How Many Queries Do You Keep Yearly?

@Bobby Steurer I rarely delete queries “just in case”. Unfortunately we have way too many queries now.

@Dariel Dixon folder management for queries is what saved me. I agree with you about list management in NXT. Have a great rest of your week

@Bobby Steurer We have hundreds of queries. Some years ago they were getting out of control so we created a system based on naming conventions and folders, e.g. event-related queries would be in a folder for events but would also have names that begin EVENT_ so that you know they're in the right folder. We have a folder called Current for any queries that don't need to be kept long-term and all queries in that folder have the month and year at the end of the name. Once a year in January I delete any queries in the current folder from before the current school year. This has helped a lot with keeping them under control. It's not a question of numbers but of whether you need to keep them at all.

Hi @Bobby Steurer,

We define our folders in two ways. The first is purpose-based - e.g. giving society queries, events queries, revenue tracking, etc.

And then within those, we have a General/Evergreen folder for queries that we will continue to use across multiple years. And then folders for Time Sensitive queries. Those folders are named for the fiscal year - FY2022, FY2021, etc. The Time Sensitive folders are for those one-off queries that really only pertain to something in that year. We won't use them after again down the road.

Splitting these up between the General and the Temporary has been really helpful. It makes it easier to view the current/relevant queries. It gets the older ones out of the way (but they're still available for reference for “how did we do that thing last year?” type moments). And then having them grouped makes it easier to delete older queries en masse if we decide to go that route.

@Bobby Steurer I have done clean up since inheriting the database I'm in. A little bit at a time. Like others have said, looking at last run date - and who wrote the query (like a former employee that hasn't been there for. 10 years) balanced against if you can determine if the query is the backbone of another regularly used report, export etc. to determine if they have to be kept.

Folders! are your friend! I have them broken down by purpose and also reports that are run monthly, reports that are run annually and business rules-do not delete.

I used to keep one that are for annual events or annual, semi-annual mailings for five years but have come to realize that keeping 3 years is fair – and if there is some special monumental event like a 50th anniversary to keep those.

The other thing to keep in mind when considering deleting them - if you have been at your org for awhile and done a lot of cleanup throughout the database and restructured where info is kept on records or what info is collected, those old queries may not work anyway (unless they are static). And then - static queries are just a snapshot of a moment, so unless you really feel it is important to save that moment they are quickly useless.

There is nothing wrong with being on the fence about keeping or not – but I suggest getting them out of the way of daily work by dropping them in a folder of their own labeled as under consideration for deletion.