@sschnelbach : there are different processes that organizations may follow for different types for projects, to explain:
In general, when a new project is created there are few aspects that account to maintenance:
- user groups created to manage roles and permissions within that project.
- metadata created to define purpose and processing of the project
- workflows/tasks that may run around this
- temporary files that may be created applicable to operate at different phases of project
Based on different requirements, the projects are deleted either manually or setup to be deleted automatically.
Let us understand how projects specific to AEM Guides can be handled for archival or retention and options available to handle these automatically.
Project Type: Translation
Retention needs: to retain the project to track translation progress, review and approve the translated content and revisit what was translated
Impact of its volume: these projects can grow in numbers with time as each project is created for specific combination of source and target language and different users may create it for the content they work on. And on top each project creates several user groups for access, so the user groups in system will also grow quickly and should be avoided. The temporary files also account to repository size. The number of open projects also impacts the reporting and querying on translation project jobs.
Recommendation on archival: Once the project is translated it is best that:
- its status is changed to inactive immediately, as active projects directly impacts ongoing translation projects
- project should be deleted [1] (including the Project Assets Folder, as you don't need the temporary files after the translation is completed) once the content is reviewed and approved, without that the user groups are not cleaned up and will have effect on the general system performance (if there are huge number of projects)
And to support the best practice for translation, webeditor has introduced configuration on settings panel that can assist with cleanup - as pointed out in the release notes for last cloud release - this will be available in upcoming non-cloud release (4.6)
Project Type: Review
Retention needs: to retain the review data for audit purpose. The projects are also reused/repurposed for multiple reviews sub-projects as each review project has a dashboard for review tasks
Impact of its volume: these projects can be limited in number and hence can stay in system for longer as there are minimal metadata or user groups, and the ongoing tasks are archived as completed based on maintenance jobs that cleanup workflow data. Workflow cleanup is part of maintenance that can be scheduled under Operations
Recommendation on archival: all the review related data is kept in a separate data store hence even if the workflows are purged the content is available to revisit. However the projects should not be deleted if the review manager needs to audit the reviews via dashboard. If there are no audit requirements then the projects can be deleted once it completes its purpose. This will release any metadata like user groups or temporary assets etc.
I hope this helps.
[1]: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/sites/administering/reusing-content/translation/managing-projects#completing-and-archiving-translation-jobs
