You are here: Chapter 10: Database Administration > Database Maintenance > Purging data from the current project

Purging Data from the Current Project

Purging data from the source project works the same way as archiving, except no archive project is created.

Note

If you think you might need to report on any of these purged issues, use the Archive function.

We recommend you make a backup of your FootPrints database before performing the Purge function.

  1. Select Administration | System | Projects, then click the GO button in the Database Maintenance section.
  2. Select the Purge option as the Action to Take in the next page.
  3. The Status and Date Criteria of Applicable Issues section allows you to define the selection criteria for Purge.  This can be based on either the Issue’s current status, the date it was last edited/created, or a combination of both. 
  1. By default, only the Deletedstatus is highlighted. 
  2. Highlight additional statuses as needed. 
  3. Choose issues based on one specific date that they were created or last edited or choose all issues before or after a particular date. 
  4. Choose AND to select issues that must meet both the status and date criteria
  5. Choose OR to select issues that meet either the status or the date criteria. 

Tip

Set up an escalation rule that automatically changes the status of closed issues to Deleted for issues that are a certain age.  Then you can skip this step and use the default highlighted status of Deleted.

  1. Type in your password and click GO.
  2. All issues that have met the purge search criteria are listed in the Matching Issues For Purge field and highlighted.  Review the list to make sure you are purging issues that meet your intended criteria.  You can de-select issues by holding the CTRL key and left clicking the Issue with your mouse.  Only highlighted issues are purged.
  3. SQL Query—FootPrints displays the query that was used to retrieve the issues that have met the purge search criteria for your review.
  4. Scheduled Run-Time—Purges can be scheduled to run either immediately or at a time when server activity is light, if you have a large job with many issues to archive.
  1. Start Immediately—Run immediately.  Immediately means the purge begins the next time the FootPrints scheduled service runs, which could be up to one minute from the time you enter your password and click  GO. 
  2. Start at the following data and time—Enter the date and time you want to run the job.  Since the entire process could take a long time to finish, depending on the number of records selected, you may want to schedule large jobs when there is little server activity to avoid server overload, i.e., on weekends or late at night.
  1. Scheduled Jobs Pending In Current Project—This section lists those jobs scheduled to run in the future, as configured in the previous step.

Enter your password and click  GO.  After clicking the  GO button, click OK to confirm that you want to complete the purge.  After clicking OK, FootPrints schedules the purge to run as a background process based on the time defined in Step 7.  This include jobs scheduled to run immediately.

When the Purge is run, FootPrints generates a dump (.dmp) file for any Issues removed so that they can be easily restored.  FootPrints saves this file in the Project’s directory on the server.  For example, Project #1’s recovery files are stored in the footprints\db\MASTER1\MR\DumpsFromPurgesdirectory.