Is Purge-it easy to use for E1 data archiving?

The biggest factor when it comes to the usability of Purge-it is that it’s written entirely in the JD Edwards toolset.  It works completely within your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne environment. There’s no external archiving tools at work. Not only is Purge-it straightforward to implement and use but this makes it easy to retain the knowledge.

1. Do you need technical JD Edwards knowledge to run Purge-it?

The Purge-it data archiving solution is what we refer to as a programmed solution.  No SQL is required to run Purge-it.  You don’t need a technical JD Edwards expert to run Purge-it.

All the Purge-it Applications, enquiries and batch jobs are available from the JD Edwards menus.

2. How is the JD Edwards data archived?

Purge-it has 8 standard modules. The standard modules cover the main transactional data in JD Edwards; Sales, Purchasing, HR/Payroll, Manufacturing, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Inventory.

All the standard Purge-it modules archive (and if required purge) data. The data is moved from one database location to another database location.  Full access to the archive data is maintained.

If you haven’t already considered retention dates for your JD Edwards data then this is something that will need to be agreed with the business. Once your data retention cut off dates are agreed and put in place, then you may decide that it’s appropriate to purge some of the data from the archive environment. This is performed from within Purge-it.

The standard modules in Purge-it are programmed solutions. This means the standard modules are easy to implement.  You don’t need to be technical, to know tables or relationships.  It’s a good idea to have a functional understanding of what your organization is looking to achieve.

3. Can I archive EDI, Custom Tables, Media Objects, Z tables?

The Purge-it! Custom Module can be used to archive data that isn’t covered by the standard Purge-it modules. Typical use cases are EDI, Media Objects, Z Tables, any custom tables you have.

The Custom Module is an extremely powerful tool within Purge-it. You can set up your own archiving routines all within the framework of JD Edwards.

The Custom Module can archive (copy), purge (remove) and archive and purge (move) data from any table you can see in JD Edwards.

4. Are the Purge-it archive routines easy to run?

The archive routines are all condensed into single jobs. They run as batch jobs (UBEs). You don’t need to know SQL statements to run the archive jobs.

The archiving is performed at document level. This is important because if you stop archiving part way through, that job will be fully complete for the data it has processed. You’ll never find yourself with part archived or part purged data.

One job does everything with Purge-it.  The jobs:

• Select the data to be archived
• Validate the data can be removed (maintaining data integrity throughout)
• Archive to the archive tables
• Purge from the live tables
• Write audit data (highlighting any exceptions)
• Summarise data to keep in line with table balances (where necessary)

You run one UBE and it does everything all in one step. This single step process makes the archiving easy to run. This also makes it very easy to automate the data archiving with Purge-it! by adding jobs onto the JD Edwards scheduler.

5. What's the Purge-it user experience?

Purge-it has Environment and Session Dashboards for users to monitor archive jobs and environment size. Workbenches are used for set up and configuration options.

The dashboard interface, available from within JD Edwards, makes navigating Purge-it quick and easy.  Users don’t need to log out and log in to see the status of archiving jobs, to view the exception analysis, the audit data or to access archive data.  Even the reversal functionality is accessed from within JD Edwards.

Purge-it Session Dashboard

Purge-it Environment Dashboard

6. Can I automate my data archiving?

Many Purge-it customers put the archiving jobs on the JD Edwards scheduler.  As soon as the archive jobs are on the JD Edwards scheduler then the task of data archiving is self-automating.

The benefit of adding the archive jobs to the JD Edwards scheduler is that little to no manual intervention is required. We call this archive automation. With archive automation your data continues to be regularly archived to avoid a build-up of data in the future and it makes archiving just another regular housekeeping activity.

Archive automation with Date Offset functionality

7. Is it easy to access the archive data?

Yes absolutely! We know it’s important for users to be able to easily access the archive data.  Purge-it archive applications enable access to the archive data from within the Production environment.  These applications are simply added to the JD Edwards menus, making archive access straightforward for your end users. There’s no requirement to set up and maintain a separate archive environment.  There’s no need for users to log out and in again to view the archive data.

For example, if a user wants to look at an archive sales order that’s 10 years old, they stay in their existing JD Edwards environment and simply search for that order from the menu. Easy!

Purge-it archive inquiry screen

8. What if I select the wrong data to archive?

Every data archiving job you run in Purge-it is reversable.  For example, if you archive 1 million FO911 records and you want to reverse them, you can reverse all those records or you can reverse 10 records or 1000 records. You use data selection to say which of the FO911 records you want to reverse and they will go back into production.

As we saw earlier in this blog post, everything in Purge-it is one job.  This means each one of the modules is one UBE to run and one UBE to do reversals.

The Purge-it easy reversal function provides JD Edwards users with a safety net just in case it’s needed.

Summary. What makes Purge-it easy to use.

1. You don’t need to be technical to run Purge-it
2. Purge-it has the familiar JD Edwards look and feel because it’s built entirely in the JDE toolset.
3. There is no multi-step process. Everything is performed as one job.
4. Data integrity is maintained. The exceptions help you identify incomplete records.
5. Easy access to archive data for users from the JD Edwards production environment.