10 Critical Keap Settings Backup Users Must Check During Onboarding

For any HR or recruiting professional, a CRM like Keap is more than just a contact database; it’s the lifeblood of your talent acquisition and management processes. From candidate pipelines and interview notes to compliance documents and crucial follow-up sequences, your Keap instance holds a wealth of irreplaceable data. Yet, a common oversight during initial setup—or even years into using the platform—is a robust, proactive backup strategy for your specific Keap settings and data configurations. Many assume that “cloud” means “automatically backed up and fully recoverable,” but this assumption can lead to catastrophic data loss, operational bottlenecks, and compliance nightmares when human error or unforeseen issues strike.

At 4Spot Consulting, we’ve witnessed firsthand the consequences of inadequate Keap data protection. A misplaced setting, an accidental bulk delete, or an integration mishap can unravel weeks or months of diligent work in a matter of seconds. For high-growth B2B companies, especially those in HR and recruiting, where data integrity is paramount, this isn’t merely an inconvenience—it’s a significant business risk. This article isn’t about Keap’s infrastructure backups (they handle that internally); it’s about safeguarding *your* unique intellectual property, custom configurations, and client-specific data within Keap. During onboarding, establishing these checkpoints isn’t just good practice; it’s an essential foundation for scalability, efficiency, and peace of mind. Let’s dive into the critical Keap settings and data points you must secure.

1. Implement a Routine for Contact & Company Data Exports

While Keap maintains its own system backups, the onus is on the user to ensure their data is logically sound and recoverable in the event of user error, malicious activity, or a corrupted import. Your contacts and companies are the bedrock of your CRM. Onboarding is the perfect time to establish a rigorous, repeatable process for exporting this core data. This isn’t just about the names and emails; it’s about custom fields, lead sources, ownership, and last interaction dates—all vital for HR and recruiting pipelines. Consider a weekly or bi-weekly export schedule, saving CSV files to a secure, off-Keap location like a cloud drive (e.g., Google Drive, Dropbox) or an internal server. Label these exports clearly with dates. Beyond manual exports, explore automation tools like Make.com to automate these exports, pulling specific data points and storing them systematically. This proactive measure ensures that if a bulk edit goes wrong, or a critical segment of your database is inadvertently altered or deleted, you have a recent, clean snapshot to revert to. This safeguard significantly reduces recovery time and prevents the loss of valuable candidate or client intelligence that drives your business forward.

2. Document and Back Up Custom Fields & Field Mapping

Custom fields are where the real power of Keap shines, allowing you to tailor the platform to your specific HR and recruiting processes. Think about fields like “Candidate Status,” “Interview Stage,” “Salary Expectation,” “Job Role Applied For,” or “Skills Assessment Score.” Losing the definition of these fields, or their associated data, can render your database virtually useless. During onboarding, meticulous documentation of every custom field, its type (text, dropdown, date), and its purpose is non-negotiable. Go a step further by regularly exporting contacts with *all* custom fields included. This ensures that not only do you have the data, but you also understand the structure it was built upon. If you ever need to migrate data or rebuild a segment of your database, having a clear map of your custom fields and their values will save countless hours of guesswork and prevent data integrity issues. This attention to detail protects the intellectual capital embedded in your process-specific data points, ensuring continuity even in unforeseen circumstances.

3. Safeguard Your Campaign and Automation Logic

Keap’s strength lies in its automation capabilities—the campaigns that nurture candidates, onboard new hires, or follow up with clients. These campaigns are complex flows of emails, tasks, tags, and decision diamonds. Losing or corrupting a critical campaign could cripple your operations, requiring immense effort to rebuild from scratch. During onboarding, make it a priority to document the logic of your essential campaigns. This can involve screenshots of the campaign builder, detailed flowcharts, or written step-by-step descriptions of triggers, sequences, and rules. While Keap doesn’t offer a direct “export campaign” function in a readily importable format, regularly creating duplicate campaigns as a historical snapshot (e.g., “Candidate Nurture – v2023-10-26”) can serve as a rudimentary backup. For true resilience, consider leveraging API-driven tools through platforms like Make.com to extract campaign metadata and logic into an external, readable format. This ensures that the intelligence embedded in your automated workflows is preserved, allowing for rapid recovery and continued operational efficiency, protecting your recruitment and HR investments.

4. Document and Export Your Tagging Structure

Tags are the silent heroes of Keap, enabling granular segmentation, trigger automation, and powerful reporting. Imagine losing your meticulously crafted tag categories for candidate sourcing, skills, or client industries. The impact on your ability to target, automate, and analyze would be severe. As part of your onboarding diligence, create a comprehensive list of all active tags, including their purpose and any associated automation rules. Regularly export your contacts with their assigned tags, ensuring that the critical relationships between individuals and their attributes are preserved. This can be done through Keap’s native export functions, selecting the “Include Tags” option. Store these exports securely, similar to your core contact data. Furthermore, develop a naming convention for tags and audit them periodically to prevent sprawl and ensure clarity. A well-documented and backed-up tagging structure is crucial for maintaining a clean, actionable database, ensuring that your HR and recruiting efforts remain targeted and effective, even if an accidental bulk tag deletion occurs.

5. Preserve Your Email Templates and Broadcast History

In HR and recruiting, communication is king. Your Keap email templates, from interview invitations to offer letters and candidate feedback requests, are invaluable assets that reflect your brand and streamline your outreach. The time and effort invested in crafting effective, compliant email copy shouldn’t be overlooked in your backup strategy. During onboarding, establish a process for backing up these templates. While Keap doesn’t allow direct export of templates in an editable format, you can copy the HTML source code of each critical template into a secure document. Additionally, regularly export your broadcast history. This record of past communications is vital for compliance (e.g., GDPR, CCPA), dispute resolution, and historical analysis of your outreach effectiveness. Knowing what messages were sent, to whom, and when, provides an invaluable audit trail. Protecting these communication assets ensures that your messaging remains consistent, compliant, and recoverable, supporting your employer branding and candidate experience efforts.

6. Back Up Form and Landing Page Data Submissions

Keap forms and landing pages are frontline data capture tools, essential for lead generation, event registrations, and candidate applications. Beyond the contact record created upon submission, the raw submission data itself can contain valuable information, especially if a form is set to collect data that isn’t directly mapped to a contact field or if you need an audit trail of changes. During onboarding, it’s critical to understand how to access and export form submission data. For each critical form or landing page, regularly export the submission reports. This provides a detailed record of every field submitted by a user, offering a safety net if a contact record is deleted or if there’s a discrepancy in how data was processed. This also ensures compliance for record-keeping requirements, particularly important when handling sensitive candidate information. Automating these exports via third-party integration tools like Make.com can provide an additional layer of security, pushing submission data to an external spreadsheet or database for long-term archival.

7. Document User Permissions and Security Settings

While not “data” in the traditional sense, user permissions and security settings are fundamental to data protection and operational integrity. Incorrectly configured user roles can lead to unauthorized data access, accidental deletions, or mismanaged processes, posing significant security and compliance risks. During onboarding, meticulously document your user roles, their assigned permissions, and any specific security settings (e.g., IP restrictions, two-factor authentication requirements). This documentation acts as a critical blueprint for replicating your security posture if you need to onboard new users, audit existing ones, or recover from a security breach. Regularly review and update this documentation as your team grows or roles change. Ensuring that only authorized personnel have access to specific data sets and functions within Keap is paramount for maintaining data confidentiality and preventing costly errors in HR and recruiting operations, where sensitive information is routinely handled.

8. Catalog Your Integration Configurations

Keap rarely operates in a vacuum. It often integrates with other critical tools in your HR tech stack, such as applicant tracking systems, payroll software, email platforms, or calendaring tools. Each integration represents a vital data flow and operational dependency. Losing the configuration details for these integrations can lead to broken workflows, data silos, and significant downtime while you troubleshoot. During onboarding, create a comprehensive catalog of all active Keap integrations. For each integration, document: the integrated platform, the purpose of the integration, key settings (e.g., API keys, webhooks, field mappings), and the responsible party for maintenance. While you can’t “back up” an integration’s live connection, having detailed documentation allows for rapid re-establishment of connections and prevents the loss of valuable operational time. This proactive documentation is essential for maintaining a seamless data ecosystem across your entire tech stack, ensuring that your HR and recruiting automation remains robust and interconnected.

9. Manage and Back Up Your File Box Content

Keap’s File Box often contains essential documents: resumes, cover letters, contracts, compliance forms, or internal training materials. These files are directly linked to contacts or companies and are critical for your HR and recruiting processes. While Keap stores these files, relying solely on their platform for long-term archival of *your specific files* might not align with your internal data retention policies or provide the granular control you need for recovery. During onboarding, establish a strategy for backing up your File Box content. This could involve periodically downloading all files, especially those associated with critical contacts or opportunities, and storing them in a secure, redundant cloud storage solution (e.g., Google Drive, SharePoint). Organize these external backups logically, mirroring your Keap structure where possible. For high-volume users, consider automated solutions using Make.com to regularly extract and archive files uploaded to Keap. This ensures that vital documents are always accessible, even if a file is accidentally deleted within Keap or if you need historical access independent of the CRM.

10. Establish a Comprehensive Change Management Log

Perhaps the most overlooked “backup” strategy isn’t about data, but about knowledge: a detailed log of all significant changes made within your Keap account. This includes new campaigns launched, major tag structure revisions, custom field additions/deletions, integration updates, or critical automation modifications. In a dynamic HR or recruiting environment, changes are constant. Without a log, troubleshooting issues (“Why did this automation stop working?”) or understanding historical context (“When did we start tagging candidates this way?”) becomes incredibly difficult. During onboarding, implement a simple, shared document (e.g., a Google Sheet) where team members record significant changes, including the date, what was changed, who changed it, and why. This log serves as an invaluable reference point for debugging, training, and strategic planning. It’s a “backup” of your team’s collective intelligence about your Keap configuration, preventing knowledge silos and ensuring institutional continuity, which is critical for scaling any HR or recruiting operation effectively.

Proactive data protection and meticulous setting management during Keap onboarding are not just best practices; they are foundational to building a resilient, scalable HR and recruiting operation. The effort invested upfront in documenting, exporting, and understanding these critical Keap settings will pay dividends by preventing costly errors, minimizing downtime, and ensuring the continuity of your essential business processes. Don’t leave your invaluable candidate data and intricate automation workflows to chance. Establishing these backup and documentation protocols from day one is a strategic move that safeguards your investments and empowers your team to operate with confidence.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: Keap Data Protection for HR & Recruiting: Your CRM-Backup Guide