workflow history and task list are being removed after 60day

Tapan Mallick

8y2k

Could you please quick answer of the following question ?

I noticed that the workflow history and task list are being removed after every 60 days when the workflow status is Completed or Cancelled? who is responsible for this. And it’s really a big issue for audit purpose . Please let me know any solution so that I recover my previous record . And let me know any permanent solution for disable SharePoint Workflow Auto Cleanup timer Job in SharePoint online .

4 Replies

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Rajkiran Swain8y ago
Accepted answer
It is actually not possible to disable the SharePoint Workflow Auto Cleanup timer Job in SharePoint online. I confirmed this with the SPO escalation team. If your concern is about retaining workflow history data, please consider the following:
1. It is considered an anti-pattern to using Workflow History List for auditing data.
2. It is strongly recommended that if you have data you want to retain, that you create a step in your Workflow, which writes the data to a different list instead of Workflow History.
3. The clean up job is there to keep your tenant performing at acceptable levels. Disabling the cleanup job would have serious implications for your Workflow engine and overall SharePoint performance.
4. The product team will, under no circumstance, consider a request to disable this Timer Job.

If you still require any support from us on this issue, or if you need more detailed explanation from SPO escalation, please let me know.
Tapan Mallick8y ago
This is SharePoint online site . How to do it ?
Already customer has added so many items under a list and there are many workflow in completed stage .

just want to recover all workflow status and history .... Please suggest me, how to do it ?
Nanddeep Nachan8y ago
Refer this article:
https://sharepointjim.com/2014/01/26/sharepoint-workflow-auto-cleanup-mystery/

This explains:
No to disable timer job due to the potential impact to performance.
Alternate solution to audit workflows using VS
Sagar Pandurang Kap8y ago
Hi,
Try solutions from below links :-

https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/blogs/sharepoint-workflow-auto-cleanup-timer-job-2013

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/f5137e21-d399-479d-9083-c047ad2f60cb/disable-automatic-cleanup-of-workflow-history-sharepoint-2013?forum=sharepointcustomization

hope it helps....