SUPERSEDING OBJECTS IN A RETENTION SYSTEM
Superseding a prior version of a document, to which prior version a retention policy or other requirement has been applied, is disclosed. In some embodiments, an attribute of a retention policy indicates whether a document to which the retention policy has been applied is to be superseded by a subsequently created and/or saved version of the document. In some embodiments, the attribute is set by a logic or process configured to apply the retention policy to the document. If the retention policy indicates that supersede is enabled, in various embodiments when a subsequent version is created and/or saved, the prior version is promoted to the final phase of the retention policy that has been applied to it and automatically “qualified” for disposition as indicated in the final phase of the retention policy, without regard to intervening requirements, processes, phases, approvals, retention, waiting, or other periods, etc.
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This application is a continuation of, and claims a benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. 120 of the filing date of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/905,411 filed Feb. 26, 2018, entitled SUPERSEDING OBJECTS IN A RETENTION SYSTEM, which is a continuation of, and claims a benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. 120 of the filing date of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/716,650 filed May 19, 2015, entitled SUPERSEDING OBJECTS IN A RETENTION SYSTEM, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,928,243, which is a continuation of, and claims a benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. 120 of the filing date of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/541,485 filed Sep. 29, 2006, entitled SUPERSEDING OBJECTS IN A RETENTION SYSTEM, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,063,940, the entire contents of which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference for all purposes.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONRecords management system, content management system, and other solutions have been provided to manage and provide access to stored content. One aspect managed by some such systems is document/record retention, including disposition (e.g., destruction) once all applicable retention periods and/or requirements have ended. However, for some content objects, it may not always (or in some cases ever) be required and/or desirable to retain all prior versions of a document or other stored content object. For example, prior versions created during a particular phase of a business process to which the document relates, such as an initial creation phase during which an originating author of the document might modify the document many times, with minor changes in each successive version, may not be required or desired to be retained. In such cases, there may be a need to ensure the most recent version is retained, and one way of doing so would be to apply a retention policy to the document, with the retention being inherited by subsequent version. Typically, however, applying retention to a document results in that document being retained, even after a subsequent version has been created and saved. In some cases, there may be a need to be able to discard older versions of less critical content, e.g., to reclaim associated storage space to be used to store more recent and/or more important content. Therefore, there is a need to be able to override retention of at least some prior versions of content objects to which retention has been applied.
Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.
The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, a composition of matter, a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium or a computer network wherein program instructions are sent over optical or communication links. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. A component such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task includes both a general component that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific component that is manufactured to perform the task. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention.
A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate the principles of the invention. The invention is described in connection with such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured.
Superseding a prior version of a document, to which prior version a retention policy or other requirement has been applied, is disclosed. In some embodiments, an attribute of a retention policy instance and/or associated object indicates whether a document or other content item to which the retention policy has been applied is to be superseded by a subsequently created and/or saved version of the document. In some embodiments, the attribute is set by a retention or other logic or process configured to apply the retention policy to the document. If the retention policy indicates that supersede is enabled, in various embodiments when a subsequent version is created and/or saved, the prior version is promoted to the final phase of the retention policy that has been applied to it and automatically “qualified” for disposition as indicated in the final phase of the retention policy, without regard to intervening requirements, processes, phases, approvals, retention, waiting, or other periods, etc. Final disposition is determined and performed in accordance with the retention policy.
Superseding unwanted and/or unneeded prior versions of content items has been described. Superseding older version that are not required and/or desired to be retained conserves storage space and ensures that only information that is currently relevant and/or required to be retained is stored and managed.
Although the foregoing embodiments have been described in some detail for purposes of clarity of understanding, the invention is not limited to the details provided. There are many alternative ways of implementing the invention. The disclosed embodiments are illustrative and not restrictive.
Claims
1. A computer program product for managing stored content, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:
- applying a retention policy selected from a plurality of retention policies stored in a policy store to a first version of a content item stored in a content store of a content management system by associating an instance of the retention policy with a content object in a metadata store, the content object representing the first version of the content item, the retention policy indicating a final disposition and the instance of the retention policy including an attribute that indicates whether a supersede is enabled with respect to the first version of the content item;
- based on a second version of the content item being saved to the content store: determining that the first version of the content item is a prior version of the content item under retention; based on the determination that first version of the content item is the prior version of the content item, determining whether the attribute of the instance of the retention policy associated with the content object that represents the first version of the content item indicates that the supersede with respect to the first version of the content item is enabled; and based on a determination that the attribute indicates that the supersede with respect to the first version of the content item is enabled, superseding the first version the content item with the second version of the content item, so as to qualify the first version of the content item for the final disposition indicated in the retention policy; and
- based on a determination that the first version of the content item qualifies for the final disposition, performing the final disposition, the final disposition comprising removing the first version of the content item from the content management system.
2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein superseding the first version of the content item comprises promoting the first version of the content item to a final phase of the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item and immediately qualifying the first version of the content item for the final disposition.
3. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein the promoting the first version of the content item to the final phase of the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item includes promoting the first version of the content item to the final phase without regard to any intervening requirement or phase of the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item.
4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein superseding of the first version of the content item comprises qualifying the first version of the content item for the final disposition without regard to any intervening requirement or phase of the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item.
5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item includes a plurality phases, including a final phase that indicates the final disposition, and wherein superseding the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item so as to qualify the first version of the content item for final disposition includes advancing the first version of the content item to the final phase of the retention policy.
6. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the attribute is set by one or more of the retention policy, business logic, and application logic.
7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein final disposition includes generating an audit trail that documents the final disposition of the first version of the content item.
8. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the audit trail indicates that the first version of the content item was qualified for final disposition as a result of being superseded.
9. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein performing the final disposition further comprises:
- transferring a copy of the first version of the content item to a storage location or media outside of the content management system prior to removing the first version of the content item from the content management system.
10. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein applying the retention policy to the first version of the content item comprises associating a retainer object with the content object, the retainer object configured to apply the instance of the retention policy to the first version of the content item.
11. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer instructions for determining whether a freeze exists in relation to the first version of the content item that would override the supersede enabled for the first version of the content item, prior to superseding the first version of the content item.
12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the computer instructions for superseding the first version the content item with the second version of the content item, so as to qualify the first version of the content item for the final disposition indicated in the retention policy, are executable to perform the superseding based a determination that the freeze does not exist in relation to the first version of the content item.
13. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the content item is a document.
14. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer instructions for:
- based on a determination that the attribute indicates that the supersede with respect to the first version of the content item is not enabled, retaining the first version of the content item according to the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item.
15. A computer program product for managing stored content, the computer program product being embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:
- applying a retention policy selected from a plurality of retention policies stored in a policy store to a first version of a content item stored in a content store of a content management system by associating an instance of the retention policy with a content object in a metadata store, the content object representing the first version of the content item, the retention policy indicating a final disposition and the instance of the retention policy including an attribute that indicates whether a supersede is enabled with respect to the first version of the content item;
- based on a second version of the content item being saved to the content store: determining that the first version of the content item is a prior version of the content item under retention; based on the determination that first version of the content item is the prior version of the content item under retention, determining whether the attribute of the instance of the retention policy associated with the content object that represents the first version of the content item indicates that the supersede with respect to the first version of the content item is enabled; based on a determination that the attribute indicates that the supersede with respect to the first version of the content item is not enabled, retaining the first version of the content item according to the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item; based on a determination that the attribute indicates that the supersede with respect to the first version of the content item is enabled: determining if a freeze has been placed on the first version of the content item to override the supersede; based on a determination that the freeze has been placed on the first version of the content item, retaining the first version of the content item; and based on a determination that the freeze has not been placed on the first version of the content management system, superseding the first version the content item with the second version of the content item, so as to qualify the first version of the content item for the final disposition indicated in the retention policy; and
- based on a determination that the first version of the content item qualifies for the final disposition, performing the final disposition, the final disposition comprising removing the first version of the content item from the content management system.
16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein superseding the first version of the content item comprises promoting the first version of the content item to a final phase of the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item and immediately qualifying the first version of the content item for the final disposition.
17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item includes a plurality phases, including a final phase that indicates the final disposition, and wherein superseding the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item so as to qualify the first version of the content item for final disposition includes promoting the first version of the content item to the final phase without regard to any intervening requirement or phase of the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item.
18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein superseding of the first version of the content item comprises qualifying the first version of the content item for the final disposition without regard to any intervening requirement or phase of the retention policy applied to the first version of the content item.
19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein final disposition includes generating an audit trail that documents the final disposition of the first version of the content item.
20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the audit trail indicates that the first version of the content item was qualified for final disposition as a result of being superseded.
21. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein performing the final disposition further comprises:
- transferring a copy of the first version of the content item to a storage location or media outside of the content management system prior to removing the first version of the content item from the content management system.
22. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein applying the retention policy to the first version of the content item comprises associating a retainer object with the content object, the retainer object configured to apply the instance of the retention policy to the first version of the content item.
23. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the content item is a document.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 27, 2019
Publication Date: Jan 23, 2020
Applicant:
Inventors: David Humby (Richmond), Fiona Schrader (Ottawa), Steve Sauder (Nepean), David Mennie (Somerville, MA), John-David Dorman (Ottawa)
Application Number: 16/586,229