Archiving data

The archive feature of BMC Helix Innovation Suite provides a convenient way to periodically store data, not definitions, from a form to an archive form. This reduces the amount of data accessed during searches on the main form, thus improving system performance.

Archiving applies to all regular forms. The regular form is the form on which archive is set and data is read from, and the archive form is the form to which data is copied. Archiving helps manage your transactional data by moving older records out of the primary forms and into archive forms. This helps maintain performance and adhere to your data retention policies.

The archive form is a regular form with special behaviors. It must be on the same server as the main form. You can configure the archiving process from the AR System Archive Manager console. By default, the Server Group Archive option is enabled in the AR System Archive Manager console. Each policy has a default policy age in days. You can define the custom age in days for each policy.

Types of archives

When configuring a form for archiving, you can designate an existing form as the archive form if it has the characteristics of an archive form. If you do not enter the name of an existing form, AR System creates the form. For information about the characteristics of an archive form, see Archive-form-characteristics

The following archive types are available:

Copy to Archive and Delete from Source—The entries you choose from the main form are copied to the archive form and deleted from the main form.
Delete from Source—The entries you choose from the main form are deleted; no archive form is involved.
None—Select this option to delete the archive settings for the form. The form is not archived.

Archiving for on-premises customers

By default, archiving is enabled for on-premises customers, and the default value is 730 days. However, if your organization does not use archiving or needs to temporarily disable the feature (for example, if you need to prevent the Archive Process from running during system maintenance), you can clear the Enable Server Group Archive check box to disable the feature from the AR System Archive Manager console.

On-premises customers can modify a policy by updating the Age in Days value in the Archive Policies for each archive in the AR System Archive Manager console. By changing this value, you can control how long each record type remains in the production database based on your organization's needs. For example, if your help desk generates 30 incident requests for every change request, you might need to archive incident requests more frequently than change requests.

By default, the system runs an archive process every 24 hours. You can change this value according to your business needs. For example, if your organization archives a large volume of records, you might want to increase the frequency of the archiving from every 24 hours to every 12 hours. By running the Archiving process more frequently, smaller numbers of records are archived in a run, which reduces the impact of the archive run on the overall system performance.

Archiving for SaaS subscribers

For SaaS subscribers, archiving is enabled out of the box, and cannot be disabled. It occurs over weekends. By default, a 2-year archival policy is auto-enabled for all SaaS subscribers. Any BMC Helix ITSM data within your production forms that are 2 years or older will be archived. You can change the policy to a value of up to 730 days (2 years).

When you enable a policy, you can set the Custom Specified Age in Days in the AR System Archive Manager Console to a value that is less than two years. No number is displayed for the custom age if you haven't customized it.

Modifying the Archiving Schedule for SaaS subscribers

By default, the archiving process is set to run every 24 hours, but only during weekends, specifically from Friday at 11 P.M. to Sunday at 11 P.M. This weekend schedule is managed by two escalations:

AR System:EnableGlobalArchive - This escalation activates the global archive flag on Friday at 11 P.M.
AR System:DisableGlobalArchive - This escalation deactivates the global archive flag on Sunday at 11 P.M.

The SAAS Archive policies ensure that these two escalations are enabled and have not been modified.

If you need to modify the schedule—for instance, some customers in the Middle East observe weekends starting on Thursday—you must contact BMC Support to submit a request with the prefix “Archival schedule” to modify this requirement.

Age in Days value in archiving

The Age in Days field in the AR System Archive Manager console controls which records are moved or deleted. The Age in Days denotes the number of days since the record was created before it is archived. For example, if you specify 180 in the Age in Days field, all the records that were archived 180 days ago or longer, are either moved or deleted.

The Age in Days value is available for multiple AR System Archive Manager console options. The following image shows the AR System Archive Manager Console:

Age in Days options on the AR System Archive Manager console

The following table describes the fields:

Number	Option	Description	Use for on-premises customers	Use for SaaS subscribers
1	Default Policy Age in Days	The default age in days for a policy. For SaaS subscribers, the default age in days is 730 days (2 years). For on-premises customers, the default age is 730 days (2 years).	You cannot modify this value.	You cannot modify this value.
2	Custom Specified Age in Days	The age in days that you define for each policy in the Age in Days field below the list of policies.	For on-premises customers, use an integer value. To disable it, set the value to -1.	For SaaS subscribers, you can specify a value of only up to 730 days (2 years).
3	Age in Days	The age in days that you specify for each policy.	For on-premises customers, use an integer value.	For SaaS subscribers, you can specify a value of only up to 730 days (2 years).
4	Age in days for System Archive Export	The age in days to be considered for exporting archived data.	For on-premises customers, use an integer value.	For SaaS subscribers, use an integer value.

To change the age in days, you must select a policy and specify the value in the Age in Days field. If you specify the same value as the default, the custom value is removed. If you provide a negative value for Age in Days, the policy is disabled.

Learn more

The following topics describe the different actions you can perform for using the archiving feature:

Task	Reference
Configure data archiving for your system and manage the archiving activity.	Configuring and managing the archiving process
Configure associations to help you archive related forms.	Configuring-data-archiving-associations-for-related-forms
Configure archiving to be run for all forms at a specified interval. Only forms with archiving enabled will be archived.	Setting-a-global-archive-interval-for-forms
Optimize the performance of your systems by deleting old archive data as per your company policies.	Deleting an archive form
Delete an archive form by using Developer Studio or by using an API call.	Deleting-an-archive-form
Understand how changes to a main form affect an archive form.	How-changes-to-a-main-form-affect-an-archive-form
Understand the characteristics of an archive form.	Archive-form-characteristics