Query and Delete Archived contacts
Square Apricot suggested I post here, so here it goes:
There should be a way to query Archived members in order to do a large group delete based on specific criteria. As a example, query all archived contacts who do not have email addresses. Then do a group deletion of them.
In my case we no longer support a membership level. but we have 1200+ archived members that still hold the level. I cannot delete the level (to clean up the summary page) because contacts - although deleted - still hold that level. My only options are: 1) individually edit all 1200 records to change their membership, level; 2) Query by criteria and Export the archived contacts, change their membership level and then import them back in; or 3) Delete the ENTIRE set of archived records.
There should be a way to query, get the results and then have the option to delete, just like you have the option to group archive active contacts.
Thanks for your time.
Larry Killer
ASCET
shared this idea
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ASCET Office
commented
Katya,
Thank you for the quick response. Yes, my original post was regarding the deletion of a member category and those members that were in that category. While that was my original example, it didn't really get to the point I was trying to make. Hence the reason for the updated post.
What I really would like is what was described in my follow-up email; to be able to delete a specific, queried group of contacts. It seems that it should be an easy, albeit scary, request to be able to query archived members meeting additional criteria and then permanently delete them.
Right now my work-around is this: Export all archived members; Delete ALL archived contacts; open my exported xls file and purge the members that I originally wanted to delete; finally, import back in my revised list of archived members that I wanted to keep.
While this method works, it would be a lot easier to query the ones I want deleted and then simply delete them!
Thank you for thinking about this.
Larry -
Hi Larry, thanks for sharing.
As I understand, you have a membership level and all members on this level are archived. You need to delete this level and all these members. Am I right?
If so, you can delete membership level without any actions with archived members as you described. If all of them are archived our system allows you to delete such level.About deleting archived contacts. It makes sense for sure and your solution sounds good.
Katya, Astra crew
Membership management features @ Wild Apricot -
ASCET Office
commented
It's been a while since I posted the wishlist request, but I wanted to update a process that I see that a request like this would benefit.
As you know, you are not presented the Delete button until you choose a (single) archived contact. What I'd like to see is the ability to query specific criteria and then be presented with the option to delete based on that query.
We already kind of have this ability. If we go to Dashboard --> Account, we have the option to Delete All Contacts. When you click on that button, you have three options. It would be nice to see a fourth option that is called something like: Delete Current Queried Results. In my case I would have the following two query fields:
Contact Properties > all of selected > Archived
Notes > is > Conference Contact (when we import a large group of contacts to email, we add this note so we can track them).Then...the ability to delete that query. That way I delete only the contacts that I query while keeping all other Archived contacts in place.
I understand that archived contacts do not count against our overall contact limit, but I had nearly 14000 contacts archived and it was bogging down the search time. I just want the ability to clean up the archives and get rid of those contacts that I no longer need, but still maintain archives of those that were past members that might come back.
Hope that helps clarify my intent with this wishlist request!
Larry
