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7. Orphan File Review Guidelines

7. Orphan File Review Guidelines

Owned by Bonnie Weems
Last updated: Dec 07, 2023
2 min read

These guidelines are for Web Champions and CMS Users who receive the quarterly email notification for orphan files.

Review Steps should be completed within 2 weeks of notification.

Review Steps

  1. When you receive a notice from the Orphan File Notification Service, review the tab with the most recent reporting date in the

  2. Identify which files (if any) are relevant to your content.

  3. If a file is relevant to your work, assess which of the following scenarios apply and take the associated steps:

    1. The file is part of current work in progress.

      1. Select keep in the “Evaluation” column.

      2. If you properly link this file before the next quarterly report, it should not appear in future reports.

    2. The file should be linked to a page in the CMS.

      1. Select review in the “Evaluation” column.

      2. These will be reviewed by the Web Office so they can be properly linked.

    3. The file is permanent but there's no associated web page in the CMS.

      1. Select keep in the “Evaluation” column.

      2. Email biowebgroup@biology.ucsd.edu for consultation on file storage options outside of the CMS and/or setting up a redirect.

FAQs

Orphaned files are CMS assets that:

  1. Are published on our production server and can be found via previously documented links (websites, emails, bookmarks) or a search engine (e.g. Google); and

  2. Are not linked to any actively managed pages on our site 

In most cases, orphan files are not intended to be published on our site. Regularly reviewing and removing orphan files will prevent web users from inadvertently accessing outdated information.

There are various ways this can happen. Some of the most common reasons are:

  • CMS Users upload files to a new location and filename instead of "Editing" and replacing original files

  • File links are removed from page content by CMS Users without realizing that files are still published on the server

  • Files were uploaded as part of web development but were never placed into production

Website back-ups are performed monthly. The following steps impact the production site and the CMS environment. If you need to recover a file that was accidentally removed, email the Web Group.

  1. 2 weeks following the notice, files not marked as "Keep" or “Review” will be unpublished from the website server. CMS assets will be moved to an archive folder.

  2. In another 4 weeks, if no issues are reported, the asset will be deleted from the CMS. The asset can be recovered from the CMS "Trash" for 30 days until it's permanently deleted.