unforged/folio · docs · Keep
How long each record will be kept
Every record is filed under a retention class, and the class will decide how long it stays and what happens at the end. How long that should be is your professional judgement, and folio will hold to whatever you set.
What a class will say
- How long: the retention period.
- When the period starts: the day a record is filed, or a date you give, such as the day a matter closed or someone left.
- Whether it will be Retained or Locked.
- What will happen at the end: folio will either ask you first, or dispose of the record after a notice period.
- Where it will be stored: records you rarely open can sit in slower storage, and opening one will then take longer.
Retained and Locked
A Retained record will be kept until retention ends, and deleted early only by two people with a reason.
A Locked record will be write-once: nobody, including you and us, will be able to change or delete it before its retention ends.
You’ll probably want Retained for most records, and Locked for the ones a regulator expects to stay untouched for a fixed time. Locked classes will be available once we’ve switched them on for your organisation.
Changing a class
Classes will be versioned, and each record will stay on the version it was filed under, so a shorter period will only apply to what you file from then on.
Any change that protects records less, such as a shorter period, Locked to Retained, or deleting automatically rather than asking first, will need a second person to approve it. You’ll always be able to extend one record’s retention, but never shorten it.
Deleting a record early
A Retained record will be deletable before its retention ends, but only when two different people agree, each with a reason, and never while it’s under a hold. The certificate of disposal will say the deletion was early and name both people.
A Locked record won’t have an early way out.
When someone asks you to erase their records
folio will list every record about that person and say, for each one, whether it can go now and, if not, why: it’s still inside its retention, it’s Locked, or it’s under a hold.
Records past their retention will be erased once a second person approves. Records still inside a Retained class will only be included if you both decide they should be, and a Locked or held record won’t be erased.
Whether a request means you must erase something is a legal judgement, and that decision will stay with you.
The routes
- GET
/folio/classes - POST
/folio/classes - POST
/folio/records/{id}/retention - POST
/folio/records/{id}/early-delete - GET
/folio/erasure - POST
/folio/erasure