Record Retention Features

Archiving your business process data not only protects your critical data but also conserves database disk space, thereby improving the efficiency of Sterling B2B Integrator.

You can schedule the intervals at which you want to automatically archive and purge the contents of the database in the same manner that you schedule the business processes that you create. In the Business Process Editor, you set a life span for business processes that defines the length of time, in days and hours, to retain the data in online tables. This is the length of time until the business process instance expires.

Once the business process expires, if you choose to archive the expired business process, the business process instance data is moved to disk. If you choose to purge the expired business process, the expired business process instance data is deleted without being archived to disk.

Note: Special processing is required for the expiration date of a business process that is associated with a workflow ID for a document stored in a mailbox. For more information, see Purging Mailbox-Related Business Processes.

You can also configure a persistence level for each business process using the Business Process Editor, which enables you to define how much data (including associated documents, activities, step information, messages, and all process data) is retained by Sterling B2B Integrator. The persistence level determines the level of detail written to the database as a business process runs. Decreasing the persistence level increases the business process performance, but it does so at the cost of fully tracking each step of the business process. The default value for Sterling B2B Integrator is BP Step Status- Engine May Override. You may need to change the persistence level to a lower level to enhance performance.

You can also use an Archive Manager configuration parameter (available through Operations > Archive Manager > Archive Configuration Settings) to specify the default for how long (in days and hours) business process information remains in the system. That is, you define how long data exists in the Sterling B2B Integrator database tables before it is archived to disk and/or purged. You can recover data that was archived using the Restore Manager, while data that was configured as “purge only” cannot be recovered, and thus is lost once it is purged.

Using the Archive Configuration Settings parameters, you can also specify an extra amount of time for Document Tracking-enabled business process information (documents, correlations, tracking records) to stay in Sterling B2B Integrator before they are purged. Therefore, when you run document tracking business processes, the associated documents, correlations, and tracking records remain in the system longer than the rest of the information for that business process.

Note: To enable document tracking, you must select the Document Tracking check box from the Business Process Manager when you create or recompile the business process.

By default, the Archive Manager uses 2 days 0 hours as the normal life span of a document workflow (workflows are archived or purged after 2 days), and 1 day 12 hours as the life span for items for which document tracking has been enabled. These are the system-wide default settings, though you can override these values for each business process, in the Business Process Manager, when creating or recompiling a Business Process.

For example, you have a business process in which you enabled document tracking and you set the business process life span to five days and the document life span to thirty days. The business process is not decoupled from the document-instead, the document life span setting overrides the business process setting and document tracking items stay in Sterling B2B Integrator for their normal life span plus the configured document tracking life span. So, while the business process in this example is archived after five days, the document tracking-related data remains in Sterling B2B Integrator for thirty-five days after the archive.