Are Archived Messages ever deleted?

Donald Payne

On the Messages page, what happens to messages that I Archive? I thought this would keep them forever, under the Archived filter. However, when I checked my Archived messages, they go back only to October 4. I'm pretty sure I archived messages before that date. Are they gone forever? My school has instructed me to never delete communication with parents or students.

Jess Moxsky

Donald - that's so weird! I know if you're dealing with Official Notes, you sometimes have to remember to toggle between Admissions and Academics to see all messages. I don't see anything in the knowledgebase that even indicates how long those archived messages stick around, but since they don't have a field for archive expiration I would have also assumed they were stored indefinitely. Definitely going to be checking back here for a solution!

Kathy Hannon

When I checked a couple of years ago - there is no way for "Us" to delete messages - you need to contact Blackbaud and have them delete. But it is an all delete even those that haven't been read. We have chosen not to have messages deleted because we communicate with parents and student - we need 1 year history in case we have issues and need to pull a message for proof of communication. Blackbaud will delete an inappropriate message on a single basis if you give them exact thread - it take some time and we have only rarely needed a message deleted.

Shelby Luongo

Hi Kathy! You can actually delete messages now! If you go to an individual user's core profile you will see a button called “View Communications” click it and it takes you to a list with inbox messages, notifications, and pushpages. Once you are there, you can select a message and choose to delete it - no need to call support anymore!

I hope this helps.

Kathy Hannon

Thank you Shelby - This is great!

Donald Payne

Update: I looked at my Archived message again. They go back all the way to the beginning of the school year. Whew!

I think my issue was that only the first N messages show up immediately. To see more, you have to scroll to the bottom of the page; then the page automatically loads another set of older messages. (I think this is called “infinite scroll”; it is used by Facebook and other websites, rather than paginate items into page 1, page 2, next, previous etc.)

Eleanor Rizzo

That's a relief! I've been tripped up before by infinite scroll, searching for something on a page thinking that all the results have been loaded only to realize I have to scroll more to load more. Thanks for the reminder about that.

Angie Addison

Hi @Kathy Hannon! Just want to also point out in case it isn't readily apparent that it is a soft delete. The message will be removed from anyone's inbox who was on any thread (the original or replies) but the admin will still see a record that it did exist in view communications for posterity with the deleted by who and date. You won't be able to load the details anymore though.