Archive or delete stale content

How to archive or delete stale content

Use these instructions to find content on your intranet that hasn't been viewed recently and archive or delete it. The Content - archive or delete page in the Admin panel helps you keep your intranet current and uncluttered. For more information about archiving and deleting, see the user instructions on how to archive and delete a page.

Find stale content

In searching for stale content, the default setting is to find pages "viewed fewer than 2 times in the last 6 months", but you can alter these settings and add filters to change the results of your stale content search.

1. Go to the Admin panel: Content section > Content - archive or delete page.
2. By default, the search parameters will display as "Show pages viewed fewer than 2 times in the last 6 months". If you wish, change the maximum number of page views, and the time period, by entering numbers in the text boxes, and selecting days, months or years from the dropdown.
   
   

At this point, you can click the Find stale content button in the bottom right, or further refine your search following the steps below.

Refine stale content search 

1. To ignore page views performed by a certain user or users (perhaps yourself), start typing the name of the user in the Ignore page views from box, and click on the user's name in the dropdown that appears. Repeat to add more users.
2. To show results only from a certain section of the intranet, start typing the name of that section in the Show results from box, and click on the section in the dropdown that appears. If you start typing and select a user's name in this box, it will search content under that user's profile page.
3. To show results with keywords in the title, type in the full title of the page you are looking for, or a word you know is in the title of the page.
4. To include archived content in the search, select the checkbox to the right of Show archived content.
5. Click Find stale content to perform the search with the filters you have added.

To clear any of the filters, click the X beside the filter. After performing a stale content search, click Reset to the left of the Find stale content button to clear all the filters and results and start a new search.

Navigate stale content search results

1. View the results by scrolling and switching from page to page using the arrows at the top right of the results, or the page numbers at the bottom right.
2. Sort the results by clicking on any of the sort options above the results (Number of subpages, Number of views, Date). Click on the sort option again to perform the sort in reverse order.
    
   
    
3. Click on the rotating triangle on the left of page titles to view or hide subpages.
    
   
    
4. Click on a page title, or any page in the breadcrumb trail to open that page in a new window.

Exclude pages from the stale content report

If you find a page in the stale content report that is rarely viewed but is still current and valuable information that you want to keep on the intranet, you can choose to exclude it from future stale content reports. Check the box to the left of the page you want to exclude (this will also select any subpages of this page), and click the button Exclude from stale content at the top of the results. The page and subpages will now be excluded from future stale content results.

You can view excluded content by clicking Show # excluded pages at the top of the results.

Archive and delete stale content

1. Select the checkboxes to the left of pages that you want to alter in the stale content search results. (Remember, when you select a page, any subpages are also selected.)
2. Click the Archive or Delete button at the top of the search results to perform that action on the selected content.
3. If you are deleting content, click OK in the pop-up that appears to confirm the deletion.

Export a stale content search result

You can export the stale content report to an Excel spreadsheet to assist you in making decisions about what content to archive and delete.

1. Select the checkbox beside the content that you want to be exported.
2. Click Export on the top right of the results.
3. Click OK to open the downloaded results. The results show in an Excel spreadsheet which has columns for content ID, page title (multilingual, if enabled), location (breadcrumb trail), owner, number of views, date last viewed, and person who last viewed it.