In this article:
1. How to Archive Your Cards?
2. How to Set up the Permanent Archiving Process?
3. How to Move Cards into the “Ready to Archive” Column?
4. How to Manually Move Cards from the Temporary Archive to the Permanent Archive?
5. How to Find Archived Cards or Versions in the Permanent Archive?
6. How to Unarchive a Card?
1. How to Archive Your Cards?
Archiving completed cards is the best way to maintain your board's performance, keep it clean, and store historical records of your work.
To keep your board from getting cluttered, you have to move all completed tasks into the "Ready to Аrchive" column. This column stores the tasks for a certain period of time (1/7/14/30 days). After that period expires, the cards will be automatically moved to the Permanent Archive, depending on your settings.
Important:
- When a card is archived or discarded, its local cycle time stops and shows the time spent in its last location before archiving or discarding. If the card is unarchived or restored, the local cycle time resets.
- The cards in the Permanent archive are zipped up and can be restored at any time if needed.
2. How to Set up the Permanent Archiving Process?
When cards are moved in the "Ready to Archive" column, they will be automatically archived in the Permanent archive 7 days later (default setting). This will improve the overall system performance.
Account Owners and Workspace Managers will be able to change the auto-archiving cadence.
Expand the "Ready to Archive" column and click the Auto Archive drop-down menu to select one of the available options.
You can choose to:
- Archive cards in 1 day
- Archive cards in 7 days (this is the default setting)
- Archive cards in 14 days
- Archive cards in 30 days
The process runs every day and checks if the cards have stayed 1/7/14/30 days, depending on your settings.
Note: There is a way to manually archive your cards permanently (check p.4)
3. How to Move Cards into the “Ready to Archive” Column?
There are several ways to move cards to the "Ready to Archive" column:
- Drag out a rectangle to select multiple cards and drop the cards to the "Ready to Archive" column.
- You can use the Card context menu to move cards from "Done" to the "Ready to Archive" column. Open the menu or right-click the cards you selected, then click on Move followed by Right. The cards will be moved to the next column.
- Use the Position Control view in the Card Details to instantly move the card on the board.
The Position Control view mirrors the workflow stages of the board where the selected card is currently located. Select the "Ready to Archive" stage and update your card. It will be instantly moved to the desired position.
Note: With this approach, you can move the cards one by one.
- Use the card Context menu to move it by selecting the Done icon and selecting Ready to Archive from the options. This can be used no matter where the card is currently located.
Pro tip: You can set up a Time-based business rule for the respective board to automate the process.
This rule will automatically move cards when a time-related rule is evaluated as true.
Configure the Business rule as follows:
- When the Cycle time of the cards is greater than 7 days (you can define a different period of time)
- The Board is: "Name of the Board" and the column is "Done"
- Move the card to the “Temporary Archive”
4. How to Manually Move Cards from the Temporary Archive to the Permanent Archive?
The system allows you to manually move cards to the Permanent Archive.
Step 1: Open the Ready to Archive column and click on the Archive cards icon at the top of the column.
Step 2: You will get a list of all cards from the Temporary Archive column. Double-check the list of cards that you want to archive. Click the Archive Cards button and all selected cards will be instantly moved to the Permanent Archive.
All cards will be stored under the Permanent archive tab.
How to create a Version?
You can create versions of the archived cards for better history tracking. The system allows you to group together the cards and save them under a Category name (Version). For example, you can archive cards from a certain Release cycle or only Project X-related cards. This means you can browse through the permanent archive by Release name or Project name to easily find the respective group of cards.
You can create a Version (a group of cards) during the archiving process. Checkmark all cards that will belong to the Version → enter the Version name at the bottom of the panel → select Archive cards.
Keep in mind that only Account Owners and Workspace Managers can create Versions and add archived cards to an existing Version. The idea behind it is that Account Owners and Workspace Managers' role is to organize and monitor the work process, which includes managing Versions.
All Versions will be stored under the Browse versions tab of the Permanent Archive.
TIP: There is a quick way to permanently archive a single card located in the "Done" column or in the "Temporary Archive" column. Open the card Context menu and select the Archive button. The card will be instantly stored in the system's permanent archive.
5. How to Find Archived Cards or Versions in the Permanent Archive?
To find/see cards that have been permanently archived → click the View archive icon to open the corresponding storage place.
There are two tabs at the top of the Permanent archive panel:
- Permanent cards archive (1)
- Browse versions (2)
(1) The Permanent cards archive tab displays a list of all cards that you have archived and do not belong to a Version. The panel allows you to narrow down your search and define the time range for which you want to implement a search. Select the From/To dates from the calendar picker and click on Search to get the matching results.
(2) The Browse Versions tab displays a list with all archived Versions. Click on any of the plus icons to expand a menu and see all cards that belong to the respective Version.
6. How to Unarchive a Card?
Who can unarchive cards? Account Owners, Workspace Managers, and users with the "View archive" permission in their role can unarchive cards.
If you need to resume working on a card or move it to another location, you can easily unarchive it. Follow the video or the instructions below to learn how:
Open the system's Permanent archive by clicking on the View archive icon (in the Ready to archive column).
Option 1
Review the list of cards and find the card you want to unarchive. Click on “Unarchive Card” next to the card you want to restore. The card will appear in the Ready to archive column on the corresponding board.
Note: If the card belongs to a Version, you have to open the Browse versions tab and find the respective Version. Click the Version's plus icon to expand a menu and get the list of all cards. Use the same navigation to unarchive the card.
Option 2
Open the Permanent archive and click the Card ID to review the archived card. If you need to restore the card, you can click the Card Settings menu and hit the Unarchive icon.