ArticlesHow to Delete High Volume/Data PSA Records to Reduce Total Storage in PS Cloud

PSA does not have any archive functionality at this time. Because of this, over time, storage requirements will increase with PSA usage as more records are created. At some point, it is likely that customers will run out of allocated SF storage and at this point, the decision is whether to purchase more data from Salesforce, or delete high volume/data PSA records which are contributing to the total storage. 

This article explains considerations which should be reviewed before deleting high volume records in PSA.

All versions

Getting Started

Certinia strongly recommends completing the following steps in sandbox first to ensure everything is working as expected. Ensure there is nothing in your Recycle Bin that you may want to restore. Deleting records may fill up your Recycle Bin, deleting any existing content.

Transaction Records

Transactions are used to provide and update Actuals in PSA. Actuals measure several different totals related to revenue, costs and effort for given time periods and for given Projects, Resources or higher-level organizational groupings.

There are 5 types of “Transactional Records” in PSA, represented as 5 separate sObjects in the PSA package:

• Timecard Splits (auto-created under Timecards by PSA triggers)
• Expenses
• Milestones
• Budgets
• Miscellaneous Adjustments

Every record of these 5 types has child Transaction records automatically created by PSA to serve as the raw data for Actuals roll-ups.

Example of Timecard Split Transactions:

Example of Expense Transactions:

Example of Milestone Transactions::

Example of Budget Transactions:

Example of Misc Adjustment Transactions:

Note that in some cases, an amount may appear in one Actuals field (e.g. Bookings) and later in another Actuals field (e.g. Billings) and even later in other Actuals fields (e.g. Billed, Invoiced) as the work is budgeted, delivered, released to the Financials system and finally invoiced.

Impact of Deleting

Certinia recommends against deleting transactions from a production organization except for scenarios involving archiving old data that is not expected to change. When actuals on a project are incorrect e.g. someone deletes a transaction delta or someone manually changes the actuals - then you can get discrepancies. If the total is off you will never recover, just continue adding incrementally to the mistake. 

There are a few options in PSA to recalculate these project Actuals, but they all will use the Transactions, by deleting the existing project Actuals records and then recreating them from the source transactions. Once the transactions are deleted, the Project Actuals are not deleted, but it would not be possible to regenerate them in the future should this be needed.

How to Delete

In order to delete Transactions, a decision must be made that no more changes will be made to business records (i.e. Expenses, Milestones, Timecards, etc) earlier than a certain cutoff date. For example, it has been agreed upon that no changes will be made to business records 12/31/2019 and earlier, then all Transactions earlier or on 12/31/2019 could be deleted. The Actuals records would still be visible, but no further changes to anything dated that old would be supported. 

It is recommended prior to deleting Transactions, that all Transaction records be exported via Data Loader and archived as a .csv file

Script: delete [SELECT Id FROM pse__Transaction__c WHERE pse__Effective_Date__c < 2016-12-31 LIMIT 10000];

Utilization Detail Records

Utilization details are records that detail utilization performance for your users. For example you may have a resource Joe Smith and he was 80% billable last quarter. The summary level records group this by Region, Practice, or Group depending on your settings and by role. So you can see utilization performance for all consultants for north america for example. These are created/updated as part of the Utilization Calculation Scheduled Job, which typically runs overnight.

How to Delete

Exporting the records with a date older than a chosen date (i.e. 12/31/2015 and before) where no more reporting on those records are needed. After the export, delete the records. If needed, the records can easily be regenerated

Or these records can simply be deleted, and as long as the underlying records are still there [assignments, EVA records etc] then they can be recreated at any point with a new calc.

Backlog Detail Records

Backlog is a measure of Revenue that is expected from projects over a period of time. Ie What was booked on a project (sum of approved budgets) minus what was billed will give you your current backlog (remaining of what needs to be billed/delivered). Backlog Calculations process creates backlog details on each project divided by the time periods you specify (e.g. monthly). This information comes from scheduled billings on billable assignments, scheduled milestones, and future-dated misc adjustments. The process also stamps an "unscheduled backlog" value on each project when the full bookings of the project are not accounted for within actual and scheduled activity.

Option

There is an option here to check the current calc and create less records based on config. Review the Checkbox ‘ Reuse Detail Objects’ field on the Backlog Calculation - if not checked then an option is to 

1. Delete any unnecessary Backlog Detail records
2. Navigate to Setup > Scheduled Jobs and locate the Backlog Calculation job
3. Delete the Backlog Calculation job
4. Go to the Region from which you want to schedule your new Backlog Calculation job
5. Select Calculate Backlog
6. Select all desired parameters and schedule details for the job, making sure that Reuse Detail Objects is checked
7. Select Schedule

Reuse Detail Objects - Indicates whether Backlog Detail object records are overwritten, or reused, for the same regions, practices, groups, projects and their associated time periods. We recommend that you select this option, to avoid using unnecessary space.

How to Delete

exporting the records with a date older than a chosen date (i.e. 12/31/2020 and before) where no more reporting on those records are needed. After the export, delete the records. If needed, the records can easily be regenerated. When using Data Loader both the Backlog Detail records and Backlog Calculation have to be deleted. Delete the Backlog Detail records before deleting the associated Backlog Calculation records when using Data Loader. If The Backlog Calculation is deleted in the UI, the Backlog Detail records are automatically deleted with that process by design

There are no major impacts to deleting these records. The only consideration before doing so is to determine how far back these records need to be reported on. Any records not being reported on can safely be deleted.

Script Option

Run this in sandbox first and confirm results before doing this in production.

1. Go to developer console and navigate to debug
2. Open execute anonymous window
3. Paste the following script: Delete[select id from pse__Backlog_Detail__c where pse__Backlog_Calculation__c = 'INSERT BACKLOG ID HERE' limit 10000];
4. Run this multiple times depending on the backlog detail records (for example, for 60000 records, run it 6 times)

Est vs Actuals Records

Estimates Versus Actuals records (EVAs) are used to compare estimated scheduled hours against actual hours entered on timecards for time period types, as defined. Scheduled hours can be derived from Assignments and Held Resource Requests], but not both. Eg When a held resource request is converted into an assignment, the schedule and EVA are deleted for the held resource request and are recreated against the assignment.

You can view Estimates versus Actuals comparison records on the Est vs Actuals related list as follows:

• The Contact page for a resource, 
• An assignment,
•  Project

How to Delete

Exporting the records with a date older than a chosen date (i.e. 12/31/2015 and before) where no more reporting on those records are needed. After the export, delete the records. If needed, the records can easily be regenerated from an assignment [Action: Refresh Hours From Schedule]

Optional script: [SELECT Id FROM pse__Est_vs_Actuals__c WHERE pse__End_Date__c <= 2020-02-10 LIMIT 10000];

Future

The Est Vs Actuals custom settings control the behavior of estimated versus actual records, and these should be reviewed based on business needs, so for example, you may have weekly EVA records being created, but these may not be used now/required.  The setting ‘Generate Weekly Records ‘ determines this.

Time Date

Time date records are child records of a timecard. Time date records represent a single date within the date range of the timecard. Each time date record contains the timecard hours for that date. When the create-time-date-records configuration option is set in the Timecard configuration group, you can use time date records to create native Salesforce reports with per-day reporting.

How to Delete

If Time Date data is deleted, timecard and report can be affected if reports are using this object.