Automated Archiving

Automated archiving is a module within the GoldSTAR system that, when enabled, runs frequently in the background. It removes customer records that have been inactive for a period of time, shifting them into an 'archive' schema so that they are not visible in general searches or reports, but could be reinstated if required. Users with the correct authority levels are able to search and report on archived data, though. The period of time during which a customer must remain dormant (meaning they have no ticket transactions and no notepads added) before being archived defaults to 2 years, but is customisable to fit in with your own data retention policy. The advantage of archiving records in this way is that it speeds up searching and reporting for the majority of users, while still retaining data that may be required if there are any queries to be answered. Because the process runs regularly, you can be sure that data is being removed to the archive as soon as it hits that threshhold. 

Of course, if a customer has been active during the period, either because they have bought tickets or had a post-sale transaction on them, or even if you've simply created a notepad to add some information to the customer record, that customer and all the associated history, will remain 'live'. This means that every transaction you've had with this customer is still available for review, should any questions arise.

Associated with the archiving is the purge process. This will hard delete customer records that have been archived, after a further period of time. Typically this will be a further 5 years (so a total of 7 years of inactivity on the customer account) but again, this can be configured to reflect your data retention / deletion policy.  Once the data has been removed, not even the administrators of the system have access to it, so we recommend that purging is always set to exceed the length of time that you need the financial data for. 

As data controller, you are responsible for ensuring the implementation of the data protection principles under GDPR. Without automated archiving, you would need to contact us and ask for us to run a manual removal of data that meets your retention / deletion criteria. The very next day, you are likely to start to have data that is beyond your retention limit. How often would a manual removal need to be run to give you comfort that you are abiding by your retention policy ? What's more, we have to create (or at least amend) and test the manual code each time you ask us to run it. This can be a costly exercise, and although the initial outlay for the archiving module may seem difficult to justify, the immediate peace of mind and knowing that your data is being kept up to date every day coupled with the alternative regular costs of manual removal and its associated risk of error, should serve to provide you with a compelling business case.