What is manual metadata filtering?
Manual metadata filtering is an advanced feature in Gearset which allows you to edit the metadata filter used on your backup job.
Gearset currently selects the metadata filter based on the data filter you select when configuring your backup job's settings. Any objects included in your data filter will also have their corresponding metadata backed up, along with any metadata objects with no data object equivalent. However, the metadata filter Gearset creates can sometimes lead to errors if we fetch an unsupported metadata object from Salesforce, resulting in your backup job failing. In this case, you can also deselect only the metadata object from your backup. This is done through enabling manual metadata filtering for your team, then configuring your metadata filter manually using the backup job settings modal.
Gearset does not recommend enabling this setting except for cases where you have been instructed to do so.
How to enable manual metadata filtering
To configure manual metadata filtering for your team's backup jobs, you need to enable this setting in your team settings. This can be achieved by going to Settings ⇨ Data management ⇨ Data backup settings ⇨ Enable manual metadata filtering for my team.
How to remove objects from your metadata filter
Once the manual metadata filtering team setting is enabled, you will find a new Metadata filtering tab in the Edit settings modal for your job. You can then enable manual filtering on a per-job basis by turning on the filtering toggle.
Once manual metadata filtering is enabled for a backup job, a list of all available metadata objects will be displayed in a similar format to all data objects in the Filtering tab. Here you are able to select and deselect metadata objects to be included in subsequent backup runs. Once objects are deselected (or selected) your edited filter can be saved by clicking Save on the modal.
To reset your metadata filter to its default value you can disable the toggle at the top of the Metadata filtering tab.
If you wish to completely remove a metadata object from your backup, you will need to deselect this metadata object in both the Filtering tab and Metadata filtering tab.
Note that improper use of this feature can lead to incorrect configuration of your backup, which could result in objects not being backed up and failed restores. Metadata objects should only be removed from the default filter - additional objects added to your backup are likely to cause it to fail.
