Archiving and Multiple Languages

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I see that I can archive a specific language version of a page. This is useful. However, what if I want to archive multiple versions of a page. Say the page has 20 language versions and I want to archive the whole shebang at once. Is that possible?

#270698
Jan 27, 2022 17:48
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Hi, Ethan Schofer when you put the expiration date and path of archiving folder, when you run the scheduled job it's archive its language version as well.

#271031
Feb 02, 2022 6:53
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Unfortunately, this had the opposite effect. Running the archive job did move the page to my archive folder, but it removed any expirations set on the page.

Reviewing this:

https://support.optimizely.com/hc/en-us/articles/360021647352-Clarifications-on-archiving-and-expiring-content-in-Episerver

What I described is the expected functionality.

#271483
Edited, Feb 10, 2022 13:32
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Thank you for your information!

#293690
Dec 25, 2022 22:01
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The archiving function in Optimizely is a bit outdated for modern use. The feature has been around since early (Episerver) versions, and hasn't changed in decades. 

It was mainly a tool to continuously tidy up folders in the page tree that typically accumulated a lot of posts over time, like a News folder.

Archiving works like this:

  • When you set the expiry date on a page, you can also set an archive target folder (this can be any node in the Page Tree that allows that specific content type).
  • Archive target folder can only be set on the Master language version of a page.
  • When the expiry date is reached, the page is automatically expired (unpublished).
  • The page will stay expired in its original location until the Archive Function scheduled job is run (typically this would be set to run automatically once a day, but out-of-the-box it's set to Manual).
  • The archive job will move the page to its archive target folder in the Page Tree. 
  • Any page-specific (For This Page) blocks and assets will follow the page to the new location. Their publish status will not be changed by the archiving. 

There are many caveats with this feature:

  • The archive job will move ALL language versions of that page, regardless of whether those other language versions were expired.
    (Which answers the question by the OP)
  • After archiving, the expiry of the page will be lifted - i.e. the page will be in a published state again after archiving.

  • The act of moving a page to another node in the Page Tree, results in a new page URL.
    While internal links will still work, external incoming links to the page's old URL will give a 404. 
    To counter this, you need to have a 404/redirect manager tool in place to handle the old/new URL mapping (that is, if you want people to still find the archived page).
    E.g. the NotFoundHandler has a setting to monitor page moves and automatically create a redirect mapping, which would be handy if you use archiving.

  • When setting an archive target folder, you will NOT be notified if you accidentally choose a target folder where your page-to-be-archived is not among the allowed content types.
    In such a situation, the archiving job will return a Success status, but the details will show that "0 pages were moved to archive".
    When archving fails like this, the page will not have been moved and the expiry will not have been lifted.  (There should clearly by a better status explaining that archiving was skipped because it violates the content hierarchy rules).

  • Beware: It's possible to archive a page that has subpages. When doing so, the archiving job will actually move the archived page and all its subpages. 
    (The archiving job details will still only say "1 page was moved to archive", even though that page may have had several subpages that were also moved)
    While the main archived page will have its expiry status lifted after archiving, the subpages publish status will not be changed at all by the archiving.
    All those subpages will also naturally get a new URL after being moved, and would also require URL redirect mapping to avoid 404s.
#323240
Edited, Jun 07, 2024 8:02
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