Implications of terminating or purging workflows

[Akumar78]

Hi there, 

I am looking to purge workflow archive as well as long running workflows. I wanted to find out if there were implications to the assets as I cannot find any information pertaining to this. 

We have a custom timeline view of the asset, and I am concerned if purging will remove any of the history as it is crucial information for the business.

One obvious option is to run purge in lower environment and validate. 

Keen to know experience of other people who have run purge.

thanks,

Amit

[aanchal-sikka · Accepted solution]

hello @Akumar78 

Purging completed workflow:

- Unless you are generating reports from completed workflows for audit purposes, we should be ok. 

Purging long-running workflow:

- You might want to generate the reports for the same. 

- terminate/purge the ones that might not be critical

- Seek approval for any that might be waiting on a user action (Participant step etc). Once approved, please go ahead and purge them

[Tanika02]

Hello @Akumar78 - 

• Workflow History: Purging workflows may remove the historical records of completed workflows, including information such as start time, end time, participants, and execution details. If your custom timeline view relies on this workflow history data, it may be affected.
• Workflow Archives: Purging workflow archives typically removes the archived instances of completed workflows. The workflow archive stores a snapshot of the content at the time of completion, which can be useful for auditing or reverting changes. If your custom timeline view relies on the data from the workflow archive, purging may impact the ability to access that historical content state.

Coming back to your specific concerns around Assets while purging Workflows: 

Purging workflows should not directly impact the history of assets themselves. The asset history tracks changes to individual assets, including modifications, versions, and metadata updates. As long as the purging process does not involve deleting or modifying the asset data directly, the asset history should remain intact.

However, I would recommend running a purge in a lower environment and validating the results is a safer approach.