Bulk deletion: Overview & planning

Bulk deletion is a way to permanently remove your contacts (i.e. customers) personal information data from Alto. This can be achieved by creating contact groups specifically for those you wish to delete.

Bulk deletion is designed for large-scale data cleanup, and is protected by validation rules. It also has a 7-day rollback window to reduce risk.

As the controller of the data, you need to decide what is suitable for your business and should seek legal advice. 

Validation rules

When you set up a contact group for bulk deletion, Alto applies a set of validation rules to prevent accidental removal of important or regulated data. These rules help ensure you keep contacts you might still need, based on your business logic or legal requirements. 

The validation rules are described below:

• Rule - Contacts included in a business transaction that need to be retained for Anti-money laundering

Whether this validation is used will be controlled by a setting in System Administration.

1. Click Tools on the main navigation bar
2. In the dropdown menu, click Templates and admin
3. On the side menu, under System Tools, click System Administration
4. Click Group Settings
5. You can decide whether to tick Retain records for AML regulations? or not
6. Click Save

When ticked, any client records that have been involved in a property sale or let within the last 5 years will be excluded from the bulk deletion so that you can retain these records for anti-money laundering legislation.

When not ticked, no validation of clients business will take place. Any client records that have been involved in a property sale or let within the last 5 years will be included for deletion. This means that you will no longer be able to access this data, if required for anti-money laundering purposes at a later date.

• Rule - The contact has a current pending or accepted offer
• Rule - The contact has a current property for sale or rent
• Rule - The contact is a prospective or active tenant
• Rule - The contact is not a client record (e.g. supplier or solicitor)

In addition to the automatic validation rules above, you may have justification to retain certain other contact records. For example:

• Contacts who have been introduced to a property (via a brochure or a viewing) which may not yet have been sold
• Contacts with whom you have had a business contract in the last 6 years that you may wish to retain under the ombudsman scheme

You can exclude these records using the existing Dates filters in the contact group, as shown below:

If you use Alto with Property Management enabled, there's an additional rule

• Rule - The contact has an accounting transaction that falls within the Accounting Retention Period value

The Accounting Retention Period is set in System Administration.

1. Click Tools on the main navigation bar
2. In the dropdown menu, click Templates and admin
3. On the side menu, under System Tools, click System Administration
4. Click Group Settings
5. Scroll down to Accounting Retention Period (in years). If you set this value to 0:
   1. The message will not be presented within the contact group, on the Bulk Actions tab
   2. No validation will take place to prevent records with accounting transactions from being omitted
      (This setting controls BOTH the validation on an individual deletion AND in the bulk delete action)

Example bulk delete process

Given the importance of deleting the records you no longer wish to hold in your database, whilst keeping those you have a requirement or desire to retain, here is an example of how you might wish to go through your database to create groups of data that can then be deleted in bulk.

1. First, decide if you will set the Accounting Retention Period (If you use Alto with Property Management enabled)
2. Then, decide if you will set the Retain records for AML regulations flag

Once you have set these, you can create a number of contact groups to work through your database systematically:

• Create a group for all your archived contacts. Use the various filters available in the contact group to ensure that only the archived contacts you no longer wish to retain are included. Then use the Bulk Delete option to delete these records
• Create a group of contacts who have been introduced to a property (via a brochure or a viewing) in case the property they viewed is still on the market. (If you delete these applicants and you later find they went on to purchase the property elsewhere, you won’t have any evidence to show that you introduced them first)
  You can do this by entering dates in the Date filters for Viewings and Received Marketing. Then, archive these records to retain for as long as you need
• Create a group of applicants by entering filters of Record Type - Active, Contact type - Applicant. Apply any of the filters available in the contact group to ensure that only applicants whom you no longer wish to retain are included. Use the Bulk Delete option to remove these records.
  (By limiting this group to applicants, you will have omitted property owners who you might wish to retain for 6 years under the ombudsman scheme)

• Related Help Centre articles that you may find useful.

  Individual data deletion

  Personal Information Requests