Deleted Items Governance

Empty the contents of the deleted items folder through reports and automation

User Guide

A simple way to report on, review, and permanently remove deleted content across sites, either manually or automatically.

Overview

• Deleted Items Governance allows you to:
• See how much deleted content exists across sites
• Take manual action to permanently remove deleted items
• Automate clean-up using automations
• Apply exclusions to protect sensitive content
• Maintain full audit visibility for compliance

This feature is designed to give you control, safety, and automation when managing deleted content.

Key Concepts

Deleted Items (What’s being governed)

Each site contains a Deleted Items folder where removed files are stored. These items are soft deleted. This feature enables you to permanently remove files from these folders based on defined criteria.

Two Modes of Use

• Reporting & Manual Action: Review and decide
• Automated Governance:  Define your conditions and let the system run automatically

Important Behaviour

• Results are summarised at site level (not file-level detail)
• Designed for fast visibility and action
• Only sites with matching deleted content appear in automation results

Using Deleted Items in Reports

Running a Report

1. Go to Govern > Reports
2. Select Sites
3. Create your report using available conditions
4. Run the report

What You’ll See

• Standard site report fields
• Total deleted content size field
• Filtering, sorting, and grouping options

You can also use a deeplink to HighQ to preview the Deleted Items folder before taking action.

Taking Manual Action

From a report, authorised users can permanently delete deleted content.

Available Actions

• Delete all Deleted Items for a site
• Bulk delete across multiple selected sites
• Export reports for audit or review

How to Delete

1. Apply filters (optional but recommended)
2. Select one or more sites
3. Choose Empty Deleted Items
4. Confirm the action

Safety Controls

• Clear warnings before deletion
• Explicit confirmation required
• Actions are irreversible
• Exclusions protect sites from manual actions in reports.

Automated Governance

Automation allows you to regularly clean up deleted content without manual effort. Set it up once and let the system handle it going forward.

Creating an Automation

1. Go to Govern > Automations
2. Select Empty Deleted Items
3. Define your conditions:
   • Mandatory: Deleted file age
   • Optional: Site filters (status, owner, purpose, etc.)
4. Set the schedule:
   • Weekly or monthly
   • A delay period is applied
5. Configure notifications:
   • When results are found
   • When deletions are completed
6. Activate your automation

Example Rule

Delete all deleted items older than 90 days on active sites.

What Automation Shows

Automation results include:

• All standard site fields
• Filtered deleted items size (set for deletion)
• Number of filtered deleted items (set for deletion)

How Automation Runs

• Runs in the background according to schedule
• No user input required after setup
• Uses optimised processing to avoid performance impact on your HighQ sites

Note: From the automation results screen, you can also manually empty Deleted Items folders. You can choose to remove only filtered items or empty the entire folder across one or more sites.

Exclusions

Exclusions protect content from being deleted.

Where to Configure

• Admin > Exclusions > Sites

What You Can Define

• Retention thresholds (e.g. 30, 60, 90 days or no end date)
• Rules based on site owner, site purpose, or site status

How Exclusions Work

• Apply to both reports and automations
• Excluded items are:
  • Visible in reports (with a lock indicator)
  • Not actionable
  • Shown separately in automation views under the Exclusions tab

Audit & Compliance

Every action is recorded for full traceability.

History Includes

• Site affected
• Action type
• Number of items deleted
• Size of items deleted
• Timestamp
• Data can be exported.

Best Practices

To get the most from this feature:

Apply Exclusions Early

• Protect sensitive or regulatory sites before enabling automation

Test with Reporting

• Use reports to understand impact before automating

Use Filters Carefully

• Start with narrower filters (e.g. >90 days)

Review Where Needed

• Use the HighQ link to inspect sites before taking action

Common Scenarios

Clean up storage before site closure

Run a report → filter the site → delete all Deleted Items

Ongoing hygiene

Set an automation to delete items older than 30 days

Controlled governance

Use exclusions with automation to enforce retention safely

Summary

Deleted Items Governance gives you:

• Visibility into storage consumed by deleted content
• Safe manual controls for irreversible actions
• Scalable automation for ongoing clean-up
• Strong governance through exclusions and audit logs