SkieCan I see what a restore will change before I do it?
Yes. Restore preview shows what a backup would bring back, and what it would overwrite, before anything changes. You look at the differences, confirm only if they are what you want, and nothing is touched until then. It is the safeguard that stops a restore from becoming a second mistake.
Restoring is useful and risky in the same breath. If you bring back an old policy, you might also overwrite a good edit made this morning. The preview is there so you see that before it happens.
Pick a backup and the item or items you want from it. Skie shows what the restore would add, and what it would replace. You compare the backup's version with the current one. If the preview shows exactly what you expected, you go ahead. If it shows more than you wanted, you stop or choose a narrower item. Nothing has changed up to that point.
It follows the same idea as the impact preview that Skie shows before a change to a policy: see who and what is affected first, then decide. In a school, where one policy can sit over many groups and hundreds of tablets, that pause is worth having.
A restore is still a change, and it is recorded in the audit log, so you can see who did it and when. Devices pick up restored policies the same way as any other change: online devices within seconds, others at their next sync.
Practical tip: restore one item at a time rather than a whole backup. A narrow restore is easier to check, and if it is not what you wanted, it is easy to reverse. For choosing between a missing item and an older version, see restore a missing or overwritten item.