Configure auto-removal for Tricentis File Service

Tricentis File Service is a web-based application that stores your Tosca Commander files in a separate file system. Users can still access these files in the workspace, but they don't take up its storage space. This keeps workspaces slim and improves their performance.

Additionally, Tricentis File Service offers auto-removal functionality, which removes execution log data from the Tricentis File Service database in regular intervals. Auto-removal helps you to manage the file system size without any manual intervention.

What's in this topic?

This topic is for administrators. It has all the information you need to complete the following tasks: 

• Understand auto-removal.

• Turn on auto-removal or modify its settings, for instance the interval.

• Exclude important logs from the auto-removal process.

• Monitor performance to check whether you need to adapt your auto-removal settings.

• Turn off auto-removal if you don't want to use it.

Understand auto-removal

The auto-removal functionality removes execution logs and their corresponding screenshots from the Tricentis File Service file system. By default, it removes all log data that's older than 90 days. You can change this behavior in the settings.

Even after the removal, Tosca Commander keeps some result information. You can still see completed test runs and whether they passed or failed.

• By default, auto-removal is turned on for every new project that you add to the Tosca Administration Console.

• If you have existing Tosca Administration Console projects that you created with Tosca 15.1 or earlier, auto-removal is turned off. This is true for projects where you have already enabled Tricentis File Service and projects where you haven't.

Auto-removal only removes execution logs and their corresponding screenshots. It doesn't remove any other files that you store in Tricentis File Service. If the file system keeps growing, consider deleting some of those files.

Never delete files directly from the Tricentis File Service file system. Doing so will break your project. Only use the delete tasks described in this topic.

Turn on auto-removal

The auto-removal functionality helps you to control the size of the Tricentis File Service file system without any manual intervention. By default, auto-removal is turned on in every new project that you add to the Tosca Administration Console.

If you want to turn on auto-removal for an existing project, follow these steps:

1. Stop Tricentis File Service. If the service is running while you turn on auto-removal, you might run into trouble with your data.

2. Open Tricentis Service Configuration and make sure that the Automatically remove execution log data that's older than a certain number of days toggle in the File Service tab is turned on.

3. Open the Tosca Administration Console.

4. Go to the project where you want to turn on auto-removal and click on the Edit icon.

5. In the subsequent dialog, select the Auto-removal checkbox in the File Service section.

6. Click Save.

7. Restart Tricentis File Service.

Change auto-removal settings

By default, Tricentis File Service removes all log data that's older than 90 days. You can change this behavior in the settings. The settings apply to all projects where auto-removal is on. You can't specify different settings for different projects.

To change auto-removal settings, follow these steps:

1. Stop Tricentis File Service. If the service is running while you change auto-removal settings, you might run into trouble with your data.

2. Open Tricentis Service Configuration and go to the File Service tab.

3. Change the settings in the Auto-removal section.

4. Restart Tricentis File Service.

Exclude logs from auto-removal

By default, Tricentis File Service removes all log data that's older than the specified number of days. However, if you have important logs that you want to keep indefinitely, you can exclude them from auto-removal.

This means they're not part of the auto-removal process. You can still manually delete these logs from Tricentis File Service.

Prerequisites

You can only exclude logs that are already in Tricentis File Service. If the service is out of space or temporarily unavailable, Tricentis Tosca lets you know when you check in and embeds the files in the workspace instead.

You can't exclude these embedded logs. Make sure you have migrated all embedded files from the workspace to Tricentis File Service before you try to exclude logs from auto-removal.

Exclude logs

To exclude logs from auto-removal, follow these steps:

1. Make sure all results are checked in.

2. Go to the ExecutionList that has logs you want to keep.

3. Right-click the TestCaseLog you want to keep and select Exclude from File Service auto-removal from the context menu.

Tosca sets the TestCaseLog property ExcludedFromFileServiceAutoremoval to True and ignores the log during removal. To get a quick overview of which TestCaseLogs in your ExecutionLists are excluded from auto-removal, add the column ExcludedFromFileServiceAutoremoval.

Discard excluded logs

If you want to discard an excluded log after all, you can do so in one of the following ways:

• Right-click the TestCaseLog and select Include in File Service auto-removal from the context menu. In this case, Tricentis File Service deletes the log during the next auto-removal interval, but still keeps some result information in Tosca (see "Understand auto-removal").

• Clear the log. This deletes all result information.

Monitor the removal performance

We recommend that you keep an eye on the Tricentis File Service logs. This is especially true if you turn on the auto-removal functionality for existing, older projects. These tend to have a high number of older execution logs that need processing.

Tricentis File Service logs every instance where the task reaches a limit, either for rows or for time. If you notice that you keep hitting your limits, consider changing the settings:

• Decrease the time interval between removal runs, so the auto-remove task runs more often.

• Increase the row and time limit, so Tricentis File Service can process more rows and has more time to do so.

After a default installation, you can find your Tricentis File Service logs at %PROGRAMDATA%\TRICENTIS\Logs\FileService on the Tosca Server machine.

Turn off auto-removal

If you don't want to use auto-removal, you can turn it off. In this case, we recommend that you periodically delete files, to manage the size of the Tricentis File Service file system.

Never delete files directly from the Tricentis File Service file system. Doing so will break your project. Only use the delete tasks described in this topic.

Your next steps depend on what you want to do:

What's next

You've set up Tricentis File Service and configured its behavior. Check out this topic on creating backups of Tricentis File Service. You can use your backup if you migrate Tricentis Tosca to a new machine, or if you run into issues with your data.