Shinydrive Deleted Items

Problem

Many common desktop applications delete files as part of their normal save process. For example, PowerPoint and Excel create temporary files, then, when a user saves the file, the original is deleted, and a temp file is moved into its place. Those apps fail to save if they can’t physically delete the file.

This process creates a unique situation: if Shinydrive deleted a document from the ECM when an application tells it to delete it, Shinydrive would lose version histories every time a user saves a new version.

Solution

To prevent the loss of versions during the save process, we introduced the concept of “Deleted Items” per drive. This allows Shinydrive users to temporarily delete files. When a user deletes a file, it is stored in the respective drives “Deleted Items”. Shinydrive won't do the “real” delete until the number of minutes specified in the DeletedItemsExpiry registry key has elapsed (typically set to 2 minutes) – Shinydrive will warn the user if the file ultimately couldn’t be deleted.

This solution performs two functions. It:

1. gives the user a window of time to recover a deleted item, if need be

2. acts as temporary storage for desktop applications that need to delete as part of their save process