Every month in our policyIQ newsletter, we like to promote a Featured Feature.  Sometimes we pick the latest, greatest and coolest thing around – and sometimes we focus on an old tried and true feature that is currently underutilized.

This month we’re focusing on Trash.

The Deleted Content section is to your policyIQ application what the virtual Recycle Bin is to your desktop computer – and to indicate this simple analogy, we’re using a trash can icon in version 7 to make it even more recognizable.  We’ve also moved the various types of deleted content into a single location – now at the top level of the policyIQ navigation for Advanced Users.

What’s the big deal about Deleted Content?

It’s come to our attention that a lot of policyIQ users don’t know much about what happens to their content after it is deleted.   Did you know…?

• When you Delete a page from policyIQ, you are not removing it from the database.




• Anyone with Administrative rights to the page that has been deleted can Restore the page, simply by navigating to Deleted Content > Deleted Pages, finding and highlighting the page in the table, and clicking Restore in the table toolbar.




• Restored pages will always land back in their draft state, checked out to the individual who had chosen to restore them.




• You can still report on Deleted Content – you just have to make sure that you select the Stage filter of Deleted when running a report.  By default, reports will also exclude deleted content.




• Only users with a Site Administrator role are permitted to Permanently Delete content – and only once permanently deleted is the content purged from the database.

When (or why) should we Permanently Delete content?

Permanently deleting content means truly purging it from the policyIQ database.  This is work that can only be done by a Site Administrator – but it should be done periodically.  Remember:

• Deleted Content still impacts the overall size of  your database, which can impact performance (and cost).




• You can always request a Database Snapshot to be retained of your data, so that even if you delete something from your production site, you could recover it from the snapshot if you ever really needed it.




• Site Administrators should review deleted content at least once a year, particularly if you roll-forward compliance efforts and delete older pages.

As always, let our team know if we can help you in any way to manage your site (and your trash) more efficiently!