Delete vs. Archive vs. Terminate

At times in Discovery, information may become unnecessary or you might prefer it not to be displayed alongside relevant data. There are a few filtering options available to accomplish this temporarily, but you may prefer information be excluded long-term or permanently. Here, you have three primary options: Delete, Archive, and Terminate. Each of these options has its application which we'll cover below.

Delete

Deleting an entity record is intended to either correct an entry error or remove something from Discovery entirely so that it does not appear to have existed. This is a very important distinction as Deleting entity records will have a profound and measurable effect on reporting. Deleted information will not appear on Standard or Custom Reports and is non-recoverable. Once an entity record is Deleted, it cannot be restored and will not be included in data exports. To be clear, Deletion events are terminal.

Here's a list of entity types that support Deletion:

Deleting a record is straightforward and is generally performed when viewing the record detail page. A Delete button is provided in the upper right-hand corner. There will be instances where other entity types depend on a specific data record to exist. Deleting such a record is disallowed. In short, too much has occurred in relation to the record, and the destruction of data would produce pronounced negative effects.

Archive

When you opt to Archive information, you're essentially adding a status to it that will allow you to hide it from displaying on index pages. This is useful when you're only interested in seeing pertinent data, but do not wish to fully remove the data from Discovery. This data may have reporting value or you may wish to actively use it in the future.

The Archive feature is limited to Locations, Vendor Invoices and Revenue areas of Discovery. When a Vendor Invoice is Archived at any stage of processing, it cannot be forwarded along the Vendor Invoice processing path until it is Unarchived. Archived Locations and Vendor Invoices can be Unarchived and restored to full functionality.

Here's a list of entity types that support Archiving:

Here are a few helpful documents regarding Archiving:

Terminate

The Terminate option is similar to Archive in that it is a status on the record that renders it dormant. Although Terminated records can no longer be used, their data is preserved for reporting purposes. This is an important distinction between Terminate and Delete.

Terminate is available on pivotal entity types where allowing deletion would be problematic when it came to data integrity. Instead, Terminate allows you to render the records inoperable and filtering options allow you to hide Terminated records. In this way, you maintain the record and its historical information, but you no longer see it alongside active records.

Here's a list of entity types that support Termination:

Here are a few helpful documents regarding Archiving:

If you have additional questions or need more in depth information, please feel free to send us a message using the help beacon in the lower right-hand corner.