Data retention policies are critical for companies to ensure regulatory compliance, as many industries have laws mandating the retention of certain data types.
For example, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation requires EU companies not to retain personal data longer than necessary, and companies must be able to demonstrate compliance with this principle. Often, companies must comply with multiple data retention laws, depending on industry and location.
Use deletion schedules to create advanced data retention policies and manage data storage in your account. You can create up to ten schedules to delete archived tickets automatically.
About deletion schedules
Deletion schedules allow admins and agents in custom roles with permission to create conditions for deleting tickets. Deletion schedules only delete archived tickets, which are tickets that have been closed for more than 120 days.
Deletion schedules automatically delete archived tickets that have been closed and not modified for a specified period of time. For example, if the Last updated condition is set to 365 days, and the ticket was modified within that time (for example, ticket content was redacted), the ticket is not deleted. The clock starts over, and the ticket will be deleted 365 days from the modification date.
Deletion schedules start to delete eligible tickets within 72 hours of activation. Up to 200,000 tickets per account per day will be deleted.
- Delete tickets that haven't been updated in three years
- Delete tickets with the brand France that haven't been updated in six months
- Delete tickets with the type Question that haven't been updated in 200 days
After they are activated, deletion schedules aren't a one-off event. Zendesk continuously searches for and deletes tickets that meet the conditions unless you deactivate the schedule. There is no impact on performance when schedules delete a large volume of tickets or run during busy periods.
You can create up to ten deletion schedules on the Deletion schedules page in Admin Center.
Tickets deleted by deletion schedules aren't included in the Deleted Tickets view. You can track these changes in the audit log by filtering by Activity type: Deleted.
Creating deletion schedules
You can create up to ten deletion schedules, setting conditions for deleting tickets based on categories such as Organization and Brand. To give feedback on more conditions to add, complete this short Google form.
To create a deletion schedule
- In Admin Center, click
Account in the sidebar, then select Security > Deletion schedules. - Click Create deletion schedule.
This button is hidden if you already have ten schedules created. You must delete a schedule before you can create a new one. See Managing deletion schedules.
- Enter the Schedule name.
Use a consistent naming convention to help you recognize similar types of deletion schedules.
- (Optional) Enter a Description for your deletion schedule.
- Click Add condition to configure the deletion schedule to delete archived tickets that meet All or Any of the specified conditions. See Building condition statements for deletion schedules.
- Select a Category, Operator, and Value for each condition.
The operator determines the relationship between the category and the value. For example, if you select the operator Is, your category must equal the value.
Note: Deletion schedules only delete archived tickets, which are tickets that have been closed for more than 120 days. If you create a condition to delete tickets before 120 days, tickets are deleted at 120 days.
The field operator determines the relationship between the condition and the value. For example, if you select the field operator Is, your condition must be equal to the value.
- After conditions are added, you can optionally click Preview to preview the number of tickets that match and will be deleted when the schedule is active.
- Click Create.
Your new deletion schedule is added to the end of the list as an inactive schedule.
- Activate the deletion schedule.
Building condition statements for deletion schedules
Condition statements consist of categories, field operators, and condition values (which vary depending on the category selected). Condition statements are essentially ‘if’ statements that delete tickets meeting the specified criteria.
The table below lists the categories available for building condition statements.
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Last updated | Deletes tickets based on when they were last updated. At least one Last updated condition is required.
Deletion schedules delete tickets that have been closed and not modified for the period of time specified for Last updated. For example, if Last updated is set to 365 days, and the ticket was modified within that time (for example, ticket content was redacted), the ticket is not deleted. The clock starts over, and the ticket will be deleted 365 days from the modification date. |
| Custom fields | Deletes tickets based on custom field values. |
| Brand | Deletes tickets by brand. |
| Form | Deletes tickets by ticket form, if you use multiple ticket forms. |
| Group | Deletes tickets by group. |
| Type | Deletes tickets based on the ticket type: Question, Incident, Problem, or Task. |
| Requester | Deletes tickets based on the requester name. |
| Organization | Deletes tickets based on organization, if you have multiple organizations. |
| Tags | Deletes tickets with the selected ticket tags. |
Activating deletion schedules
Deletion schedules are inactive when you create them. You must activate deletion schedules for them to start deleting tickets.
To activate a deletion schedule
- In Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then select Security > Deletion schedules.
- Click the options menu icon (
) for the inactive schedule, then click Activate. - In the confirmation dialog, select the checkboxes to confirm you understand that tickets will be deleted immediately and as scheduled moving forward.
- Click Activate deletion schedule.
Managing deletion schedules
Use the options menu icon to activate, deactivate, edit, delete, or clone a deletion schedule. A deletion schedule must be inactive before you can delete it.