How to Monitor Server-Level and External WordPress Backups in Siteward

If your host backs up your WordPress sites at the server level, or you use snapshots or another backup tool, tell Siteward so it stops warning you about missing backups. Set the default for every site under Siteward → Settings → Health thresholds → Backup monitoring, or change a single site from the Backup card on its own page. Choose “Server-level / external backups” and the site shows green on your dashboard and reads “Server backups: Active” on client reports.

Siteward watches UpdraftPlus by default: when the last backup is, whether it succeeded and whether it has gone stale. That works well for sites that back themselves up. Plenty of sites don’t. Managed hosts often take nightly snapshots of the whole server, and some agencies use a different backup service for everything. On those sites, a dashboard that only knows about UpdraftPlus shows an orange “No backups” badge that nothing short of installing a plugin you don’t need will clear, and a client report that prints “Backups: Not detected” when the site is actually well protected.

Siteward 0.13 fixes this with a backup monitoring setting you choose yourself. This guide covers the three options, how to set a fleet-wide default, how to override it on individual sites, and what your client reports will say.

The three backup monitoring options

• UpdraftPlus. The original behaviour, and still the default. Siteward reads UpdraftPlus on the site and flags No backups, Backup stale or Backup failing when something is wrong.
• Server-level / external backups. For sites your host backs up at the server level, or that are covered by snapshots or another tool. Siteward raises no backup warnings for these sites, the site’s Backup card shows Handled outside WordPress in green, and client reports say Server backups: Active.
• Not monitored. For sites where you don’t want backups tracked or mentioned at all. No warnings, and the backup line is left off client reports entirely.

Siteward can’t see inside your host’s backup system, so “Server-level / external” is your statement that the site is covered. Choose it for sites where you know it’s true, and keep an eye on your host’s own backup dashboard for those.

Set the default for every site

If most of your sites live with a host that does server-level backups, change the fleet default once and every site follows it:

1. Go to Siteward → Settings.
2. In the Health thresholds card, find Backup monitoring.
3. Choose Server-level / external backups (or Not monitored).
4. Click Save settings.

Every site on the fleet default is re-checked straight away, so the orange No backups badges clear as soon as the page reloads. You don’t have to wait for the next sync, and no alert emails go out because of the change.

Override it for a single site

Most fleets are mixed: a batch of sites on a managed host with server backups, and a few on cheaper hosting that still run UpdraftPlus. Set the fleet default to whichever is most common, then override the exceptions:

1. On the Siteward overview, click the site’s name to open its page.
2. Find the Backup card. At the bottom is a dropdown showing the site’s current setting.
3. Choose UpdraftPlus, Server-level / external backups or Not monitored, and click Save.

The first option in that dropdown, Fleet default, shows which mode it currently means in brackets. A site left on Fleet default follows whatever you pick in Settings, so changing the default later carries it along. A site you set explicitly keeps its own setting when the default changes.

What your client reports will say

If you use Siteward Reports (version 1.4 or later), the Security section follows each site’s backup setting:

The report builder also has separate switches for each part of the report now. Under Siteward → Client Reports → Design & preview → Sections to include, Uptime, Vulnerabilities and Backups can each be turned on or off without affecting the others. Before 1.4 they sat under one “Security” switch, so hiding backups meant losing the uptime and vulnerability summaries too. If you had Security turned off, the update keeps Vulnerabilities and Backups off for you.

Common setups

• Every site on a managed host with nightly server backups. Set the fleet default to Server-level / external. Done.
• Mostly managed hosting, a few UpdraftPlus sites. Fleet default Server-level / external; set the UpdraftPlus sites to UpdraftPlus on their own pages so Siteward still warns you if their backups fail.
• Mostly UpdraftPlus, a couple of sites backed up elsewhere. Leave the default on UpdraftPlus and override just those sites.
• Backups aren’t part of what you sell. Set Not monitored, or keep monitoring for your own peace of mind and switch off Backups in the report builder so clients don’t see it.

Backup monitoring modes are free in Siteward 0.13 and later, on unlimited sites. Update the dashboard plugin from Plugins in WordPress; there is nothing to change on the child sites.