Deleting shared records

Analyst's Notebook Premium enables authorized users to create and delete records in the Information Store. However, even authorized users can delete only records that they or their colleagues create, and the operation is not immediately permanent. To delete records completely, you must interact with the Information Store database.

When a user deletes a record in the Information Store through Analyst's Notebook Premium, the effect for all users is instant. The record is no longer returned in the results of search or expand operations, and copies of the record on other Analyst's Notebook charts become orphaned.

However, by default, the data for the record remains in the database until you decide to delete it permanently. The Information Store has a mechanism for removing these "soft-deleted" records that you can start on an automatic or a manual basis.

The mechanism for purging (that is, fully deleting soft-deleted) records uses three stored procedures from the IS_Public schema of the Information Store database.

Procedure	Parameters	Description
Purge_Soft_Deleted_Records		Permanently deletes all soft-deleted records of all types from the Information Store.
Set_Purge_Soft_Delete_Schedule	Schedule	Sets and activates the schedule on which soft-deleted records are automatically deleted from the Information Store. If you are using Db2, the parameter must be a string in UNIX® cron format. For more information, see the UNIX cron format. If you are using SQL Server, you must use the arguments and values accepted by the sp_add_jobschedule.
Remove_Purge_Soft_Delete_Schedule		Clears and deactivates the automatic deletion schedule.

To do its work, the purging mechanism uses the same infrastructure as the mechanism for deleting records by rule. Each manual or automated request to purge soft-deleted records from the Information Store causes a set of deletion jobs to be created. There is one job for each entity type and link type in the i2® Analyze schema, and the Db2® task scheduler or SQL Server Agent runs them at the earliest opportunity.

i2 Analyze keeps logs of manual and automated purge operations alongside its logs of deletion-by-rule operations, in the Deletion_By_Rule_Log view. In that view, the rule name for all jobs that are associated with purging soft-deleted records is PURGE_SOFT_DELETE.