Retention versus Purge Policy in Archive

Managing data in Archive is done through Retention and Purge Policies.
This article explores the differences between them and shows how to set up a view to identify the trigger that removed data from Archive.

Overview
As you begin to archive data, you will create an Archiving Policy, which includes a retention option. 
Both Retention and Purge processes permanently delete records from the Archive. 

The retention period, defined in the Archiving Policy, is a field specifying how long a record should be kept based on legal requirements or according to set criteria. 

The Purge Policy is an ad hoc way of creating more complex purge criteria that overrides the original expiration date defined by retention when the data was archived according to the retention period. 

1. Retention

• Purpose: Retention is the period during which archived data or records are intentionally kept and is defined when setting up the Archiving Policy. 
• Criteria: The retention period is determined based on legal requirements, compliance regulations, business needs, or other criteria specific to the organization. It refers to how long data should be kept in the Archive. 
• Effect: During the retention period, the archived data remains accessible in Archive and is not automatically deleted. The system automatically scans for reached retention periods on a daily basis for policies that have reached their retention period and then purges the data.

2.Purge

• Purpose: Purge is the process of permanently deleting or removing data from Archive ad hoc, outside of the retention period.
• Trigger: Purging happens when a record meets the criteria set in the Purge Policy, which is triggered automatically on a daily basis, or is initiated manually as an ad hoc action. This overrides the retention period. 
• Use Case: Purging is often done to ensure compliance with data protection regulations, or to respond to data deletion requests (such as the Right to be Forgotten), where you are not allowed to wait for the predefined retention period.

What you should know about Purge and Retention in Archive

•  If the retention criteria for a specific Archive Policy has changed (e.g. data now needs to be kept 7 years instead of 5 for GDPR compliance), you can update the retention period from 5 to 7 years in the Archive Policy. However, this will also retroactively impact all previously archived records through that policy. 
• To avoid retroactively impacting records, deactivate this Archive Policy and create a clone with the newly defined retention period.
• The Purge Policy can be applied ad hoc to override the Retention Policy, particularly in response to a Right to be Forgotten request.
• A Purge Policy is limited to deleting up to 1,000,000 records per policy per day.

​Setting up a view to identify the purge trigger

In the Archive Activities tab, you can view whether a record was purged via the retention period defined in the Archive Policy, or purged via a Purge Policy 

You can add the fields  Own Retention Date and Own Archive Date to the Activities table.