View the Discard Pile

Project Data > Discard Pile

Requires Discard Pile - View Permissions

By default, users in all default roles can view the documents that have been removed from the Project and placed in the Discard Pile. Users with permissions can perform a limited set of actions, such as download of a file in the Discard Pile, or a Restore of selected documents to the Project, which requires Discard Pile - Add/Edit permissions.

A user with permission to send documents to the Discard Pile can do so by issuing the Send to Discard Pile option for selected document(s) from a Project Data-based document list. When this option is selected, a confirmation popup enables the user to provide an optional comment before performing the operation. A Work Basket task called Sending Documents to Discard Pile reports the results.

Note: The Discard Pile does not currently support searching. The Discard Pile cannot be deleted.

The Discard Pile is intended to support isolation of documents that are no longer pertinent to the Project. They may represent the results of routine culling, or of changes to Project search criteria.

Note: Removing or restoring documents from the Project causes a recalculation of Email Threads and a check for valid Custodian membership. (Related tasks appear in the Work Basket.)

Usage Notes

  • Documents in the Discard Pile assume additional History based on their removal details from the Project (who removed them and when, for example).
  • Only individual documents move to the Discard Pile, not families.

About Large Document Lists

If the view has more than 100,000 documents, you will see a Generate Document List button the first time you go to view a particular document list for a view. Click the Generate Document List button when you are prepared to wait for the document list to be generated. You may also see this button again after you make changes (for example, changes that affect the contents of a view). In general, the button reappears when the document list is not cached.

For the Discard Pile, you can perform the Restore operation to restore the entire document list to Project Data (the equivalent of selecting the top-level checkbox) after generation of the Discard Pile document list.

Document Views in the Discard Pile

You will see a general view of all documents in the Discard Pile. You can double-click a document (or use the ellipsis menu) to open the document in the Document Viewer , either inline (the default) or in a new window.

Document Information for Discard Pile Documents

The Documents list uses a per-document checkbox to support selection of individual documents and a top checkbox to support selection of all documents in the view:

  • (per-document checkbox) — Use the checkbox to the left of a document name to select that document. To clear the selection of a document on a page of the view, clear the per-document checkbox. Use the per-document checkbox to select one or more documents on a given page for an intended action, such as Restore.
  • (top-level checkbox) — Use the checkbox that appears at the top of the list to select all documents in the view (across all pages for a tab). To clear the selection of all documents in the view, clear the top checkbox.

The Discard Pile document list provides information in the following columns:

  • Doc Number – A three-part number representing the Document Number in the format C.V.N, where C =A Data Collection (Data Set) number, unique per Organization, V =A Data Collection Checkpoint Value, unique per Data Collection, and N = A document number, unique within the Data Collection Checkpoint. When searching a document list that supports searching for a Document Number using the docnum metadata field, specify the entire value, since wildcards are not supported for this field. You can also use a range search. Example: docnum::[3.101.50000~~3.101.60000]. Family members (a parent and its children) have sequential document numbers. You can optionally sort the list of documents by this column.
  • Name — Lists the name of the file that has been moved to the Discard Pile.
  • Removed by — Identifies the user who moved a document to the Discard Pile.
  • Comments — Displays the description added when the document was moved to the Discard Pile (to provide explanation of why the file was moved).
  • Date Discarded — Displays the date the document was moved to the Discard Pile. By default, the list is sorted ascending date order, where the most recently moved document appears last in the list.

Document Menu Options for the Discard Pile

Once you select one or more documents, use the Document drop-down menu to see a list of options available for the Discard Pile documents based on permissions. For more information about operations and their associated permissions, see View and Manage Role-Based Permissions.

    Download as PDF – Enables you to download a single document, multiple selected documents on a page, or all documents in the view as a PDF to your local environment so that you can view the documents in PDF format. When you select this operation, you can select the Stamp Document Number option if you want to include a stamp with the document (docnum) on the bottom right of each page in the PDF. If you select the top checkbox to save all documents as PDFs, you will see a Warning popup that states the following: You are attempting to download all documents in this list as PDFs. Depending on the size of the documents, this could take considerable time and/or render the browser unresponsive. Consider creating a new export stream to produce the PDFs directly to an export location instead. At this point, you must either confirm the operation by clicking Continue, or click Cancel instead. Whether you select one, multiple, or all documents to download, the software will prepare a ZIP file, by default named <projectname>_PDFs.zip. An information popup indicates that the PDFs are being prepared for downloading, and once finished, the archive (ZIP) can be downloaded from the Work Basket. Note that certain file types are ignored for PDF generation, including any selected directory folders not removed from your Project during setup by your administrator, disk images, file archives, mail archives, empty files, and files for which the native is not available. A WARNING_DETAILS_REPORT.csv file identifying the files that were skipped or failed PDF generation can be downloaded from the appropriate PDF-related Work Basket task. See About Downloading Documents as PDFs and Natives for more information.
  • Download Native – Enables you to download a single document, multiple selected documents on a page, or all documents in the view to your local environment so that you can view the documents in their native format. Any selected directory folders not removed from your Project during setup by your administrator are ignored for the download. A WARNING_DETAILS_REPORT.csv file identifies any native files that were not downloaded. (See About Downloading Documents as PDFs and Natives for more information.) If you select the top checkbox for all documents, you will see a Warning popup that states the following: You are attempting to download all natives in this list. Depending on the size of the documents, this could take considerable time and/or render the browser unresponsive. Consider creating a new export stream to produce the natives directly to an export location instead. At this point, you must either confirm the operation by clicking Continue, or click Cancel instead. Whether you select one, multiple, or all documents to download, the software will prepare a ZIP file, by default named <projectname>_Documents.zip. An information popup indicates that the documents are being prepared for downloading, and once finished, the archive (ZIP) can be downloaded from the Work Basket.
  • Restore (requires Discard Pile - Add/Edit permissions – Enables you to restore the selected documents in the Discard Pile 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), and will have additional history for the Remove/Restore Documents operation. The document also retains its Custodian assignment, as long as that Custodian is still available in the Project.

Selected Document Options

When you select a single document in a Data Set document list and right-click (or use the click the ellipses at the far right), a document context menu appears with a list of options:

  • Open Document Inline – Launches the Document Viewer and have it appear in place of your Document List content in the lower portion of the screen. When working inline, you can select view modes, navigate documents by using the page controls at the bottom, and perform operations such as tagging.
  • Open Document in New Window – Launches the Document Viewer in a new browser window (or tab, depending on your browser options). This version of the Document Viewer enables you to select any document in the paged Document List and see the full content of that document (or other views, such as Metadata or History). You can also launch multiple windows for different documents to perform side-by-side reviews of multiple documents. When you open the Document Viewer in a new browser window, you can select view modes in the top center portion of the screen, navigate documents by using the page controls at the bottom, and perform operations such as tagging.