Backing up your data
You own your data. This article covers how to download a copy of everything in your Schoolwati account.
What's in a backup
- Students — every record across every academic year.
- Staff — every employee record.
- Invoices and payments — your full fee history.
- Expenses — every expense recorded.
- Payroll — every payslip.
- Attendance — daily records.
- Marks — every exam result.
- Documents — every uploaded ID, certificate, photo.
- Audit log — every action ever recorded.
- Settings — your school profile, roles, integrations (with secrets removed).
When you'd use this
- Quarterly archival — keep an external backup.
- Before a big change — schema rollover, year-end transition.
- Compliance audit — auditor needs a snapshot.
- Before cancelling your Schoolwati subscription — see Subscription and billing.
Running a backup
Open Setup → Data Export. Configure what you want included and click Export.
The export runs in the background. Depending on how much data you have, it takes from a few minutes to about an hour for the biggest schools. You'll get an email when the file is ready.
Security
- Backup files are encrypted on the server.
- The download link is signed and single-use.
- The export action is audit-logged — who did it and what was included.
What's coming
- Scheduled automatic backups — get a backup emailed weekly or monthly without having to remember.
- PDF reports for each major dataset alongside the raw CSV.
Restoring from a backup
Schoolwati doesn't support self-service restore from an exported file — backups are for external archival. For accidental deletions, every record is soft-deleted with a 7-day recovery window — contact support.