Deletion schedules

This guide covers how to create, edit, and manage Zendesk deletion schedules at GitLab. Administrators should review the Administrator tasks section.

Understanding deletion schedules

What are Zendesk deletion schedules?

As per Zendesk:

Deletion schedules help you manage data retention by automatically removing data to comply with privacy laws. You can create schedules for end-user data, tickets, attachments, bot-only conversations, and custom object records. Activate, edit, clone, deactivate, or delete these schedules as needed to maintain control over your data storage and ensure compliance with data retention regulations.

Deletion schedules use condition logic

Deletion schedules use condition logic:

• all: ALL of the conditions in the array must be true (AND logic)
• any: AT LEAST ONE condition in the array must be true (OR logic)
• You can use either only one set or both sets (but there must be at least one set used)

This condition logic dictates when a deletion schedule runs. When all conditions are met, the object in question will be deleted.

How we manage deletion schedules

While Zendesk offers a full way to manage deletion schedules via the UI, we turn to a more version controlled methodology. This allows for a set review process, the ability to perform rollbacks as needed, etc.

That being the case, we utilize sync repos and managed content repos.

Human readable replacements

Currently, the sync repo can perform replacements of various items from a human readable item to the “Zendesk” equivalent item. This includes:

Valid intervals would include:

• hour or hours
• day or days
• week or weeks
• month or months
• year or years

As an example, if you wanted a deletion schedule run 90 days after the last update, you would do the following to use the replacement:

- field: 'duration_since_last_update'
  operator: 'greater_than'
  value: '90 days'

As another, if you needed a condition to cause the deletion 1 year after the creation date, you would do the following to use the replacement:

- field: 'duration_since_created_at'
  operator: 'greater_than'
  value: '1 year'

Administrator tasks

Creating a deletion schedule

For the creation of a deletion schedule, you will need to create a MR in the sync repo. The exact changes being made will depend on the request itself. A starting template you can use would be:

---
title: 'Your Title Here'
previous_title: 'Your Title Here'
description: ''
object: 'object type (see below)'
active: true
conditions:
  all:
  - field: 'the_condition_to_use'
    operator: 'the_operator_to_use'
    value: 'the_value_to_use'
  any:
  - field: 'the_condition_to_use'
    operator: 'the_operator_to_use'
    value: 'the_value_to_use'

Valid object types are:

After a peer reviews and approves your MR, you can merge the MR. When the next deployment occurs, it will be synced to Zendesk.

Editing a deletion schedule

To edit a deletion schedule, you will need to create a MR in the sync repo. The exact changes being made will depend on the request itself.

After a peer reviews and approves your MR, you can merge the MR. When the next deployment occurs, it will be synced to Zendesk.

Changing the title of a deletion schedule

If you need to change the title of a deletion schedule, copy the current value into the previous_title attribute and then change the title attribute. This allows the sync to still locate the deletion schedule in question to update.

Deactivating a deletion schedule

To deactivate a deletion schedule, you will need to create a MR in the sync repo. You will be moving the file to the inactive folder and changing the active attribute to false.

After a peer reviews and approves your MR, you can merge the MR. When the next deployment occurs, it will be synced to Zendesk.

Deleting a deletion schedule

As the sync repos do not perform deletions, you will need to do this via Zendesk itself.

To delete a deletion schedule:

1. Navigate to the admin dashboard for the Zendesk instance
   • Zendesk Global (production)
   • Zendesk Global (sandbox)
   • Zendesk US Government (production)
   • Zendesk US Government (sandbox)
2. Go to Account > Security > Deletion schedules
   • Zendesk Global
   • Zendesk Global (sandbox)
   • Zendesk US Government
   • Zendesk US Government (sandbox)
3. Locate the deletion schedule you wish to delete and click the three vertical dots by it (at the far right)
4. Click Delete
5. Click Delete schedule to submit the changes

Performing an exception deployment

To perform an exception deployment for deletion schedules, navigate to the deletion schedules sync project in question, go to the scheduled pipelines page, and click the play button for the sync item. This will trigger a sync job for the deletion schedules.

Common issues and troubleshooting

Not seeing deletion schedule changes after a merge

As deletion schedules follow the Standard deployment type, they would only be deployed during a normal deployment cycle (or when an exception deployment has been done)

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