Overview

Data retention analysis is a new feature in iDNA Applications version 3.3.0. It is the combination of collecting document age information from databases and analyzing it based on data retention policies configured for this database.

The obligation to retain data for varying periods of time is a legal necessity in many industries and fields across the globe. Since Notes/Domino applications have been an integral part of business processes for companies of all industries over decades, this is a critical topic for nearly any organization that aims to be compliant with its legal requirements.

Here is a brief excerpt of common retention periods by industry in the European Union:

• Financial Services: 5–10 years (e.g., accounting records, transaction logs)
• Healthcare: 10–30 years (patient records, depending on country)
• Telecommunications: 6 months to 2 years (metadata, call logs—subject to national laws)
• Employment/HR: 2–10 years (contracts, payroll, disciplinary records)
• Tax Records: typically 7–10 years (subject to national laws)
• Construction & Real Estate: 10+ years (project documentation, safety records)

Example:

• Our database has approximately 141k documents which were last modified between 2009 and 2025.
  (If no later modification occurred, the creation time of a document is the last modification time)
  
  
• We set a retention policy of 4 years (starting at the current date), for which documents have to be retained
  
  
• That results in a retention cutoff date of September 23, 2021 (assuming the current date is September 23, 2025)
  
  
  
• Looking at that history, iDNA summarizes that approximately 115k of documents (~82%) are still with the retention period
  
  
  
• Organizations benefit immediately by understanding which databases are ready for archiving immediately. Applications where most documents are nearing the end of their retention period—even if not all are—may be suitable for read-only mode, ensuring no new edits "reset" the earliest archiving date
  
  On the flip side, an organization can gain insights quickly and transparently as to which applications are still active elements in their business processes from the content angle, rather than iDNA's usual user activity recording. This provides great value in scenarios where iDNA has been running for a shorter period of time and no extensive usage history is available. It also shows which applications may be a challenge when considering migration scenarios. Re-developing an existing application in a new target system is one thing; making sure a decade's worth of data is migrated flawlessly is quite another. The data must not only be accessible within the application but must also be available to other components of the business process without any loss.

Configuration

Prerequisites

• License: Content Age analysis is licensed as a separate module and not included in previous licenses. The new module can be purchased as an add-on for all currently active subscription licenses and new licenses.
  
  
• DB Access: A minimum of Reader access is required on databases which should be analyzed.

Content Age Collection and Processing

• License: Content Age data collection will only be performed if a valid license is found that includes the Content Age module.
  
  
• Initial Collection: After the new license is applied, the initial content age collection will occur. We recommend restarting iDNA immediately after the license upload using the command "ifa restart" via Putty.
  Note: databases that are in FAILED/CRASHED state due to previous collection errors will not be re-scanned at this time. A scan for those DBs must be performed manually (see bullet point "(Re-)Collection" below)
  
  
• Default Schedule: The collection is linked to the design analysis process. As such, normal scanning will adhere to its defined schedule as well. The default and recommended setting for design updates is "Weekly, on Saturday", but may be different in your installation. Please check the menu item [Settings] → [Database design re-scan options] for details. No automatic collection will happen before the scheduled time.
  
  
• Schedule Customization: iDNA avoids accessing individual non-system DBs on a regular basis. That is why DB design is - per default - only re-scanned on weekends and then only changed since last scan. Since this Content Age collection would connect to each Focus DB every week, we added a config parameter that allows specifying an interval in weeks that should pass between scans. Example: setting the ETL parameter "ia_profile_rescan_interval_weeks" to "2" will basically mean "Only scan every second week on Saturday". ETL parameters can be configured in the admin interface ([Settings] → [System configuration...]) in the menu item [Advanced Settings] → [ETL] → [ETL Properties] (see paragraph "Setting up Periodic Collection" in our Profile Documents Configuration knowledge base article for more details).
  
  
  
  
• (Re-)Collection can be triggered manually for one or more databases via the menu item [Settings] → [Design analysis status]. Note: if code analysis is licensed, using this option this will also trigger a re-collection and re-processing of design data. This may take several days, depending on the amount of databases to process. The regular scheduled scan on Saturday will only re-collect design data if changes in DB design occurred.
  
  
  
  
• DB Scope: Content Age information will be collected from all Focus DBs (database categories "Application" and "Mail-in DB"), excluding files with the NTF extension.
  
  
• Processing: Before collected data is visible in iDNA's user interface it needs to be processed by the nightly data warehouse update.

Retention Period Configuration

To enable Retention Analysis for a database the collected Content Age data needs to be set in context with the Retention Period configuration.

There are three factors that are part of this configuration:

• Retention Years (mandatory): for how many years must the data be retained
• Retention Mode (mandatory): how is the starting date calculated
• Retention Manager (optional): the person who is responsible for making the decision what the appropriate Retention Configuration should be

For the Retention Mode, several options are available:

• Simple Document Age (Years prior to current date)
• Start of Year: January (Years prior to selected month)
• ...
• Start of Year: December (Years prior to selected month)

The "Start of Year: <Month>" options are intended to cover situations where the e.g. the fiscal year does starts in a specific month. For example: if the fiscal year starts in October (USA, Thailand, ...) or April (UK, India, Canada, Japan).

Retention Configuration options are part of database configuration parameters and can be set in two main ways:

• Database Catalog: multiple databases can be selected to configure settings
  
  

• Application Details → Custom DB Instance properties: open a single database via the Database Catalog
  
  

• Both options will show a similar input form where Retention Configuration for one or multiple DBs can be set
  Note: when setting properties for multiple DBs, a comment is mandatory when saving
  
  

Once these settings are applied, a nightly processing run of iDNA's data warehouse is necessary to combine content age data with the retention settings.

Database properties can also be set programmatically. Please see the knowledge base article API Documentation - Catalog & Custom Properties for further details.

Summary (Example Scenario)

• A new Content Age analysis license is applied on Wednesday and iDNA is restarted afterwards
  
  
• Initial scan starts few minutes (up to an hour) after the license uploaded
  
  
• Nightly processing from Wednesday to Thursday produces first data for content age analysis (visible in the UI on Thursday)
  
  
• Retention config for the first half of databases is configured on Thursday
  
  
• Nightly processing from Thursday to Friday combines the two sets of data
  
  
• Retention analysis for configured DBs is visible in the UI for the first time on Friday
  
  
• Scheduled Content Age collection is automatically triggered on the following Saturday 
  
  
• Nightly processing on the weekend combines the two sets of data again
  
  
• Retention config is added for another batch of DBs on Monday
  
  
• Nightly processing from Monday to Tuesday combines the two sets of data again
  
  
• On Tuesday morning, the UI displays updated information based on most recent Retention Config changes

Evaluating Results

Overview Dashboards

Several dashboards regarding Content Age and Retention Analysis are available in the left navigation bar below the category "Content":

• The "Retention Overview" dashboard provides a summary across different retention settings and how many documents in each category are in an outside retention
  
  

• The "Data Retention Analysis" is a graphical representation of the retention analysis
  • Each bubble represents an Application
  • Display modes include showing DB Instances or grouping by Replica Set
  • Bubble size is determined by the amount of documents in a database
  • x-axis is determined by usage: the further to the right a bubble is, the more used it is (time range for usage calculation is configurable)
  • y-axis is determined by content age: the higher up a bubble is, the older content of a DB is (determined by average document age)
  • Color is determined by the percentage of documents in retention
    
    

• The "Retention Catalog" is a somewhat simplified version of the database catalog. It is a tabular representation of the bubble chart and has similar options to group by Replica Set.
  Filtering by "Collection Status" also provides a quick way to understand which databases may have issues with content scanning
  
  

Application Details

A new tab "Content Age" is available in Application Details for databases where content age data was collected.

Detailed information on several topics can be found in four sub-tabs here:

• Overview: A summary on content retention analysis
  
  
• History: Document modification and creation history
  
  
• Profile Documents: Profile document modification and creation history
  
  
• DB Instances: a summary table with content age KPIs on other DB instances of the same Replica Set

Licensing

Content Age analysis is licensed as a separate module and not included in previous licenses. The new module is purchasable as an add-on for all currently active subscription licenses and new licenses.