Recovery timeline

A recovery timeline is the part of a disaster recovery policy that states when each system and its data must be working again after a disaster. It turns recovery into a priority order, so staff know what to bring back first instead of treating every system as equally urgent.

The timeline gives each system a target time for being back up and running. It also records how long the organisation can manage without that system. These are not the same: a system can be important but still be missed for a day, while another stops work almost immediately. The target time should be shorter than the longest time the organisation could cope, so there is a margin for error.

An example timeline

Riverside Music Tuition lists its systems in order. Pupil records come first because tutors need contact and medical details before lessons can run safely. The public website comes last because nobody needs it to teach.

Critical systems are the ones the organisation cannot manage without for long. They are recovered first. A timeline that marks everything as urgent is useless because it gives no real priority.

Actions in order

The timeline should also list the recovery actions in the order staff should carry them out, with a time or trigger for each. For Riverside, the first actions might be to check that pupil records are available, then bring back card payments, then rebuild the rota, and finally update the website. Setting out the actions like this means staff know what to do and when, rather than wasting time deciding what to do next while under pressure.