User archival

Each week on Sunday at 5:30 am EST, Braze runs a process to remove inactive users and dormant users from the Braze Services. Note that Braze does not archive users unless the number of users in the workspace hits the 250,000 threshold.

This process is intended to help Braze provide accurate statistics regarding campaign reachable audiences. It also serves in accordance with two key concepts of GDPR:

1. The storage limitation principle—personal data processed and stored should be kept for no longer than is necessary
2. Having a legitimate business purpose to process personal data.

That is, personal data processed and stored should be kept for no longer than is necessary and personal data should only be processed for legitimate business purposes. Archived users will also have their unsubscribe status deleted in compliance with GDPR.

User archival definitions

Active users

Braze defines an “active user” for a given period of time as any user who has recorded a session in a mobile app or website, has been updated, has been sent a message, or has interacted with a message.

If you set user IDs to identify users when a new user logs in they will be counted as a separate active user. Users who are updated via the API will also be counted as an active user in the time period that they are updated.

Inactive users

“Inactive users” are users that are unreachable and have likely churned. Inactive users are those that meet all of these criteria:

• Can’t receive email. For example, they do not have an email address or they are unsubscribed from all email lists.
• Can’t receive SMS. For example, they do not have a valid phone number or they are unsubscribed from all SMS subscription groups.
• Can’t receive push. For example, they have uninstalled the app or disabled push permissions.
• Can’t receive a WhatsApp message. For example, they do not have a valid phone number or are unsubscribed from all WhatsApp subscription groups.
• Haven’t used any mobile app or visited a website in a workspace in more than six months.
• Haven’t received any messages from a workspace in more than six months.
• Haven’t been updated in more than six months.

In this case, these users cannot be messaged and are not engaging with your brand. These users have effectively churned.

Dormant users

“Dormant users” are users who have had no activity in the last twelve months and:

• Haven’t used any mobile app or visited a website in a workspace in more than 12 months.
• Haven’t received any messages from a workspace in more than 12 months.
• Haven’t been updated in more than 12 months.

Global Control Group users

Users in the Global Control Group will never be archived, even if they meet the definition of inactive or dormant users.

Spam blocking

Braze blocks individual users with over 5 million sessions (“dummy users”), and no longer ingests their SDK events, because they are usually the result of an incorrect integration. If you find that this has happened for a legitimate user, file a ticket with Braze support.

To find your dashboard’s dummy users, perform the following steps:

1. Create a segment.
2. Select the filter Session Count and set it to more than 5,000,000.
3. Export the segment via CSV.

If necessary, you can delete the users via the /users/delete endpoint.

Customizing your user archival policy

Braze provides data orchestrations features that allow you to customize your user archival policy. Create a user archival policy that gives you the best of both worlds with the Canvas User Update component.

This allows you to:

• Adhere to GDPR and privacy best practices by deleting user profiles that are no longer valuable.
• Retain any user profile that you have a legitimate business need for.

Steps

1. Target users that meet archival criteria and that you’d like to retain.
   
   
   
   
2. Set re-eligibility to be a little less than 6 months long.
   
   
   
   
3. Configure the User Update step to add an event to each profile.
   
   

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{
    "events": [
        {
            "name": "do_not_archive",
            "time": "{{ 'now' | time_zone: 'UTC' | date: '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ' }}"
        }
    ]
}