Self-Service Portal

A separate portal lets end users browse their own backed-up mail and files, view version history, and request a restore — without filing an IT ticket. Nothing they request executes until a designated approver signs off.

Scope

Exchange and OneDrive only
The self-service portal covers Exchange and OneDrive. SharePoint and file servers are not available through self-service today — restoring those still requires an operator, because they need permission resolution the self-service model doesn’t yet handle.

Within that scope, an end user can browse only their own mailbox and their own OneDrive — access is scoped at the database level, so one user cannot browse another user’s data through the portal.

What an end user can do

  • Browse their own Exchange mailbox and OneDrive contents.
  • View version history for their own items.
  • Submit a restore request for a specific item or version.
  • Track the status of requests they’ve submitted.

The approval workflow

Submitting a restore request does not restore anything immediately. A designated Restore Files Approver for that tenant has to review and approve the request first. Once approved, the request runs through the same restore pipeline an operator would use — the same in-place restore described in In-Place Restore.

No approver, no self-service
A tenant with no Restore Files Approver configured cannot use self-service restore at all — browsing and submitting new requests both require at least one approver to exist for that tenant.

Notifications

Each stage of a request’s lifecycle — submitted, approved, rejected, completed, or failed — triggers a notification to the person who requested it, and optionally to the tenant’s own IT contacts. BYOVault operators are never a notification recipient for self-service request activity; this stays inside the client’s own loop.

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