View the Discard Pile

Project > Discard Pile

The Discard Pile is used to isolate documents that are no longer pertinent to the Project (due to routine culling, changes to Project goals or search criteria, or other factors) from the rest of the Project Data. Users with the needed permission can send documents in Project Data document search results to the Discard Pile using the Send to Discard Pile option on the Document menu. This operation requires a comment and generates a Work Basket task.

Depending on their Organization roles and the permissions derived from them, Users can list the documents in the Discard Pile, view their contents, download them, or restore them to Project Data. The Discard Pile can also be searched, and the search results selectively restored. The Discard Pile Log maintains a record of all discard and restore actions and the Users who executed them.

Bear in mind the following important restrictions on and notes about the Discard Pile:

  • The Discard Pile cannot be deleted.

  • Only selected individual documents can be sent to the Discard Pile, not families.

  • Sending documents to the Discard Pile or restoring them to the Project triggers recalculation of Email Threads and a check for valid Custodian membership.

  • If the number of documents in the Discard Pile is very large, you may need to use the Generate Document List button the first time you view a document. This button can reappear when the document list is not cached.

The Discard Pile list displays each discarded document's document number (the value of the docnum metadata field) and name, as well as the date on which it was discarded. Right -click a document in the Discard Pile (or click the context menu at the right-hand end of its row) to use the following options:

  • Open Document Inline – Displays the document in the Document Viewer, above the Discard Pile list, in the current window or tab. Click Exit in the upper left to return to the full Discard Pile list.
  • Open Document in New Window – Displays the document in the Document Viewer, above the Discard Pile list, in a new window or tab. When you use this option, the documents list below it includes columns for the User, comment, and date associated with each document's removal. Close the window or tab to return to the full Discard Pile list.

Using either option, once you have viewed the document you can select another from the list to display it in the document viewer, or open another one in a new window so you can compare the two documents side by side.

Select one or more documents and open the Document drop-down menu to use the following options:

  • Download as PDF – Downloads the selected document(s) to your local environment in PDF format.
  • Download as Native – Downloads the selected document(s) to your local environment in their native formats.
  • Restore from Discard Pile – Restores the selected document(s) to the Project Data. When you restore a document, the document maintains its document history (for example, original Add Document operation and any Tag Apply history). The document also retains its Custodian assignment, as long as that Custodian is still available in the Project.

For more information about downloading as PDF and Native, see Document Menu Options in Work with Documents in Views of Project Data and About Downloading Documents as PDFs and Natives.

The Discard Pile can be selected as the target of any search (except when building Workflows). When the Discard Pile is displayed, it is automatically selected as the target. Within search results from the Discard Pile, you can select one or more documents and use the options above, including Restore from Discard Pile.

To open the Discard Pile Log, click the Discard Pile Log button on the upper right of the Discard Pile list, or select the Discard Pile Log option at any time by right-clicking Discard Pile in the navigation tree or clicking the context menu to its right.