Automating Card Management: Auto-Archive and Duplicate Detection

Maintaining a trusted knowledge base boosts team productivity and engagement, but keeping it free of unused, stale, or duplicate information can be challenging. Guru simplifies this with its Auto Archive and Duplicate Detection features. Auto Archive automatically archives unverified, unused Cards based on set criteria, while Duplicate Detection continuously flags duplicative content for review. This ensures your knowledge base stays clean, current, and reliable.

Auto-Archive

Every Monday around 1:00am UTC, Guru searches the entire workspace for unverified and unused Cards that meet specific criteria: the Card has been unverified for 6 months and the Card has had zero views since its "Last verified" date. Every week, a curated list of Cards meeting the criteria is accessible to Collection owners and authors from the Tasks > Auto Archive page. Around the same time on the following Monday, these stale, unused Cards will be automatically archived by Guru, ensuring only the most trustworthy content remains accessible to your Card viewers. 

Create a custom archive automation applied to "All Collections" or individual Collections

As an alternative to the default criteria, admin and Collection owner can build custom criteria for "All Collections" or for each Collection in their workspace.

  1. Navigate to Card Manager and click on Auto Archive.
  2. Click Create archive automation and define the three criteria that will be applied together to produce a list of Cards eligible for automatic archiving.
    1. Select the Collection from the dropdown list you'd like to apply this archive automation to. You can select All Collections or select an individual Collection from the list. Individual Collection settings will supersede any workspace-level configurations including the default criteria.
    2. The duration Card has been unverified for: 35 days, 60 days, 180 days, or 365 days.
    3. The number of times the Card has been viewed while in an unverified state: 0 times, less than 5 times, less than 10 times, less than 15 times
  3. Give the archive automation a name in the text box Archive automation name. You'll refer to this name when you pause the automation or edit its settings, so it's important to be as descriptive as possible.
  4.  Click Create archive automation to save or click the "X" to return to the previous page without saving.

Exclude a specific verifier's Cards from Auto Archive

If a verifier is going to step away from using Guru for an extended period of time (i.e. they go on vacation), they won't be able to review their queue of eligible Cards before the automatic archive happens. Here's how to bypass an individual verifier's Cards from the weekly archive automation:

  1. Navigate to Card Manager and click on Auto Archive.
  2. Click on Manage Settings in the top right corner.
  3. Select one or more verifiers in the Verifier exclusion list to exclude the Cards they are the sole verifier of from the archive automation. This will not include the Cards verified by Groups they are a member of unless they are the sole member of that Group.
  4. Click Save changes to save your settings or click the "X" to return to the Auto Archive page without saving. 

Disable a custom archive automation

Disabling a custom archive automation will stop them from running but will not delete them. From the Auto Archive page, click the toggle next to the name of the archive automation to disable it.

To disable all custom archive automation in bulk, click Manage and click the toggle for Enable Collection-specific auto archives.

Edit or delete a custom archive automation

  1. From the Auto Archive page, click on the gear icon ("⚙️") to the right of the name of the automation.

  2. Edit the automation settings and click Save Changes to save your edits. Delete the archive automation by clicking Delete archive automation. Click the "X" to return to the previous page without saving.


Duplicate Detection

  1. Navigate to Card Manager and click on Duplicate Detection.
  2. Read through your Duplicate Card queue. Each Card group includes:
    1. Primary Card - The oldest or most popular Card with its Collection color (Collection name on hover), container folder name, "Verifier", and "Last updated" date. Clicking the row will open the Card over the page.
    2. Duplicate Card(s) - The content Guru identifies as similar to the primary Card with its Collection color (Collection name on hover), link to view the Card, "Similarity rating" (the degree of similarity between the Cards identified), container "Folder", "Verifier", and "Last verified" date.
  3. Take action on the duplicate Card by clicking on the horizontal ellipsis ("⋯") to the right of the Card's row:
    1. Edit the content to highlight differences.
    2. Archive the duplicate content.
    3. Dismiss the Card as a duplicate (it is a non-duplicate).
  4. If you determine that the group of Cards does not contain any duplicates, you can simply dismiss the entire suggestion by clicking  Dismiss in the top right corner.

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Tip

Consider Collection permissions when reviewing duplicate Card suggestions. Some Cards may be intentional duplicates stored in different Collections because different Groups of users may have permission to view each Collection.

Frequently Asked Questions about automations in Guru

What is the default criteria Guru applies for auto-archiving Cards?
By default, the "Auto Archive Best Practice" identify only the Cards that have been unverified for 6 months and have had zero views since the "Last verified" date will be automatically archived each week. If no Cards fit the criteria, no Cards will be automatically archived that week.

Why can't I enable a custom Collection criteria?
If you don't see the option to create archive automation or are having trouble with the toggle on the Auto Archive page, reach out to an admin. Admin will click Manage Settings and verify that "Enable Collection-specific auto archives" is enabled. You won't be able to create new archive automation or enable existing archive automation if this master setting is disabled.

What happens if two custom Collection criteria are applied to the same Collection?
There is no prioritization if there are multiple custom auto-archive criteria applied to the same Collection. All criteria will run and archive whichever Cards match their criteria. There is, however, prioritization between the "All Collection" configuration and a Collection-specific configuration. An "All Collection" configuration will not affect any Collection for which there is a Collection-level configuration.

Can I see a list of all Cards I'm responsible for verifying that are eligible for automatic archive before they are archived?
Yes! Collection owners and authors can see the queue of Cards about to be archived in the Tasks > Auto Archive work queue.

In addition, the Tasks > Unverified Cards work queue reflects all unverified Cards Collection owners and authors should take action on, including the indication of which specific Cards are “Pending Auto Archive” this week.
Authors and Collection owners can also filter the list of Cards in Card Manager by “Verification Expiration Date”. This combined with other filters and the knowledge of the timeframe the admin or Collection owner has chosen for the archive automation helps Collection owners and authors see which Cards of theirs will soon become unverified and eligible for auto-archive. Click "Save filter" at the bottom right for easy future reference.

Can I see if a Card was manually archived or auto-archived?
Yes! You can filter auto-archived Cards separately from manually archived Cards in the Card Manager > Archived page

Can I restore automatically archived Cards?
Collection owners and authors can restore auto-archived Cards using the same individual or bulk method you currently use to restore manually archived Cards. Note that the draft version of the archived Card will never be restored; only the last published version

What happens to the draft version of a Card, any Knowledge Triggers, pins, or hyperlinks shared elsewhere when a Card is auto-archived?

When a Card is auto-archived, the draft version of the Card is deleted. Knowledge Triggers and pins referencing the archived Card will no longer surface for users. If the archived Card is referenced via a hyperlink in another Card, clicking that link will cause it to appear as "invalid." Collection owners and authors who had access to the archived Card previously will be able to see the Card on the Card Manager's "Archived" page and can restore it.

Will automatically archived Cards appear in our analytics data?
Yes, archived Cards are included in analytics data.

Do archived Cards appear as sources in suggested answers or in search results?
No. Admin, Collection owners, and authors can restore Cards individually or in bulk to make them appear in search results or as a source for suggested Answers. Workspace admin can permanently delete Cards.

How can I evaluate the impact of Auto Archive?
You'll notice your workspace's Verification Health analytics dashboard will start to reflect a higher "Verification score" over time. As a benchmark, Guru finds teams with the highest usage and healthiest knowledge have verification scores above 80-85%. As a result, you should also see adoption and usage remain steady.