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This topic provides details on performing a hard delete of processed files as part of the Post-publish Delete (file-level deletion from Review) workflow. Hard deletion provides full deletion of files within Processing when the corresponding document has been deleted out of the Documents tab. When you perform a hard delete, you remove all traces of the file from Relativity, which means the processing database no longer contains a reference to the deleted file or any of the associated metadata.
Note: Hard delete is currently available to select customers, and for these customers, hard delete is the only option when deleting from the Documents tab. For all other customers, we currently only support soft delete from Processing when you delete a file from the Documents tab. This means the file is only unpublished and not fully removed from the system. For details on soft delete, see Post-publish delete.
The hard delete workflow assumes that you've
To optimize your hard delete workflow, consider creating the following objects. The content in the rest of this topic will refer to the following objects.
Create the following new Document fields:
Create a new Document Deletion view with the following fields:
Hard deletion requires first deleting files from the review workspace before you delete from the repository workspace.
To delete published files from the review workspace, perform the following steps:
Now that you've deleted files from your review workspace, you need delete the same files from the repository workspace to complete the hard deletion.
To delete files from the repository workspace, perform the following steps:
After the documents are deleted from the Documents tab, they are also removed from Processing. If you navigate to the Files tab, you will no longer see the deleted files displayed, nor will you see any associated containers.
Note: You must delete entire families when using hard delete. You may see unwanted behavior such as incorrect or no deletions if you do not select complete families.
To view which published documents have been deleted, navigate to the Audit tab and filter for the following:
Note: Metadata deletion typically occurs off-hours. Because of this, the metadata of deleted files won't disappear instantaneously.
Redaction audit fields are as follows:
To view detailed information on a specific audit record, open the Details modal and note that the Action Item field reflects the deletion.
You can also use the Export mass operation to export a list of all the Audit records in your workspace. You can then find the deleted documents in the export file.
The invariant log is a CSV file created after you hard delete files. The log contains information about deleted records, including those not deleted.
Use the following steps to open, review, and act upon information found in the invariant log:
After performing a hard delete, all traces of the files you deleted have been removed from the system, but you may need to take action in other areas of your workspace to ensure that those deleted files are accounted for.
If you're running any of the following features, make sure to take the actions listed below after file deletion is complete.
Perform a full population and analysis to recreate results for removed documents. The following updates are necessary because:
Perform a full population and analysis to recreate results for removed documents.
We recommend running the indexes once after all deletion and subsequent publishing steps are completed in their respective workspaces.
Backups are not impacted by hard delete and no further action is required for them.
If any Cold Storage workspaces contain references to the documents to be deleted, you must reinstate the workspace and follow the delete workflow.
If there are any parent containers associated with the documents you’ve selected and deleted, all those parent containers will automatically be deleted as well.
References to the document regarding Data Grid enabled long text fields are automatically removed as part of the Delete mass operation, as long as you've selected Document and all associated files on the Delete confirmation modal.
References to the document regarding Document Transformation (Productions, Imaging) are automatically removed as part of the Delete mass operation, as long as you've selected Document and all associated files on the Delete confirmation modal.
Re-run any applicable Search Indexes.
We recommend running the indexes once after all deletion and subsequent publishing steps are completed in their respective workspaces.
When you perform a mass delete, Relativity will block all other processing jobs in order to support a seamless deletion experience and avoid resource contention. As a result, consider deleting during non-peak hours.
If there are any Invariant errors associated with the documents you’ve selected and deleted, all those Invariant errors will automatically be deleted as well.
There are no deletions required here or in Inventory reporting.
Files in RelativityOne Staging will not be affected by hard delete.
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