Retention and disposal policies determine the period of time that PIAs must remain on the platform (retention period) based on their values and ensure their corresponding disposal: total deletion, partial deletion (numeric sampling, selective emptying, chronological sampling, file deletion and metadata preservation), permanent preservation and transfer.

Retention refers to the period of time during which a given PIA must be stored or archived on the platform.

By disposition, we must understand those processes associated with determining its fate, that is, what actions can happen on the date specified in the policy:

  1. Total deletion: This policy will delete the package with the specified identifier or all packages in the specified documentary series.
  2. Partial deletion by numerical sampling: this policy is also executed on packages based on certain dates in the package, and the archivist can choose to inform a range of dates or a time elapsed from a certain date. In this case, the % of packages to keep will be requested. Once indicated, the platform will create the list of elements to be deleted by taking identifiers randomly from those that meet the initial conditions.
  3. Partial deletion by selective emptying: this policy deletes all documents that are part of a PIA that have the value “No” reported in the “essential document” field. If a file is left without any documents, the file and the entire PIA are deleted. Files that do not report whether a document is essential or not will not be affected by the policy.
  4. Partial deletion by chronological sampling: this policy will allow you to report the year endings on which the retention will be applied. The endings are entered, if there are several, separated by commas. For example: 5, 7, 8, will retain the packages created in the years ending in 5, 7 and 8 and will delete the rest.
  5. File deletion: this retention policy will allow the binaries (all of the ones in the package) to be deleted while maintaining the metadata. In the case of files, the user will be able to choose whether to also delete the metadata of the associated document. In the case of independent documents, the metadata would always be preserved.
  6. Permanent retention: this policy does not perform any action on the packages, so the packages in the indicated series will not be deleted or transferred.
  7. Transfer: Transfer is limited to transfers of packages from one instance of iArxiu to the same. The only additional data required is the recipient entity and fund. When this policy is executed, iArxiu will perform the following actions on the packages:
    • The system checks the consistency of the package to be transferred.
    • The system changes the metadata from the background and entities to those stated in the policy.
    • Change history by adding the transfer operation performed and the changes made to the metadata
    • Reseal the package.