Once your engagement is complete, archive it to remove any unwanted information and preserve the remaining data in a read-only format.
Begin the archive
Open the Engagement Settings menu by clicking the gear icon in the top-right of your engagement.
Open the Archiving tab. From this menu, you can start an archive, schedule an archive, or run engagement archiving utilities.
Run engagement archiving utilities
Engagement archiving utilities are designed to help you bulk-complete or purge certain elements from an engagement. These utilities can be used at any time, but are recommended for use immediately prior to archiving. They can help you preserve only the most useful information by removing or closing out unneeded artifacts. If you do not use the utilities, all these artifacts—like comments, document versions, and incomplete tasks—will be preserved in the archived engagement.
Types of utilities
Complete requests: Mark all incomplete requests associated with this engagement as complete.
Delete comments: Delete all request and document comments associated with this engagement.
Delete previous document versions: Delete all previous versions, only maintaining the latest version of each document.
Delete incomplete tasks: Delete all incomplete tasks associated with this engagement.
Delete completed tasks: Delete all completed tasks associated with this engagement.
Delete activity: Delete all activity associated with this engagement.
Remove all client users: Remove all client users' access to this engagement.
Delete request files: Delete all files stored inside requests.
Complete the archive
To archive an engagement, follow these steps:
Open the Engagement Settings menu and go to the Archiving tab.
To archive immediately, click Archive Now. Or, to schedule the engagement to be automatically archived on a future date, click Schedule Archival.
If you choose Archive Now, a confirmation prompt will alert you of any items that remain open, such as incomplete requests. This gives you an opportunity to complete or remove these before completing the archive.
A date and timestamp will appear at the top of the Engagement Settings menu documenting the point of archive. The engagement is now in a read-only format for all authorized users. If you need to undo the archive and re-open an engagement, follow the steps in the next section.
Re-open an archived engagement
The archive status on an engagement can only be removed by admins or other user types who have been granted permission.
To un-archive an engagement, follow these steps:
Open the engagement and access the Engagement Settings.
Click the blue Reopen Engagement button at the top of the Information tab
Enter the reason for re-opening, when prompted.
We recommend providing a detailed reason here for record keeping and peer review purposes.
Once the engagement is reopened, a status will appear at the top of the information tab which includes the date and time stamp and reason for reopening.
You can archive the engagement again at any time.
Multi-engagement archiving
At Fieldguide we know how important it is that data in archived engagements doesn’t change so that you maintain a system of record.
This can be complex when dealing with data (for instance Requests or Files) which is shared across engagements, and then one of those engagements is archived.
To ensure data doesn’t change in the archived engagement, we do the following:
Take a copy of the data at the point of archive (maintaining only the links within the archived engagement), and
Unlink the archived engagement from the original shared data
Therefore you maintain a record of the data stored in the archived engagement should you need to refer to it in the future, and the original data can continue to be edited in active engagements if needed, without any implications on the archived file.
When you archive and the engagement contains shared data, we’ll let you know exactly what’s happening before you archive:
Effects on shared columns
Shared columns insert a sheet's columns into another sheet and maintain a 2-way sync. Columns can be shared between sheets in different engagements.
Here's an example of columns shared across multiple engagements:
If a sheet that shares columns with another engagement is archived, this will affect the linked sheets. Shared columns will handle archiving differently depending on whether the source sheet or a recipient sheet was archived.
The source sheet is the original sheet that the columns existed in. A recipient sheet is the sheet that had columns shared into it.
If the source sheet is archived:
In any recipient sheets, the shared columns will remain visible in a read-only state. You will no longer be able to edit the data in these columns.
This diagram shows the effects of archiving the source sheet (Sheet Y):
If a recipient sheet is archived:
The original source sheet (and any other recipient sheets) remain unaffected.
Fieldguide will create a new sheet in the archived engagement containing separate, self-contained copies of the previously shared columns. This sheet becomes the new source for the archived sheet's shared columns.
This diagram shows the effects of archiving a recipient sheet (Sheet X):
Review shared column actions
If an engagement contains columns shared from another engagement's sheet, Fieldguide will tell you what actions will be taken upon archiving the engagement:
