Delete attachments process

The Delete attachments process is accessed from System>Batch process menu>Background processing>Delete attachments, and is designed for those organisations with a policy that all attachments must be deleted after x period of time – usually in order to be sure to comply with copyright obligations.  It removes the Question, Answer and/or Workflow attachments for all questions closed for more than a period of time that you select.  Attachments to questions in the KB can be excluded from this automatic deletion process.

Note that this process will only delete a maximum of 2000 attachments in a single run, so it is best set up as a scheduled task, even if you are just using it for a once of project to bulk remove historical attachments.

If the process fails to run, the System administrator will be sent an email advising details of the issue.

Attachments can also be deleted from individual questions by the client using the “I want to add or delete attachments” function available under “Manage this question” in the client interface, or by staff using the “Manage attachments” links in various staff interface screens (such as the New, Change and Answer screens). 

When an attachment is deleted by this process, a history entry is added to the question to clearly indicate that the attachment was deleted by this process.  The History entry clearly shows whether the process was run by a specific staff member or by the System as an automatic background task.  Earlier mentions of this attachment in the History, such as where it was added to the question, will no longer be hyperlinked as the attachment has been deleted.

Using the Delete attachments process

See Background processing for general instructions about of how to use the Background processing screens.

As with other Background processes, the Overview tab shows a summary of the last time the process was run, and provides the ability to Enable or Disable the automatic running of the process.

All tabs provide a “Run process now” button that allows the process to be run manually at any time.

The Parameters tab allows you to control the records that will be chosen for their attachments to be deleted, and the types of attachments that will be deleted:

“Closed for”:  Allows you to determine how long the question should have been closed for before being selected by this run for any of its attachments to be deleted.  The period specified here is taken from the date and time that this process is actually run.

“Exclude KB records”:  Tick this if you DO NOT want attachments removed from closed questions that you have indicated as being in the KB. 

“Question attachments”:  Tick this to have Question attachments (those provided by the client) removed by this process.

“Answer attachments”:  Tick this to have Answer attachments (those provided by staff as part of the final answer) removed by this process.

“Workflow attachments”:  Tick this to have Workflow attachments (those provided by staff as part of the ongoing correspondence with the client such as with Inform client correspondence and third party correspondence) removed by this process.

“Preview only”:  Tick this to run the process without actually having any attachments deleted such as when you are originally testing up the process.  You’ll be able to see in the process log, a link to a summary of the questions that will be effected when the process is run without this option ticked.

The Schedule tab allows you to set how often this process will run, when you Enable it to run automatically (set in the Overview tab).

When you run the process, a log entry is created in the Process log tab. The log entry shows the details of the run, and the View log hyperlink allows you to see a summary of the questions for which the attachments were deleted.

The process removes all the attachments of the types specified in the Parameters tab, for questions that have been closed for longer than the period specified in the Parameters tab, and adds an entry to each question’s History that indicates that the attachments have been removed by this process.

If you had “Preview only” ticked, the “View log” link lists the questions for which the attachments would be deleted by this process, showing the attachments as hyperlinks that you can click to see what they contain. 

Note that this process is designed to be automatic so you will not be able to preview the attachments to be deleted, before they are deleted, unless you only run this process manually, and Preview before running live. If you run it manually, the only way to protect closed questions from having their attachments deleted is to add the question to the KB.

Exercise:

This process is distributed disabled. If you want to set this process running for your organisation, do a test run first. Go to the Parameters tab and set the “Closed for” period to the length of time closed questions should be closed before their attachments are deleted.

We would advise that you never untick “Exclude KB records” as you will want attachments retained for your KB questions.  Tick the types of attachments that you want deleted.  Some customers just want the Client attachments deleted.   Others may want all types of attachments deleted, according to your organisation’s specific retention policies. 

Leave “Preview only” ticked while you are just testing the process.  Click Update to save your parameter changes, then click the “Run process now” button to test the process.

Go to the Process log tab to see a summary of records that will be selected, when you untick “Preview only”. 

When you are happy that you have the parameters set correctly, untick “Preview only” in the Parameters tab, click Update to save the new parameters, then run the process manually.  Check the results – they should be as you expect – the records chosen in the Preview run, will now have had the attachments of the types you selected, deleted.

To set the process to run automatically in the future, set how often it should run in the Schedule tab and click Update, and then set the process to Enabled in the Overview tab and then click Update.  The process will now run automatically, at the frequency that you set in the Schedule tab.