Archiving Data Associated with Old Attributes/Custom Fields and Solicit Codes

Sara Niemiec · April 28

I'm wondering what others' best practices are for archiving old attributes and solicit codes that are no longer used. I'm concerned outright deleting them will come back to haunt me unless they're stored somewhere.

JoAnn Strommen · April 28

I haven't tried archiving/saving constituent codes. Did move data from one old code to notes.

Have done more clean-up with attributes. We have so much old data. There have been certain attributes that I have exported along with the constituent ID/name and other data to Excel and then saved the file on our org shared drive. File name clearly says field name and that it is data from RE:
ATTRIBUTE - Mining Program project SAVE removed from RE

With constit ID I figure it could be added back in db at some point if needed.

Veronica Renzo · April 28

I agree with JoAnn- I have moved old attribute/code info into Notes so we have record of it.

Dan Snyder · April 29

@Sara Niemiec I too rarely completely delete information unless it was added in error or is information that is duplicated (ex. as part of a conversion years ago appeal information was stored in notes and appeals, I deleted the notes). If a solicit code is no longer in use, I think I would first make the table entry inactive (suspect you have already done this) and see if there is a newer code that has replaced this old code. If so, potentially a global change to the new code.

Karen Diener · April 30

I've done a lot of this kind of cleanup and very rarely archived it. Not a single organization regretted that method.

I have added notepads on occasion during big solicit code cleanup processes, to indicate that a certain code was removed on a certain day because of a cleanup or something like that. I have also exported attributes, reformatted them, and imported as a Note for posterity as well, but now that organization is coming around to deleting those notepads.

It really does depend on the situation, but if something was old enough to be removed from a record, it isn't needed. You could always export the information into a spreadsheet if people were really concerned about it.

It reminds me of saving clothes in case they come back into style / I lose or gain weight / I have the perfect occasion to wear it to / so on.

Sara Niemiec · April 30

Thank you, everyone! Your responses are very helpful!

Archiving Data Associated with Old Attributes/Custom Fields and Solicit Codes

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