What is your approach to removing unused things? 🧹

Hey!

Alina from Product Team here. In one of our previous posts, we touched on your general optimization tips. Thank for sharing your routines! In this post, I wanted to zoom in and chat about your approaches for removing unused things, like a custom field, workflow, blueprint or any other configuration 🙂

Once you have detected things that should no longer be used (like a custom field, workflow or a space), what is your process around deletion?
In some instances in Wrike, you have both options of archiving and deleting. How do you decide what to delete and what to archive? For example, you can delete a space, but you can also archive it. You can delete an automation rule, but you can also switch it off.
In your process, are all unused things (custom fields, workflows, spaces, dashboards etc) OK to be deleted?
What is you process around dashboards, reports and other different views where the deleted configuration might've been used? Do you audit such places to understand the implications?
What are the limitations today that you face with deletion and archival?

Curious to hear your thoughts!

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Comments

Pietro Poli

Hi @Alina Kucherenko,
I use different methods, depending on the object I need to remove.

For projects that have ended, they are all inserted in a dedicated space "Completed orders" and at the end of each year, inserted in a folder called 2023, 2024, 2025 which will then be archived with the archival tool.

For blueprints, which often have new versions/releases, I keep a _old folder inside the blueprints so that I can quickly recover them when needed, so I never delete.

For custom fields, I do it in double mode, before deleting I add to_delete_[customfieldname] as a prefix. I notify the team that the data will be deleted within 30 days and help them understand how/where to migrate the data. After 30 days I delete it (verifying that it is not used by forms, blueprints, or anything else).

Perhaps the biggest limitations currently are:
1- not knowing where a custom field is used (not only in tasks/projects) but also in dashboards, forms, automations.
2- Project archiving does not allow statistics in Wrike Analyze, so we are often forced to reactivate one or more archived projects to do statistics.

Kellie Graham

My team and I are currently in the process of a massive clean up of our Wrike account. This is due to new and exciting features of Wrike, our team becoming better users of Wrike, and our company as a whole beginning to use Wrike more across different departments. We want to make our Wrike account user friendly to everyone who uses it, as well as the most efficient tool we have for work/projects and collaboration.

With that, we have been deleting old workflows, custom fields and similar things that we now have created better/updated processes for. In the beginning, when we were still new to the tool, we did not have many controls over what others did in the space and so we have a lot of added fields/flows etc. that are duplicated multiple times and just not needed anymore. These things we have deleted entirely from our account.

Other things that are tied to projects that have been completed we have been archiving to save for later view incase we need to reference or use those processes again for future projects.

One limitation is with deletion of workflows or other things that need help from the Wrike team to get back, sometimes we make mistakes and something gets deleted that should not have been deleted. For instance a workflow that had a lot of automation attached to the different status' within that workflow. Waiting for a Wrike team member to reinstate that workflow really created a lot of manual work that the automation took care of. If there was an easier way to recover deleted things like this for admins that would help our team a lot!

Meredith Selden

We have an "Archive Space" so when our System Admins are doing clean-up, we move items to the Archive Space for about six months, just in case we need to bring something back, and then delete it. This includes any Tools, Custom Fields, Folders/Projects, etc.

Alexandra Torres

We’re currently using a manual process to manage unused items in our Wrike account. This includes tracking last-used request forms, custom fields, and their respective owners in an Excel table outside of Wrike. If an item hasn’t been used for over a year, I rename it with a “Z” at the beginning so it drops to the bottom of dropdowns and becomes less visible to users.

In addition to this, I actively use the Archive Space function—especially for client spaces. This typically aligns with our internal client offboarding timeline and ensures we maintain historical data while keeping our workspace clean and relevant.

Being able to archive other tools like custom fields, request forms, and reports (rather than delete them) would be a huge benefit. Deletion is not a best practice in our enterprise—it's something I actively work to mitigate.

Another challenge is the lack of sorting or filtering options in the Recycle Bin. There’s currently no easy way to distinguish accidental deletes from intentional ones, which adds to the risk.

In short: we’re anti-delete, pro-archive, and always looking for ways to improve. I’d love to hear how others are managing this, and I’d welcome any suggestions—or Wrike updates—that could make the process more efficient, especially for admins managing large accounts.

Amy Hunter

I like to complete a huge audit of our custom fields, request forms, workflows and automations at least twice a year. This has become a lot easier with the new layouts and features that have recently been released for Wrike admins. For custom fields if the last time it was filled in was a few years ago I mark it as 'need to investigate' I reach out to the team to see if they are using it and if it would affect any reports. If not then I delete it. It does become difficult to delete old custom fields even if they aren't in use but we want to keep the historical data for reporting. It would be good if there was a way to mark it as not in use or if there was a way to still be able to access this historical data. This is the same for options within a custom field - sometimes these things change i.e. names of stakeholders but we would still like a way to view old entries. Often there's a lot of custom fields that other team members have created by mistake and can be easily deleted so it's handy to see the figures on when it's been used and where.

For request forms it would be great if we could access figures on how many times it has been filled within the last few months/year etc or the last time it was filled out. This would help determine if forms are current and in use. I usually don't fully delete a request form. I update the name of the form to say zNOT IN USE and now with the new feature I switch the form off so it can't be accessed. I like to keep them in case they need to be switched on again or to have a record of questions on previous forms.