KB19535: What are the actions performed in MicroStrategy Intelligence Server 9.x and 10.x when deleting History List Messages through a Schedule Administration Task?

There are multple features in the Intelligence Server that may be used to achieve administrative removal of user history list messages. The Scheduled Administrative Task feature allows the deletion of history list messages on a scheduled basis as shown below:
 

 
The following parameters may be specified when creating a schedule to delete history list messages:
 

1. Schedule - The schedule that will start this task execution.
2. Lifetime (days) - Determines the number of days over which messages are retained. Messages older than this number of days are deleted.
3. Status - Controls the status of the messages to be deleted: Read, Unread, or All.
4. Groups - The user groups to process the schedule against.

 
When deleting history list messages using the administrative task, the following actions are going to be performed for each user in the specified group. A User Trace has been included with the steps to illustrate how a user is processed during each step:
 

1. A scheduler user session is created for each user in each group specified in the schedule in the Strategy Intelligence Server. When the user session is created, the history list messages for the user are loaded into the user session from all clustered nodes.
   2008-08-19 21:07:53.913-05:00 MsiSessionManager::AddUserSession: session 6ACD58B431DD6E54C6EF0080BD95AE40 for user Administrator is added into session table.
   2008-08-19 21:07:53.916-05:00 MsiSessionManager::LoginUser: Total time to log in user:1 ms.
   
2. The user session then removes history list messages older than the specified date. When the message is removed, the reference count on any associated cache is decremented and any export result files for the history list message are removed as shown below:
   2008-08-19 21:12:49.203-05:00 CDSSServerMessage::RemoveExportFiles: all export result files for msg 8E250C2631DD6003E7C90080EB7AD1B3 are deleted
   2008-08-19 21:12:49.208-05:00 CDSSServerMessage::RemoveExportFiles: all export result files for msg 8E250C2631DD6003E7C90080EB7AD1B3 are deleted
   2008-08-19 21:12:49.211-05:00 CDSSServerMessage::RemoveExportFiles: all export result files for msg 50A5124231DD5E5FCEB40080148EAEF1 are deleted
   2008-08-19 21:12:49.217-05:00 CDSSServerMessage::RemoveExportFiles: all export result files for msg 50A5124231DD5E5FCEB40080148EAEF1 are deleted
   2008-08-19 21:12:49.219-05:00 CDSSServerMessage::RemoveExportFiles: all export result files for msg A43ACFFC31DD5E5D9FB00080DB51FB78 are deleted
   2008-08-19 21:12:49.224-05:00 CDSSServerMessage::RemoveExportFiles: all export result files for msg A43ACFFC31DD5E5D9FB00080DB51FB78 are deleted
   
3. Note: These exported files are exports of the results for the history list messages and are stored in the inbox folder

Administrators should be aware of the following limitations of this method in deleting history list messages:
 

• After the scheduler session time out is reached, the user session is logged out of the Strategy Intelligence Server.
  2008-08-19 21:08:08.909-05:00 User Administrator logs out from project 0 in session 6ACD58B431DD6E54C6EF0080BD95AE40
  2008-08-19 21:28:50.760-05:00 User Administrator`s session 6ACD58B431DD6E54C6EF0080BD95AE40 is removed from session table.
  
1. History list message deletion is not tied to user deletion. Users that have been deleted from the metadata without their history list messages being cleared cannot be logged in using the scheduled administrative task. History list messages for deleted users, and any associated export and cache files cannot be deleted in an automated fashion.
2. If the number of users scheduled for history list deletion exceeds the governing parameter for the maximum number of user sessions on the Intelligence Server, some users will not be logged into the Intelligence Server and so their history list messages will not be deleted.