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of the FocalScope omnichannel suite, according to best practice.

    Understanding database purging / archiving (disk-space)

    Purging data from FocalScope is not a simple 'click and it's done' affair. Due to database overhead and complicated data associations that absolutely must be maintained for general database integrity, performance, and data representation, purging of old email data should be expected as a 'gradual decay,' rather than an instant delete. This article details some of the nuances noticed when FocalScope data purging does not immediately relinquish expected disk space.

    Prerequisites

    Tutorial

    Understanding the data purging process

    Before looking at disk-space utilization and planning how much of it to free up with data purging, here are some key factors to keep in mind:

    1. The database size you see in the status bar (highlighted in blue) shows the total size of the FocalScope database (not only emails)
    2. Archiving and purging only deals with email data. Because there is a substantial overhead involved in storing the Action History log, indexes, full-text search data, etc. in the database, all this support data occupies disk space in addition to the emails themselves
    3. During an archiving routine disk space usage will actually increase, because the database temporarily has to store both the main database and archive files
    4. Non-read-only emails  (e.g. drafts and SMTP errors) are not archived
    5. Emails referenced in new data (e.g. incoming-reply pairs) are not purged as this would irreparably break data relations mentioned in point 2



    Figure 1 - Space used by archives before purging

    Reconciling expected purging / archiving results with actual results

    The following procedure will help you determine the exact amount of space your FocalScope database occupies, and how much space has been relinquished after a purging / archiving routine has completed:

    1. Generate the [Email traffic per month] as your would other System Reports
    2. Observe the total space used by the various data types (highlighted in red)
    3. Set up a purge routine or archive routine and let it run
    4. Generate the [Email traffic per month] again to determine how much space has been relinquished by the last purge routine
    5. Please note: Only once the data has completely been removed from the database, will the database size update in the status bar (highlighted in blue in Figure 1)



    Figure 2 - How much space is used by FocalScope's database



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