Exporting and deleting your data
Your event data is yours. This covers getting a copy out, deleting individual records, deleting everything, and what deletion does and does not reach.
Before you start
- Deleting is not always reversible. Take the export first; it costs you a minute.
- Account-wide operations are in Setup → Settings & Branding → Data & Privacy and need an admin-level role.
- If you are doing this because you are leaving, read Cancelling or pausing your subscription first — cancelling and deleting are different things and cancelling does not delete anything.
1. Export a single module
Most modules have their own Export in the header, which gives you that module's records as a file. Two worth knowing by name: Export Guest CSV in the Table Planner, which carries the dietary column your caterer wants, and Export Table Plan CSV, which is the seating rather than the people. Print Guest List, Print Table Plan and Name Cards are next to them for the paper the room needs.
2. Export the whole account
Settings & Branding → Data & Privacy → Export All Data. Use this before a migration, before a purge, and at the end of every cycle as your own archive. Do not treat our backups as your archive — they are for disaster recovery, they are not customer-restorable, and they expire.
3. Delete individual records
Delete a record from its own module. Do this before, not after, anything that depends on it: deleting a nomination that has been scored takes its scores with it, and deleting a guest who has been seated frees the seat but does not tell the caterer.
4. Anonymise instead of deleting
Anonymise Test Data in Data & Privacy is the option people forget. If you have been trialling with real names, this lets you keep the shape of the data without keeping the people in it — usually a better answer than deleting a workspace and starting again.
5. Delete everything
Purge All Data does exactly what the label says and it is not an undo you can press. Export first, confirm who else is using the workspace, then run it.
For deletion of the account itself, email privacy@accolade.live. After cancellation your data is retained for 90 days so you can still export it, then permanently deleted from primary databases, and we confirm in writing.
6. Set your retention policy once
Data & Privacy also holds the retention settings, and it is worth setting them deliberately rather than leaving the defaults: Nomination Data, Financial Records, User Activity Logs and Deleted Data Purge. As the data controller you decide these; we apply them.
What deletion does not reach
Backups are encrypted and taken daily. They expire automatically on a rolling window set by our database provider, which means a record deleted from the live platform remains inside unexpired backups until the last backup containing it rolls off. Backups are never used to restore deleted customer records to the live platform. We are confirming the exact retention window with the provider and will publish it here once it is confirmed.
The practical consequence: a record deleted from the live platform is gone from the live platform immediately, and disappears from backups when the last backup containing it expires. If you are answering an erasure request, that distinction is the one to put in your reply.
Subject access and erasure requests
You are the data controller for your nominees, judges and guests, so requests come to you first. The Data Subject Requests (DSARs) register in Data & Privacy is where you log one with + New Request, and it tracks the statutory deadline alongside it. Search the person's email in the relevant module, export the result, and record what you sent. The GDPR overview covers the controller/processor split.
Common problems
- The export is missing a module. That module is not in your plan — see what each plan includes.
- You deleted the wrong record. Tell us quickly and stop working in that module. Do not assume it can be recovered from a backup; backups are not used to restore individual customer records.
- A guest asks to be removed but you still need the headcount. Anonymise rather than delete, so the seat, the meal and the total survive the person leaving the dataset.
- You need the data after cancelling. Export within the 90-day window. After that it is gone.