3.4 Limiting File Versions for Folders and Workspaces by Configuring Automatic Deletion

Because a significant amount of data can be consumed by old versions of files, you can set file version restrictions for workspaces and folders that you own. You might want to do this if the Vibe administrator has set a data quota on workspaces and folders throughout the Vibe site, or if you simply want to limit the amount of clutter in your folders and workspaces.

You can configure folders and workspaces to automatically delete minor file versions that exceed the maximum number that you set for each file, and you can configure folders to automatically delete minor file versions after a specified number of days. Major file versions are never automatically deleted.

3.4.1 Automatically Deleting Minor File Versions That Exceed the Allowed Maximum

You can configure folders and workspaces to allow only a certain number of file versions for each file version set within the folder or workspace. (A file version set includes the major file version and all minor file versions. For more information about major and minor file versions, see Incrementing the Major Version Number of a File in Working with Files in a Folder Entry in the Novell Vibe 3.2 User Guide.)

After the maximum number of versions is reached and a new minor version is created in the file version set, the oldest minor version is automatically deleted and cannot be recovered.

Major versions are never deleted, so if there is a minor version that you want to keep from being deleted, you can increment it to a major version, as described in Incrementing the Major Version Number of a File in Working with Files in a Folder Entry in the Novell Vibe 3.2 User Guide.

This setting is inherited by all sub-folders, so any sub-folders are also restricted to the maximum number that you set. For example, if you specify a maximum version number of 5 in Folder A, Sub-Folder B also has a maximum version number of 5. This means that each file in the folder can have a maximum of 5 versions associated with it.

The maximum number that you set includes the major file version as well as any minor file versions. For example, if you set the maximum version number to be 5, each file version set can have one major file version and four minor file versions.

To configure a folder or workspace to have a maximum number of allowed file versions:

  1. Navigate to the folder or workspace where you want to set the maximum number of allowed file versions.

  2. Click Folder > Configure Views, URLs and Controls if you are setting the number on a folder.

    or

    Click Workspace > Configure Views, URLs and Controls if you are setting the number on a workspace.

  3. Click the Versioning and Folder Settings tab.

  4. Select Enable File Versions if it is not already selected, then specify the maximum number of allowed versions in the Maximum Versions field.

  5. (Conditional) If the text (Inherited) appears next to the Maximum Versions field, click Stop Inheriting from Parent. This configures the folder or workspace to not inherit this setting from a higher-level folder or workspace.

  6. Click OK.

3.4.2 Automatically Deleting Minor File Versions After a Specified Number of Days

You can configure all minor versions of each file to be automatically deleted after a specified number of days (major versions are never deleted). When you configure a folder in this way, all versions of the document that are not a major version are deleted after the specified number of days. (For more information about major and minor versioning, see Incrementing the Major Version Number of a File in Working with Files in a Folder Entry in the Novell Vibe 3.2 User Guide.)

The setting to automatically delete old versions is not inherited by sub-folders; it must be configured individually for each folder. Because of this, you can enable this feature only on individual folders, and not on the parent workspace. If the Vibe administrator has configured file versions throughout the Vibe site to be automatically deleted after a certain number of days, you can either disable the automatic deletion or specify a new day limit for each folder.

  1. Navigate to the folder where you want to specify the number of days to wait before the excess versions are deleted.

  2. Click Folder > Configure Views, URLs and Controls.

  3. Click the Versioning and Folder Settings tab.

  4. Select Enable Version Aging, then specify the number of days in the Delete Old Versions after field.

  5. Click OK.