Decommissioning and archiving Mosaic content
If you have content that is out of date, no longer relevant or not required on your new migrated site, you should archive it and/or delete it from Mosaic before migrating.
This isn’t a service the Migration Support Team are able to offer. Any content archived or deleted will need to be managed by your department.
To help you identify this content, we recommend you complete a content audit before your migration. Read more about content audits.
Important information about content retention
When reviewing content and deciding what needs to be kept and what can be deleted, we recommend content owners take into account any data retention requirements pertaining to their content.
There is no central/top-down source of guidance on for how long content should be kept. It is dependent on the nature of the content and the responsibility of content owners to be aware of any University and/or legislative requirements relevant to their content. Please refer to any local guidance as required.
If people would like to consider how often they review their content, some high-level guidance is available in the University’s Content Strategy.
Disabling Shared Content
It is important to check if your site is using shared content on Mosaic and if there is, remove or disable any before migration.
Where applicable, you will need to inform any other site(s) or site owner(s) before disabling shared content on their site.
What is archiving?
Archiving is the process of storing inactive but potentially valuable, records safe so they can be used at a future date but may not be a useable document as originally published.
A key difference between archiving and deleting content, is that by archiving content you are keeping a record of it. Deleting content means removing it entirely.
Archiving options
Archiving can take several forms including:
- PDF exports by page
- Server downloads – ZIP file of HTML pages – Using a tool such as HTTrack
- Pages can also be deleted
Print to PDF
Printing to PDF is a good option if you want to maintain a static copy of some or all of your site content for future use.
What it will give you:
- A point-in-time copy of your content that you may share with others if required.
What it won’t give you
- An interactive version of content.
- A discoverable resource (unless you choose to attach it to another website).
- Copy of files attached to your website unless you specifically request this.
Exporting content
Exporting your content is a good option if you don’t need your site content to be publicly discoverable, but would like a copy for your own future reference.
When exporting your content give consideration the output file size and where you want to store it afterwards. If you need help with this, you may want to contact your local IT team.
What it will give you
- A ‘flat file’ HTML copy of your website to store on your local PC or a shared storage area.
What it won’t give you
- Copy of files attached to your website unless you specifically request this.
- Immediate access to your site copy post deactivation.
- A version of the site that you would want to show to others, as it’s not an image of how the content looked on the page.
Deleting
Deleting your content can be a good option if you no longer want to keep a copy of some or all of your site content. You should only delete content when neither the University nor your current or historic audience will need to access it in the future.
What it will give you
- Your content be permanently deleted.
What it won’t give you:
- Future access to the content as it is irretrievably deleted.