentName "12345678-90ab-cdef-1234-567890abcdef"'

This ensures automatic backups before deployments.