Once you have created your backup policies, you must assign them to the relevant entities to start protecting your data. Policies can be assigned to Organisational Units (OUs), Smart Teams, or Shared Drives.
From Automate V3.6.0.0 and Backup V1.17 (11 November 2026), assigning Backup policies has moved into the modern Automate interface, on the Assign policies page. It works the same as before.
Before you start
- Policies cannot be assigned directly to individual users. Users inherit policies based on their OU or Smart Team membership.
- Assigning a policy will not send a notification to users. The backup process runs silently in the background.
- OUs and Smart Teams sync every 4 hours, so initial backups may not start immediately after assignment.
- Shared Drives sync instantly.
- Each policy sends its backups to the storage bucket chosen on that policy. See Creating and editing a backup policy.
Precedence rules
If a user belongs to multiple groups, CloudM applies policies in the following order:
| Priority | Source | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Smart Teams | If a user is in multiple Smart Teams, the policy from the highest priority team is applied. Priority is configured in Directory > Smart Teams. |
| 2 | Organisational Unit | An explicit OU policy takes precedence over the Root OU. |
| 3 | Root OU | Applied only if no Smart Team or explicit OU policy exists. |
The Assign policies page
The page has three tabs: Organisational Units, Smart Teams and Shared Drives.
Assign to Organisational Units or Smart Teams
- Go to the Assign policies page.
- Select either the Organisational Units or Smart Teams tab and select the item you want to configure.
- Choose what the item should use:
- Organisational Units: inherit the policy from the parent OU, use a specific policy, or use no policy. By default, OUs inherit the policy from their parent.
- Smart Teams: use a specific policy, or use no policy. By default, backup is disabled for a Smart Team.
- Select the backup policy you want to assign.
- Save your changes.
What happens after saving
- If you add a new data type to a policy (for example, adding Drive to a Mail-only policy), a bulk backup of the new data type will start. Existing items continue incrementally.
- If you remove a data type, that data will be purged once the previous policy's retention period expires.
Assign to Shared Drives
Option 1: Assign to specific drives
- Go to the Assign policies page.
- Select the Shared Drives tab.
- Select the checkbox next to the Shared Drive(s) you want to update.
- Select Assign Policy.
- Select the desired policy from the dropdown and confirm.
Option 2: Bulk assign to all drives
- On the Shared Drives tab, select Assign Policy to All.
- Select the policy from the dropdown.
- Choose your target scope:
- Assign to all Shared Drives with No Policy: only affects drives that are currently unprotected.
- Assign to all Shared Drives: applies the new policy to every drive, replacing any existing policies.
- Select Assign Policy.
Licensing
Every user or Shared Drive being backed up consumes a CloudM Automate licence. Refer to the CloudM Automate Licensing Policy for details on how licences are counted and reassigned.
Need help? Contact CloudM Support.