Taking a snapshot is the first step in almost everything you do with Snapshot. A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of the metadata in a Salesforce org. Reports run on snapshots, deployment arrows compare and deploy between snapshots, and every new snapshot is added to a time series, so the history of the org is never lost.
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Adding a snapshot item
Drag the blue snapshot icon from the Tool Palette at the bottom left onto the desktop.
NOTE: By default, dropping a new snapshot icon opens the Full Snapshot dialog right away. If you would rather right-click the item and choose between Full and Partial Snapshot, open Snapshot Preferences from the Snapshot menu, go to the Extras tab, and select Don't Automatically Open the Default Dialog.
Full or Partial Snapshot
- Full Snapshot captures all available metadata from the org. Use a Full Snapshot when capturing everything is practical, for backups, compliance archives, and deployment baselines.
- Partial Snapshot captures only the metadata you select. Use a Partial Snapshot for very large orgs, targeted deployments, or a repeatable subset you capture on a schedule.
Settings tab
Name the item and enter the Salesforce username. Choose the Account Authentication type: Salesforce DX, Developer Edition, Sandbox Account, Production Account, Custom Domain, or OAuth Endpoint for MFA and SSO environments. Password, security token, and custom domain fields appear when the selected type needs them. For Salesforce DX, Manage Scratch Orgs connects to scratch orgs and Dev Hubs.
Options on the Settings tab control the scope of the capture:
- Load Folder Based Assets: Include Report, Dashboard, and Email Template folders. Useful, but takes extra time.
- Load Document Folders: Include classic Document folders. Rarely needed for reports.
- Load Package Customizations: Load the unpackaged assets and customizations associated with managed packages, which is usually what you need. You can also load the selected packages themselves.
- Load Extra Object Information: Load additional object data for better reports, at the cost of extra time.
- Select Assets With File: Load a job list, Snapshot Limits file, or package.xml to select exactly the same assets as an earlier capture or another org.
- Display Number of Selected Assets: Count the selected assets as you work. Counting takes some time.
Asset tabs (Partial Snapshot)
A Partial Snapshot adds five tabs where you choose the assets. Each list offers All, Selected, or None, with Quick Find and shift or control click for multiple selections. Right-click a list to check or uncheck groups at once, such as managed packages, standard profiles, or inactive flows.
- Main Assets: Packages, Profiles, Permission Sets, and Custom Objects.
- Extra Assets: Roles, Groups, Queues, and Custom Object Translations.
- Bulky Assets: Content Assets, Custom Metadata, Static Resources, and Flows. Right-click the Flow list to show or hide Flow versions.
- Other Assets: Page Layouts, Apex Classes, Apex Pages, and all other metadata types.
- Folder Assets: Dashboard, Report, Email Template, and Document folders.
Take Snapshot tab
Before you start the capture, the tab summarizes what will be captured and lists Problems and Solutions, for example a warning that loading whole packages is large and that package customizations are usually enough. Add your own comments; comments are saved in the snapshot.
The Metadata API limits each retrieval to 10,000 assets and 40 MB. Snapshot divides the capture into Asset Groups, retrieves each group separately, and joins the results into one snapshot. Click Calculate Asset Groups to have Snapshot work out the groups, or add and remove groups yourself.
- Snapshot Limits File: Save the current selection as a text file to reuse in other snapshots.
- Asset Number Report: Create a CSV with the number of assets of each metadata type, to size the org and plan future captures.
- Storage option: Store asset data in the snapshot file (human readable but large), store the data compressed (small but not human readable), or store a reference to the data.
Click Take Snapshot to begin. A status window shows progress, and you can hold down the Escape key to cancel. Depending on the size of the org, a capture takes from a couple of minutes to several hours.
Schedule Snapshot tab
Schedule one-time or recurring snapshots, such as a nightly backup, to build a time series for monitoring and compliance. Keep Snapshot in Runtime Mode on an active machine so the schedule runs.