Content Manager 25.2 Content Manager

# Large folders

Some organisations have the need to create folders in Content Manager that contain a large number of documents. Because of their sheer size, Content Manager must behave differently compared to working with regular size folders. Content Manager implements large folder behaviour when the system option is selected and when a folder contains more than 256 records.

Selecting the system option

1. On the Administration menu, click System Options and select the Record page
2. Select the option Optimise management of contained Records to allow for very large folder sizes
3. Click OK.
   Large folder behaviour is set.

Large folder test

Content Manager only implements large folder behaviour when:

- The system option is selected
- The folder has more than 256 records directly contained in it. Content Manager does not count records contained within other records towards this minimum.

## Large folder behaviour limitations

With large folder behaviour implemented in Content Manager, its behaves differently than when working with normal folders. The differences are outlined below. You should weigh up the limitations with the gains as well the impact of large folder behaviour on other Content Manager functions before implementing it.

Deleting a large folder

When you decide to delete a folder in Content Manager (not to be confused with Destroy), you need to choose between deleting all the contents as well, or removing the contents from the folder, which essentially makes them uncontained records. If the folder to delete is a large folder, then:

- When you choose to delete the contents, Content Manager deletes each contained item in a separate transaction to avoid creating one very large transaction. As a result, if the delete processing failed part-way through, the folder may still exist in Content Manager, but some of the contents may have been deleted. Workaround: Correct the error and then manually try again deleting the folder.

Changing the disposition of a large folder

Content Manager has a rule that the disposition of a document must be the same as that of its folder. This means that when you change the disposition of a folder, Content Manager changes the disposition of all contained records. For a large folder, Content Manager updates the records using a single update statement. Limitations:

- This update currently only cascades down three levels - contents, contents of these contents, contents of the contents of these contents
- The update does not create a record of the disposition change at the content level. Typically, you can see these disposition changes by viewing the field Disposition Changes in the view pane. This also means that Retention Schedules attached at the content level cannot be based on Date Last Disposition Changed
- There is a possibility of overflows of the database transaction rollback logs and/or undo buffers, which means that some configuration work by the database administrator may be necessary

If these limitations are likely to affect you, then you should not select the system option to enable large folder behaviour.

In addition to the disposition update itself, for any folder, Content Manager checks the following before making the disposition change:

- Contained items must be enclosed. For large folders, the contained items do not have to be enclosed.
- Contained documents cannot be checked out when changing disposition of their container. For large folders, Content Manager checks this only when destroying or permanently archiving the folder, and only checks it to a depth of three levels
- When changing the disposition of the container to Archived and in the Administration - System Options - Miscellaneous page, the option Prevent permanent archival of Records that do not have a long term archival format is selected, each contained electronic document must have a longevity rendition attached. As this could be a very resource-intensive operation, it is recommended to not use the option Prevent permanent archival of Records that do not have a long term archival format when using Optimise management of contained Records to allow for very large folder sizes.
- Contained items cannot have an active Hold attached. For large folders, Content Manager only checks for active Holds when changing the disposition to Destroyed.
- Contained items cannot be an embedded link of another record when changing the disposition to Destroyed. For large folders, Content Manager does not check for embedded record links.
- Content Manager warns when you are destroying a folder and any of the contained items are an original of a redaction. For large folders, Content Manager does not check for redaction originals.
- Content Manager warns when the contained items have a relationship to another record when in the System Options - Record page, the option When changing disposition or removing Records - Display a warning if the record is related to other Records is selected. For large folders, Content Manager does not check for relationships.

Field Contained Records

For normal size folders, the view pane field Contained Records displays record number and title of the records in the selected folder. For large folders, Content Manager only displays a count of the number of contained items.

Disposition schedule calculations

Content Manager uses a rule that if a document has specific archiving rules different to its folder, it can possibly overrule the normal disposition schedule of the folder. You should minimise the use of Retention Schedules on contained items when working with large folders.

Right-click command Archiving - Dispose

Some of the options in this dialogue box are not well suited for large folders:

- While the Disposal option Automatically enclose any contents is optimised for large folders, the Content Manager database administrator should take care with database transaction rollback capacity
- When changing the disposition to Archived, press Advanced for the dialogue Advanced Disposition Options. Here, for Please choose what to do with contained Records, for large folders, you should only use Do Nothing.

Record Type properties option Behaviour for handling more secure Documents

When you downgrade the security of a folder, Content Manager checks that after the downgrade, there is no record that has security greater than the new value being proposed for the folder. As this can be a very resource-intensive operation for a large folder, it is strongly recommended that for all folder Record Types that are likely to be used for large folders, you set the option Behaviour for handling more secure documents to Ignore.

US DoD compliance

The US Department of Defense (DoD) standard states that when a user-defined field value on a Classification or folder is changed, then this change should be cascaded to all records that currently have the same user-defined field value as their default. As this would be very resource-intensive for large folders, you should not use the option in System Options - Features page, Classified Security or in the Compliance page, the option Implement US DoD 5015.2 compliance when using Optimise management of contained Records to allow for very large folder sizes.

UK TNA compliance

The UK TNA standard requires that when a folder is deleted, all contents should be checked to ensure that every document has been declared as Final. As this is very resource-intensive for a large folder, it is recommended that you do not use the System Options, Compliance page option Implement UK National Archives Compliance when using Optimise management of contained Records to allow for very large folder sizes.

Bulk update behaviour

When contents are updated using a bulk updating process, as well as there being implications for database transaction rollback resources, this process also bypasses the normal Content Manager mechanisms used for notifications of changes to records, both for keeping caches up to date and for updating the display. Since a bulk update is used, it is not possible for Content Manager to "know" exactly which records were affected unless going through the process of iterating contents - which is what the large folders concept is designed to avoid. Therefore, if you have a problem with the display of a contained document's properties not being completely up to date (e.g. the folder was marked as Inactive, but the document within it still appears as Active), then you can either close Content Manager and re-open it, or use View - Reload (F6) to refresh the display.

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Version 25.2 | Last updated April 2025
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Product: Content Manager 25.2

Topic Title: Large folders