I love everything about Macrium Reflect, I get lots of great use out of Server Plus. However... The one feature that this backup tool lacks in comparison to other similarly priced solutions is their email notification system.

Backup Assist v9 for example can send out beautiful emails to both us (the IT support company) and the client. There is no messing with POP3/SMTP servers or credentials to memorize and input. All you have to do is put the tech and client emails into a backup settings field and it's done. For our IT company we provide SLA's which include backup services. It is extremely important that we are notified of backup failures and the client feels comfortable that we are doing our job properly (which they do when they receive pretty formatted emails from BA9).

In short, yes Macrium does have email on success/failure options. However, it is extremely basic and lacks substantially when it comes to professionalism or additional functionality. At the moment we have to sell our clients Backup Assist for the superior email functionality. Once Macrium implements better email support I would love to sell it instead!

Cheers,
Brandon

Hello 3dubit,

Thanks for contacting us on our forum.

Your suggestions have been noted down and passed on to the development team for evaluation.

Kind Regards

Gosha

See our reviews on

I'd like to piggyback on this recommendation.

I have longed for the ability to provide more information in the email messages, and therefore propose the creation of symbolic placeholders that would allow individuals to insert more information in the body of any email (fail or success, and perhaps a third type called results, sent no matter).   I'd propose a syntax similar to {imageid} in the filename.   The tokens could then be expanded before sending the email.  Expansion should occur in the subject line of the email as well as the body text.

• {backup-status} Succeeded, Failed, and any others
• {backup-status} Succeeded, Failed, and any others
• {backup-type-requested}
• {backup-type} same as {backup-type-actual}
• {backup-type-actual}   e.g. Incremental=>Full
• {backup-start-date-time}  job start
• {backup-end-date-time}  job end
• {backup-total-timespan} job end - job start
  
  
• {image-file-name}
• {image-file-fullname} .i.e. with share/directory name
• {image-file-size}
  
  
• {image-creation-start-date-time} Actual image start, not job start
• {image-creation-end-date-time} Actual image end, prior to verfication
• {image-creation-timespan} length of time for JUST image creation
  
  
• {image-verification-start-date-time}
• {image-verification-end-date-time}
• {image-verification-timespan} length of time for JUST verification
  
  
• {image-retention-actions-timespan) length of time for consolidation, deletion, etc. 
• {image-retention-metrics}  three part for sets/differential/incremental
• {image-retention-actual} three part for sets/differential/incremental
  
  
• {synthetic-full-actions} -- possibly multi-line with one line per EVERY image file merged, deleted, etc.
  
  
• {backup-directory-list} - with file creation date, size, type ordered the same as the list in the restore tab
• {backup-directory-prior-list} - Same as above but captured BEFORE any actions are taken
• {backup-directory-available-space}  (could also be part of the two backup-directory-*list above this and that way it would capture before and after size)

I realize that a lot of this information is available in the log file, but some of it is not.  And, I don't wish to make unsophisticated users scan the step-by-step detail in the log it to determine if there was anything unusual.  

Thanks for listening. 

I like that idea Dan. I think this would be very usefull.

I take a different approach to the email's coming out of Macrium Reflect.

I just want to know if the backup was a Success or a **FAILED** backup and I put that info in the subject line so I really never have to open the emails unless they are **FAILED** emails.

I have the log files attached and go there to see what's up.

I try to just keep it simple s_____.

-stew