Retention schedules for integration logs and run history
Integration platforms keep their own records: run history, activity logs and AI call logs. How to fit them into your retention schedule, choose periods, use legal holds and destroy them properly.
Retention schedules cover permits, payments, agendas and email. They rarely mention the logs that integration tools keep. Those logs are still records your agency holds, and someone should decide how long they live.
This post suggests a way to fit integration logs into an existing schedule. Your state's schedules and your records manager decide the actual periods.
What an integration platform keeps
Start by listing what the platform stores. A typical list:
- Run history: when each flow ran, counts, timings, record IDs and error messages.
- Activity log: who changed which flow, connection or setting, and when.
- Version history: earlier versions of each flow.
- AI and assistant call logs: if AI features are used, who asked what and when.
- Settings and credentials: connection details, encrypted.
Ask the vendor to confirm the list, and whether any of these contain record contents. If run history holds full records, it is a copy of your data and needs the same retention as the source. If it holds only metadata, it is a much simpler record.
Match each log to a schedule category
Most schedules already have categories that fit.
| Platform record | A category it often fits | Things to consider |
|---|---|---|
| Run history | System or transaction logs | Long enough to investigate problems and answer questions |
| Activity log | Audit or security logs | Often longer, for audits and investigations |
| Version history | System documentation | Keep as long as the flow exists, plus a period |
| AI call logs | Audit or system logs | Treat like the activity log |
Use your state's general schedule if it has one for IT systems. Ask your records manager before inventing a new category.
Choosing a period
There is no single right answer. Think about:
- Operational need: how far back do staff look when something goes wrong? Often a few months.
- Audit cycle: finance flows may need history for the full audit period.
- Investigations: security logs are often kept longer than operational ones.
- Risk: the longer you keep something, the more there is to search and protect.
Different flows can justify different periods. A nightly weather alert flow and a payment posting flow don't need the same history.
Legal holds
When litigation, an investigation or a records request is expected, destruction has to stop for the relevant records. For integration logs, that means:
- A hold that applies to the whole platform, or to particular flows.
- Automatic removal paused while the hold is in place.
- A record of who placed the hold and when.
- A clear way to lift it when counsel says so.
Test this before you need it. A hold that relies on someone remembering to turn off a cleanup script is not a hold.
Destruction you can show
Retention isn't only about keeping. When the period ends, records should actually be destroyed, and you should be able to show it happened on schedule.
- Removal should run automatically, on the period you set.
- The activity log should show that it ran.
- If the log is tamper-evident, purging old entries shouldn't break your ability to check what remains.
Export before you need it
When a request or audit names integration logs, you need a copy you can hand over. Look for:
- An export of everything kept for a date range.
- A readable format such as CSV or JSON.
- Checksums, so the export can be shown to be unaltered.
A short worksheet
- List every log the integration platform keeps.
- Confirm whether each one holds record contents.
- Assign a schedule category and a period to each.
- Set the periods in the platform, and document who approved them.
- Test a legal hold and an export.
- Review the settings once a year, with the rest of the schedule.
In SentraBridge
SentraBridge doesn't keep the records it moves, so its run history holds metadata only: counts, timings, record IDs and masked errors. Each workspace sets how long history and logs are kept, from 7 days to 10 years. A legal hold covers the workspace or a single flow, the activity log stays verifiable after purges, and a records-request export includes checksums. See monitoring and security.