Data storage is a key licensing aspect of FastTrack360 that all customers should understand. While the platform supports an unlimited amount of data, storage usage directly impacts licensing costs.
To help control overall expenses, it’s essential to establish a clear usage policy defining what data should or should not be added to your FastTrack360 environment.
📌 Note: Before defining your data storage policy, review the system areas that influence total storage usage and determine the policies and controls best suited to your organisation.
Document Management
Attaching files to FastTrack360 is often necessary for both legal and operational purposes. However, documents can represent up to 50–60% of your total storage.
Consider the following when defining your document management policy:
What types of documents should users attach to FastTrack360 records?
Which file types (e.g. .docx, .txt) should be allowed?
What maximum file size should be permitted per upload?
Ensure scanner settings are configured to Compact or Minimal to reduce file size.
Define a document retention policy — for example, should all historical resumes be kept, or only the most recent version?
⚠️ Important: Set clear rules about when and how documents are deleted or cleansed to manage long-term storage.
Outlook Extensions
Synchronising communications between recruiter emails and FastTrack360 centralises correspondence with candidates and clients. However, syncing attachments significantly increases storage use.
Consider the following recommendations:
Decide whether to synchronise emails only or emails with attachments.
Avoid syncing large or unnecessary attachment types.
Important files like resumes or contracts should be added directly to Document Management to support workflows.
Avoid assigning internal email addresses to candidate or contact records. Doing so can cause data duplication and expose confidential information.
Audit History
FastTrack360’s Audit Trail records all changes made across the system, which can represent 15–25% of storage requirements.
You can choose to:
Maintain the full audit trail and incur associated storage costs, or
Implement a cleansing process to automatically delete data older than an agreed interval (for example, 6 months).
⚠️ Important: Once audit data is purged, it cannot be recovered.
Define Your Data Storage Policy
1. Document Storage Policy
Go to Maintenance, then click on General Items, and go to System Settings.
Review the Upload File Limit setting (default is 5MB) and adjust if required.
Educate users on your file management policy, including where and how to attach files.
To remove outdated or unnecessary files, log a request with Customer Service for a customised data cull.
Custom development to meet your business rules may incur service fees.
2. Outlook Extensions Synchronisation Policy
Go to Maintenance, then click on General Items, and go to Outlook Extensions.
Review the Include Attachments setting under Comms Integration.
You can disable attachments to save storage space.Check the list of accepted file types and remove large or unnecessary formats such as video files (.mwv, .mp4).
Educate users on correct email and attachment management practices.
3. Audit History Policy
Audit History captures changes to front office records such as Candidates, Clients, Contacts, and Job Orders.
Data can be reviewed via:
The Audit Trail section within each record.
Or in Maintenance, then click on Audit.
📌 Note: Audit History does not track changes in back office records such as payees or debtors.
4. Purge Strategy
To assist in defining your purge strategy, the FT Standard Data Analysis Report provides:
Current database size and allocation to high-performance storage.
Breakdown of storage usage across:
Front Office Audit.
Communications Centre.
Email Queue History.
Comments.
Yearly distribution of records eligible for automated purging.
You can also use the Document Data Storage Report to review document sizes, file types, and usage by area.
This report helps monitor adherence to file management policies.
⚠️ Important: Once purged, data cannot be restored.
Before proceeding, consult with your operations team to ensure critical data (e.g., communications or comments) isn’t required for legal compliance.
Log purge requests via the Customer Service Centre, specifying the areas and intervals for data removal.
Monitor Data Usage
To view current storage usage:
Click the ? icon in the top menu.
Select About FastTrack360.
Go to the Data Usage tab.
The graphs display:
Left graph: Overall licensed data storage and current usage (green = used, red = exceeded).
Right graph: Breakdown of usage by:
FastTrack (application data).
Audit (audit database).
Documents (attachments).
Reporting
To analyse storage usage in detail, use the Document Data Storage Report.
This report provides estimated document sizes and highlights areas with the highest data usage, helping to identify optimisation opportunities and enforce file management policies.
Best Practices
Review storage reports quarterly to monitor usage trends.
Encourage users to upload only essential documents.
Regularly purge obsolete or duplicate files.
Set smaller upload size limits to prevent oversized attachments.
FAQs
Q1: Can I recover purged data?
Answer: No. Once purged, data is permanently deleted and cannot be restored.
Q2: Who can request a data purge or culling process?
Answer: Only users with Administrator permissions can submit purge requests via the Customer Service Centre.
Q3: How can I reduce overall storage costs?
Answer: Regularly review file upload limits, restrict unnecessary attachments, and enable scheduled data purges.