🗄 Why Archive Queries?

Why bother archiving or deleting old queries when there's no limit on how many we can have in Slate?

The most obvious benefit is in navigating Slate - you can browse lists of queries much more easily if hundreds of queries for 2018 Spring aren't cluttering up the view.

However, the biggest benefit is more subtle: change management.

Suppose you discover that something is wrong with a population rule and you must correct it, but leadership wants a rundown of all the queries that will be affected. Because your old queries were never archived, you now have the unenviable task of slogging through endless lists to identify what's relevant. Even our finding usage tools won't help much when you have one million billion old queries lying around in a disorganized heap.

In addition, archiving queries can be an asset when considering fully deleting queries from your instance. If they've been archived for a certain time period (we recommend a year, since that means you went through an entire admissions cycle) and no one has missed them in that time, it's probably worth removing them from your Slate instance entirely.

So take our advice and regularly hit that Archive button!

Ready to take the next step in getting your queries under control in Slate? Read our article on Managing Query Use in Slate!