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Excluding cases from archival and expunge

Updated on January 21, 2023

Prevent Pega Platform from archiving individual case hierarchies. If you have a defined data retention policy for permanently deleting cases from the secondary storage repository, the cases are also excluded from the expunge process.

Understanding case exclusion

Exclude cases from the archival process to prevent them from being moved to the secondary storage repository and subsequently deleted from the secondary repository. Later, release the cases from exclusion to include them in the archival and expunge processes.

For example, exclude a case that should not be archived due to a legal hold. When the legal hold is no longer applicable to a case, release the case from exclusion so that it can be archived according to the archival policy.

You can exclude cases from case archival and expunging at any stage during their lifecycle, including before a case is eligible for archival.Cases are excluded based on whether they are standalone cases or part of a hierarchy:

  • Standalone cases – Placing an exclusion on a stand-alone case prevents the case from being included in the archival process.
  • Cases in a hierarchy – Placing an exclusion on any case in a case hierarchy places the entire case hierarchy in an exclusion. An exclusion on a parent facilitates the hold process in order to better manage the cases you want to exclude from archiving.

Case exclusion activity processes

You can use the following activities available in Pega Platform to exclude cases from the archiving, purging, and expunging process.

Case exclusion activity processes

ActivityDescription
pzAddCaseExclusionFromArchivalUse pzAddCaseExclusionFromArchival to place an exclusion on your unresolved, resolved, or archived case data so that Pega Platform will not archive or expunge this data, depending upon when you exclude the case.

When you place the hold on an unresolved or resolved case using this activity, you exclude the case from the pyPegaArchiver, pyPegaIndexer, and pyPegaPurger jobs which would otherwise archive the case data, purge it from the database, and copy it to an external repository.

When you place the hold on a case that has been archived using this activity, you exclude the case from the pyPegaExpunger job which would otherwise permanently delete the data from the designated archive external repository. For details, see Secondary storage repository for archived data.

pzReleaseCaseExclusionFromArchivalThe pzReleaseCaseExclusionFromArchival releases a stand-alone case or case hierarchy from its exclusion status, and permits the case to run through the normal archiving, purging, and expunging process.

Placing cases on exclusion

Prevent Pega Platform from archiving individual cases and case hierarchies. If you have a defined data retention policy for permanently deleting cases from the secondary storage, the expunge process also excludes the cases.

Consider the following when you place cases on exclusion:

  • To exclude cases that are part of a hierarchy, exclude only the parent case. All of the child cases will be placed on exclusion.
  • Cases that you explicitly place on exclusion stay on exclusion until you explicitly release them from exclusion. This applies to both parent cases and child cases.
  • You can place cases on exclusion at any time during their lifecycle. When you place an already archived case on exclusion, you prevent it from being expunged. Placing an archived parent case on exclusion prevents the whole hierarchy from being expunged.
Before you begin: Write down the pzinskey of each case that you want to exclude from the archive and expunge processes. For cases that are part of a hierarchy, best practice is to use the pzinskey of the parent case. The pzinskey is the unique case identifier structured as: Customer ID-Application ID-Case ID.
  1. Open the case exclusion activity:
    1. In the navigation pane of Dev Studio, click Records > Technical > Activity.
    2. In the Activity Name column header, click the Filter icon, and then, in the Search Text field, enter pzAddCaseExclusionFromArchival.
    3. Click Apply.
    4. Click the pzAddCaseExclusionFromArchival activity.
  2. Run the activity to exclude the cases from the archive and expunge processes:
    1. In the Actions list, select Run.
    2. In the Run Activity window, in the Cases field, enter the ID of each case that you want to exclude from the archive and expunge processes. Separate each ID with a comma and no space.
      For example: OZNO85-GOGOROAD-WORK-GOGO-5,OZNO8T-GOGOROAD-WORK SERVICE-5
    3. To provide information in the LogArchivalExcludedCases about why the case is being excluding from archiving and expunging, in the Reason field, enter the reason.
    4. Click Run.
Result: The cases are excluded from consideration during the archive and expunge processes.
What to do next: Run and review the LogArchivalExcludedCases report to make sure that the cases are added to the list of excluded cases. For more information, see Viewing excluded cases.

Releasing cases from exclusion

Release cases from archival exclusion so that Pega Platform includes them in the archival process. If you have defined data retention policy for permanently deleting cases from the secondary storage, the expunge process also includes the cases.

Before you begin: Use the LogArchivalExcludedCases report to gather the pzinskey of each case placed on exclusion that you want to release for archiving and expunging. For more information, see Viewing excluded cases. Cases that are explicitly excluded from archive and expunge must also be explicitly released from exclusion, even if the cases are part of a parent and child relationship.
  1. Open the release case exclusion activity:
    1. In the navigation pane of Dev Studio, click Records > Technical > Activity.
    2. In the Activity Name column header, click the Filter icon and then, in the Search Text field, enter pzReleaseCaseExclusionFromArchival
    3. Click Apply.
    4. Click the pzReleaseCaseExclusionFromArchival activity.
  2. Run the activity to release the cases to the archive and expunge processes:
    1. In the Actions list, select Run.
    2. In the Run Activity window, in the Cases field, enter the ID of each case that you want to release to the archive and expunge processes. Separate each case ID with a comma and no space.
      For example: OZNO85-GOGOROAD-WORK-GOGO-5,OZNO8T-GOGOROAD-WORK SERVICE-5
    3. Optional: To provide information in the LogArchivalExcludedCases about why the case is being released for archiving and expunging, in the Reason field, enter the reason.
    4. Click Run.
Result: When the cases become eligible for archival according to the archival policy, they are included in the archival process. When the cases become eligible for expunging from the secondary storage according to the data retention policy, they are included in the expunge process.
What to do next: Run and review the LogArchivalExcludedCases report to make sure that the cases are removed from the exclusion list. The report indicates that the cases were released for archival.

  • Previous topic Configuring your data retention policy
  • Next topic Viewing case archiving statistics and log file entries

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