Project archiving allows you to write reports on historical data. Archiving is the process of copying historical data into new database tables, specifically so that you can write reports and get answers to your questions. The archive data store contains information about projects, tasks, and scoping, which is maintained indefinitely. You can write complex, dynamic reports answering questions such as:
After a task reaches the last step in a workflow, the workflow engine sends a message to initiate copying information related to the task to an archive table. Until the garbage collector deletes the original task information, it will appear in two places – in its original table and in the archive table. This also means that an active project with at least one completed task appears in the archive. Each project is updated as its tasks complete, so that the final version of the project which appears in the archive is its state when its final task was completed.
The archive tables are mostly a mirror copy of the existing tables. The archive tables have the same columns as the main WorldServer tables and, in most cases, have additional archive-specific columns.