Housekeeping: Deactivating & Archiving Data

This article is part of the All about Housekeeping guide. If you haven't already, please read the All about Housekeeping: Introduction

• Deactivating Data
  • Deactivating Individual Items
  • Deactivating Trees
  • Deactivating Via Queries (Actions Only)
  • Deactivating Users and Roles
• ​Archiving Trees
  • Actions
  • Risks
  • Scorecards
• Archiving to Folders
  • Documents
  • Reports
• Archiving Items by Code
• Archiving Contacts
• Archiving Appraisals

Deactivating Data

Deactivating Individual Items

Most items within Pentana can be deactivated. Deactivating items is a great way to de-clutter your end Users' list views, increasing loading times and overall system manoeuvrability.

Deactivated items are only visible to Site Admins, or Users with a module related view inactive Permission, such as: Actions_View_Inactive (Browser Only)

Items can be deactivated individually through their Notebooks. Simply open the item you wish to deactivate, select its Code and Title, and select the Deactivate option.

 Deactivating Trees

For items displayed in tree views, you’re able to deactivate the entire tree by deactivating the top-level Action or Risk first. To do this, open the top-level item, and deactivate it. The sub-items will automatically deactivate.

If you reactivate the top level of the tree, you’ll be asked if you would like to reactivate the whole tree, or just the top-level item. Reactivating a sub-item will reactivate all items above it.

Deactivating Via Queries (Actions Only)

Within Action Queries, there is the option to perform a Bulk operation to deactivate all the Results of the Query. So rather than deactivating each Action or Tree individually, you can deactivate them all at once via a Queries.

For example, you can apply a Completed Date filer to find all Actions that were completed after a certain date. You can then switch the 'Bulk Operations' Tab to make all the Actions in the Query results inactivate.

Deactivating Users and Roles

You're able to deactivate Users and Roles on your site. Inactive Users and Roles can be viewed in Ownerships and Reports, meaning they can be referenced to if required. When a User is deactivated, they are suspended from accessing the system. Deactivation is useful for previous employees. To deactivate a User or Role, simply open the Notebook and left-click the name at the top of the page. From the drop-down menu, select Deactivate.

All inactive items are shown with a strike-through. Inactive Users will not receive any Trigger emails should they be in any Ownership of an item. You may want to consider adding all of your inactive Users into Roles to group them together. For example, you could have a Role called ‘Inactive Users – Left Organisation’.

This would allow you to easily identify which Users used to work for you. Another good tip would be to make use of the email and phone number fields in a User’s notebook after they have been made inactive. As these fields are text fields, you could store a note about why they were deactivated.

Archiving Trees

Site Admins and Users with module related view_inactive Permissions will be able to see inactive items, meaning that their lists may grow cluttered over time. The neatest way to deal with trees that you still need on the system but want to hide from view is to archive them.

Actions

Cut and Paste Method

Note, this method will clear the Actions Audit Trail and set the 'Created Date' to the day the Action is moved.

To archive an Action tree in Browser, we’ll need to create a new top-level Action which will act as our archiving ‘folder’. When you create this, add ‘ZZ’ to its Code to move this Action to the bottom of any lists. Be sure to set the Start and Due Dates far enough in the past and future respectively - to cater for all Actions beneath it.

After this, simply Cut and Paste the Action trees you wish to archive, into this Action.

'Archived' Action Type Method

This will retain the Actions Audit Trail and original 'Created Date', but may be harder to delete archived items. 

Archiving Actions using a different Action Type has the advantage of preserving their position in the tree while removing them from active views such as 'Actions Browse' and providing the ability to filter these Actions out of Reports and Queries. 

To begin, create a new Action Type named 'Archived Actions'. For more information on creating an Action type please see the 'Create and administer Action Types.' section in the How do I Configure the Actions Module in Browser? guide. 

Next, you will need to:

• Change the Action type of the Actions to be archived to this new 'Archived Actions' type. 
• Deactivate the Action. 

This can be done using the bulk queries update tool available in Actions, shown in the Deactivating Via Queries (Actions Only) section of this guide. 

Risks

To archive a Risk register in Browser, we’ll need to create a new top-level Risk that will act as our archiving ‘folder’. Again, when this is created, add ‘ZZ’ to the Code to move this Risk to the bottom of any lists.

Important: Risk registers can only contain Risks using the same Risk matrix. Therefore, if you have Risks using different matrices on your site, you’ll need to create different top level-Risks for each:

After this, Cut and Paste the Risk registers you wish to archive, into their appropriate registers.


Tip Moving Multiple Items:
Rather than moving one item at a time, you can multi-select Risks or Actions to move into your Archive Tree at once. There are two methods you can use to do this:

1. Select the first item in the Browse screen you want to move, then hold the 'Shift' Key and then select the Second Item. This will highlight all items in the list between the first item you selected and the second item. Allowing you to select up to a whole of items page at once.
2. Alternatively, you can use 'Ctrl + Click' to select or deselect individual items. Therefore you can pick and chose exactly which items you would like to move

You can combine both of these methods to further streamline your archiving process.

Scorecards

You can use a similar technique for archiving Scorecards in Classic, as these are displayed in a tree structure. It isn’t possible to nest Scorecards, so firstly you’ll need to create a top level Scorecard to act as your archiving 'folder'. After this, you’ll need to create a new hierarchy level under this 'folder', which will hold the contents of the Scorecard you are archiving.

In the above screenshot, we have a Scorecard named ZZ_Archive. Within this, we’ve created a Theme called Corporate Plan SCORECARD. We then moved all 4 Themes from the original Corporate Plan Scorecard into this archived version. The original Scorecard top level can now be deleted.

Archiving to Folders

Documents

Within Documents, you are able to create an archive folder for old Documents to be moved to. To do this, create a new Document folder with ‘ZZ_’ at the beginning of its Title. This will move the folder to the bottom of the Document list. After this, simply cut and paste any Documents you wish to archive, into this folder.

Reports

Whilst you cannot make Reports inactive, it is possible to move them into an archive folder in the same way you can for Documents. You can also lock a Report version to prevent it from being run.

You can do this by opening the Report in Report Central, selecting the Publish tab, followed by selecting the version you wish to lock. After this, select Options > Locked.

Archiving Items by Code

Items can be archived by changing their Code to adjust the order that they are shown in lists for that item type. This may be useful for items that are not displayed in tree or folder views, like PIs, Feedback, etc.

PIs have a sort code field, which can be used to sort them instead. Therefore, you’re able to add a prefix to the PI sort code, so that the original code doesn’t have to be amended. You can find the PI sort code field by opening the PI Notebook, selecting the Code & Title, followed by Edit Settings.

From the Edit Settings screen, select the Advanced tab. The Sort field is found in the bottom right corner, in the Other Settings section.

Contacts

Contacts can automatically be deactivated when they are no longer linked to any active Feedback Records. Furthermore, Contacts can then be automatically be anonymised after they have been inactive. Both of these settings can be configured via Browser in your General Site settings. 

Note: This setting is disabled by default

Appraisals 

Completed Appraisals can automatically be Archived after a set period. This can be configured in Browser Appraisal Settings