User Help > Working With Documents > Deleting Documents from the PTC RV&S Database > Considerations and Known Limitations for Deleting Documents
Considerations and Known Limitations for Deleting Documents
Considerations for the Delete Operation
Deleting a document and its contents is irreversible.
The IDs of deleted documents and its content items are never reused.
To delete a live document, ensure that all the versions of that document have been successfully deleted. For considerations and recommendations on deleting versions see, Considerations and Best Practices for Deleting Versioned Documents.
As a best practice, you must first delete all the downstream traced versions if the document being deleted is an upstream traced document.
Ensure that the document does not have any live or versioned test cases in open test sessions.
Delete operation includes all content items and shared items that are not being referenced in any other document.
If a shared item is referenced by nodes that are part of other documents, the shared item is not deleted.
Item links to the deleted items do not work. For example, if a content or a document has been used as an item link in another item's rich text field, then deleting the content or the document does not update the item link.
Metrics in computed fields are no longer valid if those values are derived from the computation based on the segment or content being deleted.
The versioned nodes that are used in other versioned documents are retained. For example, if version document 1.1 includes content 1.1 and version document 1.2 also includes content 1.1., deleting document 1.1 or 1.2 will not delete the content 1.1. The content 1.1 will be listed as ExcludedContents in the API output. For more information on ExcludedContents see im deletesegment.
The delete segment operation impacts the Tests and Tests For system relationships. The Tests For relationship field is analyzed and all the contents that are test cases are removed from the test sessions. If the Tests For relationship field has items that are not test sessions but are allowed types in the Tests For relationship field, such relationships are also removed as part of delete segment operation.
When the delete document operation is successfully completed, the relationship of the document with all its related items present in the system is removed.
Source traces in the IM server are removed. However, the source members that are developed based on the requirements or specifications continue to be a part of the source system.
Deleting a versioned document does not delete the associated Version Label. For example, even after deleting Version 1.1, the live document can still be viewed as of Label 1.1.
Known Limitations of the Delete Operation
Trace status field for the content items related on trace relationship fields do not get updated after deleting the upstream or downstream segment. The trace status is updated only when you explicitly edit trace relationship fields of these items.
If a content or a document has been used as an item link in another item's rich text field, then deleting the content or the document does not update the item link.
If the audit log is configured to capture changes to the document, the previous entries related to the creation and editing of the document are retained in the audit log even after successful deletion of the segment. For example, audit log entries related to the segment 24212, and its contents 24213 and 24215, continue to be available in the audit log even after deleting the segment 24212.
In the Refreshed Web Interface, if the documents that are added to the FAVORITE ITEMS table and the RECENTLY VIEWED table are deleted, the Refreshed Web Interface displays error messages for these items. You must delete the entries of the deleted items from these tables. Unless this is done, the Refreshed Web Interface Homepage continues to display the error messages for such deleted items.
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