Manage Document Retention Policies

About the Document Retention Manager

The Document Retention Manager provides the ability to set policies that govern when a document will be automatically deleted from the archive. This is often a regulatory requirement in particular industries and this feature is designed to help you stay compliant as and when required.

Retention policies can be applied on a per-document basis allowing complete control over the date a document is deleted. If preferred, policies can be applied on a document definition basis, meaning a document is deleted based on the date it was created.

The screen shows a summary list of notifications and retention policies. Click a node to expand it and view or configure settings.

Note

Document deletion will occur at midnight (00:00) every day. Any expired documents will be deleted at that time.

For each document definition, one of the following mutually exclusive options is available:

• Keep indefinitely

• Define a maximum age in days, using the document created date as the starting date.

• Identify a date key to associate with the document definition which will contain the expiry date of the document.

Note

For more information on the options, see the Retention Policies section.

Retention Settings

Email Reports

You can define the email addresses to which you want notifications sent when document deletion events occur. Emails are sent every time the document retention policies are applied based on the configuration selected.

Email Recipients: Type the email address you want to receive notifications.

Note

To configure settings for more than one email address, separate each with a comma.

Select the checkbox for each option you require:

• Success: If selected, a notification will be sent after the retention process completes successfully.

• Partial failure: If selected, a notification will be sent after some errors have occurred.

• Failed: If selected, a notification will be sent after the retention process aborts due to excessive errors.

Click Confirm to apply your changes.

Notification emails provide a summary of the policy execution for each policy defined, including the number of documents removed and any errors that have occurred. See the Logging section for details on how to review errors for resolution purposes.

Logging

Notification emails summarise the result of applying a policy which includes any documents that have not successfully been deleted due to an error. The full detail is recorded in dedicated logs. These capture the time, Document Definition, document id, document revision, and full error trace and rotate on a daily basis, i.e., per execution run.

These logs are in the following location:

/retention-policies/policy-executions.log in the standard log directory for the application.

Retention Policies

Select from the following options:

• None: If selected, the documents will not be deleted automatically.

• Fixed Time Period: If selected, you can specify the maximum age in days, using the document created date as the starting date. Documents exceeding the specified age will be deleted.

• Per-document: If selected, you can identify a date key to associate with the document definition which will contain the expiry date of the document. A fallback policy is selected for when there is no value present.

Note

When choosing to specify a date key to hold the expiry date, you can configure what will happen if no value is set for a document. The ‘fallback’ policy can be either of the following options:

• Default to a maximum age based on the creation date

• Keep indefinitely

Secondary Options

Note

The following options are context sensitive so will vary depending on your configuration.

• Documents are deleted after: The time period, in days, after which the document will be deleted.

• Document key holding the deletion date: Select, from the drop-down menu, the document key with which you want the deletion date to be associated. Keys must have been bound to the document definition in order to be listed.

• Empty key fallback behaviour: Select, from the drop-down menu, the fallback behaviour required if the key is not defined. The options are either to default to a maximum age based on the creation date or keep indefinitely.

• If the key is empty, delete after: If the key is not defined, this fixed time period will be used. It is the time period, in days, after which the document will be deleted. The document created date will be used as the starting date.

Click Confirm to apply your changes.