The capability of archiving records was activated in 2018; however, the actual archiving of records began on November 25, 2019.
The main goals of archiving records are improved ServiceNow performance and meeting Penn State record management requirements.
Once archiving began, the SMO Application Administrators started archiving records (and associated attachments) older than 18 months. It will take some time before all of the in-scope records have been archived. It is this archival (removal from the tool) of records and attachments that will result in better ServiceNow performance.
To start the process of becoming compliant with policy AD35--University Archives and Records Management, records will stay active for 18 months while older records will be archived. As archived records age, a destruction schedule for records greater than 18 months old (a total of 36 months) will be applied based on archived date.
Reporting/Performance Analytics
While archived incidents will no longer be available in reports (aka, the reporting module of ServiceNow), you will still be able to see summary incident data in performance analytics.
Additional information is available in an Archiving Frequently Asked Questions knowledge article.
Lifecycle
The following image will help with understanding the lifecycle of a record:
Not Available Locally
All archiving will be done by the SMO on a global scale. Archiving will not be a process available to local units. If any archived records need to be accessed after having been archived, then searchable information (for instance, an incident number, contact information, or short description) would need to be provided in a new incident to the SMO so that the record can be found and restored.