I would like to be able to use the task feature for deletion purposes. When a user deletes a record, I would like trigger a connected record update to flag them for deletion, then the task be set to check for flags and delete accordingly, with an email of what was deleted.
I love Knack as a product for the most part. But they really love to to tell you why they wont implement something. Then 5 years later we are still talking about wanting it. The most recent reason for not adding something is the new builder. This is also the excuse they give you as why they arent fixing any bugs. Guess what Knack just because as company you decided to new builder this shouldnt mean that your paying customers have to wait months or even years to get a bug fixed or a feature added.
I appreciate the update, Jessie.
For one, I'm perfectly okay taking responsibility for the risk that comes with automating deletions.
But also, so that Knack is not inundated with requests to "undelete" data, why not just have a trash bin? When a record is deleted, it gets moved to the trash bin for 30 days, at which point, if it hasn't been restored, it gets permanently deleted. Then we could periodically check the trash to make sure everything in there is intended to be there.
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Hi everyone! In response to Andrew's most recent post, and to everyone who is waiting on this feature - just want to be clear on our reason for not yet developing the ability to delete records as part of a batch task.
While this may not be the most difficult from a technical perspective, the implications of adding this feature without some safe guards would come with consequences. The safety of your data is of utmost importance to us. We really don't want to see users inadvertently losing records!
So our reason for not having this feature is not tied at all to our business model, or charging for records. This request is also not at the bottom of the pile, just blocked until we have created a better way to easily roll back unwanted changes, such as deleting records.
Hope that clears it up! Thank you for everyone who has commented on this request! We appreciate the voting and discourse, as it helps us shape our product roadmap.
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I'm surprised this is not a feature. With strict GDPR and data retention rules, the ability to auto-delete in this day and age is a basic feature of any database, as the implications of retaining data beyond your published schedule leave you open to significant fines and more.
We store elements of personal data, and have a retention policy of x days, after which certain data should be deleted. I don't want to have to subscribe to third party applications and use the API to delete, firstly this is costly and cumbersome, but also means privacy policy has to be amended to include third party applications, and those third applications then have to meet our criteria for data security, European hosting, and the plethora of checks you have to do etc.
It would appear most of the building blocks are within knack to perform this. A simple task run daily that deletes records older then x days, where delete = yes.. it maybe the user has chosen one of two data retention policies, 30 days or 12 months, or a user has manually asked their data be removed, in which case another task can run which deletes data when a field is changed to yes...
I can understand knacks reluctance to do this, a business model where fees are based on number of records in the database, this is potential a feature than automatically reduces your need to pay for more storage, and thus why they are not allowing it, or making it available through services which cost more than the additional fees payable to knack, so sadly i can't see this feature being at the bottom of the pile and remaining there.
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A huuuuge +1 for this feature!
This is also a problem for us. The only workaround for this to be done automatically is a scheduled record deletion via API, which has an enormous overhead and is therefore extremely inefficient:
- we would have to keep track of the records to be deleted somewhere externally
- each record would have to be deleted one by one through the API
- this would consume API requests like crazy
So +1 vote for this feature, it will probably be a deal-breaker for us on the mid-term.
Best Regards
Amazing, thanks John!
@John Good - is there some code you can share or point me in the direction of the developer who helped you with this please?
I pray to knack team... Please add this feature in your new builder launch!!
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This was a massive problem for me, I had one App with an Object which was users were inserting at the rate of over 1,000 records per month, I tried everything but in the end I had to go into builder and delete records.
I have now solved this problem with the help of a Knack Developer and some nice Java Code.
Users I specify can now delete multiple records that I define the criterion of in a report, we have implemented two delete routines, one deletes records from just one database and the other deletes records and sub records at the same time.
This means I can leave the archiving and deleting of records to my users.
I am a happy man :)
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We are planning to move away Knack soon because of this issue.
This would be a big plus.
Ohhh yes this would make my life soooo much easier.
+1
Yes, this one is needed.
It would be great to have this ability...
Its pretty unbelievable that there is no effective way to deal with orphaned records, whether cascading deletes or a scheduled task.
I use API to delete orphaned records or outdated records. It is a tiresome job. If Knack Task can be included to delete records it is a great feature.