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My team recently moved to Guru and is already starting to build quite a valuable store of knowledge in there.

 

It got me thinking about what a major issue it would be if one day we were to suddenly lose access to all our content in Guru.

 

To be fair, I think it’s highly unlikely that Guru would decide to close up shop without any warning or giving us a chance to export our content, but it’s still nice to know that there are regular backups in there.

 

Currently, the only way I can think of is to regularly backup the data via the Content Export feature, probably something that we’ll do every 3 months or so.

 

However, I’m wondering if anyone’s figured out a way to automate this so that a), we don’t have to manually do it, and b) not risk the person responsible forgetting to do it.

 

I’ve checked the API, and the closest I can find is to use the search API without any query. This is decent I suppose, in that it’s give the text which is the most important part (for us at least), but it’ll be nice if the images can somehow be exported too.

Hey @Jonathan Chua! 👋

Thanks for your question. We suggest backing up your Guru data using these options:

  1. Exporting your Guru data directly from Guru's Web App. While this is not automated, you can choose one of these methods to export your data directly:
    1. Exporting Cards via Card Manager - this will export your information as a .csv file in HTML format. It will not include any images or file attachments, only text.
    2. Export all Collections using our .zip file export - this will export your information as a .zip file. It will include all image and file attachments.
    3. Export Boards as PDFs (must be board by board) - this will export your information in PDF format. It will not include any images or file attachments, only text. You must export Boards one-by-one, you cannot export Boards on a Collection basis.
  2. If you do not have developer resources but have access to Zapier and are looking for an automated way to back up your information, you can build a zap that will save new/updated Cards as a PDF. You can then add to that Zap and push the resulting PDF to Google Drive for storage!
  3. If you have developer resources we have a couple of other paths that use our API/SDK to assist with back ups. If this is interesting to you let me know and I can provide you with more detailed instructions and resources!

Our team is working to ensure our services are stable and reliable. We hope that one of these exporting options allows you to use Guru continuously, even in the unlikely event of Guru service downtime.

Please let me know if you have any further questions about this, I'm happy to assist further.

Thanks!

Joe

Hi @Joe Duffy!

 

Thanks for the response. Yup, what you suggested in 1.2 is what we’re already doing at the moment, albeit not very reliably as it’s a manual process and we keep forgetting.

 

We do have developer resources, and am looking to use the search API to do a regular, text-only backup, unless there’s something better that we should be looking at?

  1. Exporting your Guru data directly from Guru's Web App. While this is not automated, you can choose one of these methods to export your data directly:
    1. Exporting Cards via Card Manager - this will export your information as a .csv file in HTML format. It will not include any images or file attachments, only text.
    2. Export all Collections using our .zip file export - this will export your information as a .zip file. It will include all image and file attachments.
    3. Export Boards as PDFs (must be board by board) - this will export your information in PDF format. It will not include any images or file attachments, only text. You must export Boards one-by-one, you cannot export Boards on a Collection basis.

 

Thanks for your help. That worked for me! 

Hey @Jonathan Chua 

There are a few options you could go with here:

  1. Set up a job to call the search API endpoint every X day and store its contents.
  2. Bulk Convert to PDF (for existing Cards):
    1. Here is an example of the script used to complete this process (download_as_pdf_example (1).py) so you can perform this back up now and going forward.
  3. Use Zapier to convert new/updated Cards to a PDF in the future:
    1. You can build a zap that will save new/updated Cards as a PDF. You can then add to that Zap and push the resulting PDF to Google Drive for storage!

Let me know if any of these help!

Thanks,

Joe

@Joe Duffy ✋🏻. I’m trying to look at the example python script for the bulk convert to PDF option you mention above (this card specifically:  download_as_pdf_example (1).py.) But it just takes me to the Guru login. Is there a way you can share it with me?

Many thanks,

Lynn

Hi @Lynn Miller!

In the script you linked to, as long as you are supplying your email address and API token in the “email” and “token” variables, this script should run just fine - I just tested it on my local machine and it worked great!

When you say that it takes you to the Guru login when you run the script - would you mind providing a screen recording of the steps you’re taking to reproduce that?

Thanks!

Joe

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