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Report first, then archive

What Report only gives you

Report only reads the scope, applies the rules, and lists every file that would be archived - with the reason for every file it would leave alone. Nothing is uploaded and nothing in SharePoint is touched.

Reads only. Nothing in SharePoint is changed.
On this page What it tells you How it runs What it will not do Read next

What it tells you

  • It is not ticked by default - the tile archives unless you ask for the report. Ticking it is how you get a pass that changes nothing.
  • It is a deliverable, not a checkpoint: something to hand to whoever owns the data, or to a records manager, before anything is touched.
  • When it finishes, it offers to archive the files it found - without reading the scope again.
  • The report and the archive apply the SAME rules, by the same code. A report cannot promise something the run then does not do.
  • A location that could not be read is named, and the result is marked incomplete rather than presented as a clean pass.

How it runs

  1. Run it. The run screen fills with one row per file examined, and the counters split what would be archived from what your rules left out and what was refused.
  2. Read the rows. Each carries its size and the reason for its verdict. The count cards filter the list, so going from '12 refused' to which 12 is one click.
  3. Change the rules if the answer is wrong. Go back, adjust the age or size, run it again. Nothing has been touched, so there is no cost to being wrong.
  4. Then archive what it found. The primary action on the finished report. The files are already known, so it does not re-read anything - but it does re-check each file against the tenant before touching it, because minutes have passed and somebody may have checked one out since.

What it will not do

  • The on-screen list is capped at 2,000 rows and says so. The counts above it cover everything examined.

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