Archiving a Worker: What It Hides and How to Undo It

The volunteer who covered your spring festival is not coming back until October. Your kiosk still shows her name, and every new helper has to scroll past three people who left months ago. You do not want to delete her, because her 40 hours from last season are sitting in a grant report you already filed. Archiving solves exactly this: it clears the clutter without touching the record.

What does archiving a worker actually do?

Archiving hides a worker from the places where people pick a name, without deleting anything they did. The name drops off the shared-tablet kiosk, off the QR sign-in screen, and out of the active roster in your dashboard. Someone standing at the tablet cannot tap an archived name, so nobody clocks in as a person who left.

Think of it as retiring a name from daily use. The worker is still in your workspace. Their past time entries stay intact, their tags stay attached, and their worker group membership is preserved. You are only changing whether the name appears in the pickers your team sees, not whether the data exists. If you want the short version, the answer to what archive does and how to un-archive is on the FAQ page.

Do a worker's past hours disappear when I archive them?

No. Every hour an archived worker logged stays exactly where it was. Archiving is not deletion, and it does not rewrite history.

This matters most at report time. When you run a CSV export for a date range, entries from archived workers still appear if they fall inside that range. The distinct-worker count still includes them, because they genuinely worked those days. A grant report that says 12 people volunteered in April will still say 12 in April after you archive four of them in May. The past does not move.

If your reports use tags for events or worker groups for programs, those filters keep working on archived people too. You can still pull "everyone who worked the fall gala" a year later, even if half of them are archived. The label lives on the entry, not on whether the name is active.

How do I bring back a seasonal worker who returns?

Un-archive them, and their name reappears on the kiosk with their full history intact. You do not create a second copy. You do not lose the connection to what they did last season.

This is the whole point for anyone running seasonal or event-based crews. A tutor who works fall and spring but not summer should be one person in your records, not three. When you restore an archived worker, their new hours attach to the same name as their old ones, so a year-over-year report shows one continuous person. Create a fresh name every season and you fragment that history into pieces you then have to add back together by hand.

So the rhythm looks like this: archive at the end of a season, un-archive at the start of the next. The name goes quiet on the tablet in between, then comes back the moment you need it, ready to clock in again.

Should I archive a worker or delete them?

Archive unless you are certain the record has no future value, because archiving is reversible and deletion usually is not. For almost every real situation, archive is the safer choice.

Archive when someone stops working but their hours matter: they are in a filed report, a payroll run you already exported, or a program summary you might revisit. Archive seasonal staff between stints. Archive a volunteer who moved away but whose service hours you certified. The name leaves your daily view; the record stays available.

The only reason to reach for delete is a genuine mistake, like a duplicate name someone created by accident or a test entry from setup day. If the person never really worked, there is nothing worth keeping. If they did, keep it.

Will archiving mess up a clock-out that is still open?

An open entry is handled by the cutoff rule, not by archiving, so a forgotten clock-out never bloats the total. If a worker taps in and forgets to tap out, the system closes that entry at its start time plus your cutoff, never at the current moment. A shift that should have been four hours does not silently become fourteen.

That protection comes from auto-close, and it runs independently of whether you later archive the person. Archive someone with a stale open entry and the entry still resolves the same clean way. You get an accurate number either way, which keeps your running hours totals honest when you tally them up.

Where archiving fits in your weekly routine

Most coordinators archive in small batches, not one at a time. At the end of an event or a term, look at your roster, and retire the names nobody will tap for a while. The kiosk stays short, so the next person finds their name fast and the wrong name never gets picked. When those workers come back, restore them and pick up where their record left off.

If you are setting up a workspace and want to see the kiosk your crew will actually touch, the live kiosk demo shows the name-picker that archiving keeps tidy. From there, archiving is one step away whenever a season ends.