Time machine settings

Activate and configure the Time Machine feature for ROPA history.

Time Machine Settings

The Time Machine is DPMS's version-history feature for your compliance data. When it is switched on, DPMS silently snapshots every compliance record — ROPAs, vendor entries, DPIAs, assets, TOMs, and more — each time that record is saved. With those snapshots in place, any user can travel back to an earlier date and see exactly what a record looked like at that point. This screen is the single place where a Data Protection Officer (DPO), compliance officer, or IT administrator can turn that feature on or off and decide how far back in time the system should keep those snapshots.

How to open it

Navigate to General Settings in the left-hand sidebar. The sidebar expands to show all compliance configuration areas. Scroll down the list until you see Time Machine and click it.

Direct URL: /compliance/settings/time/machine

You need the Compliance Settings read permission to view this screen. If you also need to make changes, your account must additionally hold the Compliance Settings edit permission for Time Machine. Without the read permission, the menu item is hidden and the URL shows an "Access denied" page.

What you see

The screen follows the standard two-column layout used throughout Compliance Settings. The left side holds the General Settings navigation menu, where the Time Machine entry is highlighted to show where you are. Every other compliance configuration area — Applicable Laws, Departments, Standards, Questionnaires, and so on — is reachable from the same menu.

The right side shows the Time Machine content card. At the very top of that area is a breadcrumb trail reading General Settings > Time Machine. Below it, the card displays three read-only fields arranged in a clean label-and-value layout: the current enabled/disabled status, the date the feature was switched on, and the retention window currently in effect. In the top-right corner of that card sits a small pencil (Edit) icon. If your account has edit permission, clicking the pencil takes you to the edit form. If you only have read permission, the pencil is greyed out and a tooltip tells you why.

Working with this screen

Switching Time Machine on for the first time

If your organisation has just set up DPMS and has never enabled Time Machine, all three fields on the card will show a dash (—). Before your team can look at historical versions of any compliance record, you need to activate the feature here.

Click the pencil Edit button in the top-right corner of the Time Machine card. The edit form opens.
You will see a toggle switch labelled something like Enable or Activate Time Machine, currently set to off. Click the switch to turn it on — it changes colour to indicate the active state.
In the Retention time field that appears below the switch, type the number of days of history you want to keep. A common starting point is 365 for one year. Think about your audit requirements: if a regulator might ask to see a record from 18 months ago, set this to 548 or more; if 90 days is sufficient, set 90.
Click Save. DPMS sends the configuration to the backend. On success, you are taken back to the read view, which now shows the feature as active, today's date as the "Enabled since" value, and the retention window you chose.

From this moment on, every user in your DPMS instance gains access to the version-history controls on detail screens — a date picker or version selector that lets them inspect how any record looked at any past date within the retention window.

Heads up: Enabling Time Machine today means snapshots exist from today onwards. There is no retroactive history. If your audit period started six months ago and you enable Time Machine now, you will not have snapshots for those six months. Enable the feature as early as possible in your compliance programme.

Checking Time Machine status before an audit

Auditors often ask for evidence that version control was in place during a specific period. Before an audit interview, it is worth opening this screen to confirm the feature has been running and for how long.

Open General Settings > Time Machine from the sidebar.
Read the three fields on the card:
Status — should show "Active" or "Enabled". If it shows "Inactive", version history is not being recorded right now.
Enabled since — this is the earliest date from which snapshots exist. If an auditor asks about records from before this date, you will not have time-travel data for that period.
Retention time — this tells you how many days of snapshots are currently available. If the feature was enabled 18 months ago with a 365-day retention window, you can travel back up to 365 days from today, not 18 months.
If everything looks as expected, no action is needed — simply close the screen.

This is a read-only check and requires only the read permission.

Adjusting the retention window to manage storage

If your IT team reports high storage use, or if you have moved to a longer audit cycle and need more history, you can change the retention window at any time.

Click the pencil Edit button on the Time Machine card.
The edit form shows the current retention value in the Retention time field. Clear it and type the new number of days. To shorten from two years to one year, change 730 to 365.
Click Save.

After saving, the read view updates immediately to show the new value. Behind the scenes, a background process will gradually remove snapshots that now fall outside the new window. This does not happen instantly — do not assume old snapshots are gone the moment you save a shorter value.

Tip: If you need to shorten the retention window to recover storage, consider doing it in steps (for example, from 730 to 540, then to 365) rather than one large reduction, to give yourself time to confirm you are not losing data you actually need.

Temporarily disabling Time Machine during a migration or bulk import

When you are about to perform a large-scale data migration or bulk-import thousands of records, you may want to pause snapshot creation. Recording every interim state of every record during a migration would create a large volume of noisy snapshots that serve no audit purpose.

Click Edit on the Time Machine card.
Toggle the Enable switch from on to off.
Click Save. The read view now shows the feature as inactive. During this period, no new snapshots are created. Existing snapshots remain in storage until they age beyond the retention window naturally.
Once the migration is complete, click Edit again, switch the toggle back on, and click Save. The read view updates with a new "Enabled since" date (today).

Be aware that any changes made to compliance records while the feature was off will not have snapshots. There will be a visible gap in the version history. Make a note of the downtime period so you can explain it if an auditor asks.

Field reference

The following fields appear on the read view card and in the edit form:

Status (Enabled/Disabled) — Shows whether Time Machine is currently recording snapshots. On the read view, this is a label such as "Active" or "Inactive". On the edit form, it is a toggle switch. Required when saving.
Enabled since — Read-only on both the card and the edit form. Shows the calendar date on which Time Machine was most recently switched on. This is the earliest point from which snapshots exist. If you have never enabled the feature, this field shows a dash.
Retention time — The number of days for which historical snapshots are kept before the system's background process removes them. On the edit form, enter a whole positive number (for example, 90, 365, or 730). Values below 1 are not accepted. If you leave this field blank when first enabling the feature, you will need to enter a value before saving — the field is required. If the feature has been configured previously, the current value is pre-filled.

How this connects to the rest of DPMS

The Time Machine settings screen is the master switch that governs a feature used across the entire DPMS detail layer. Here is what depends on what you configure here:

Every compliance record detail screen — ROPAs, vendors, assets, DPIAs, incidents, TOMs, projects, tasks, and more — checks whether Time Machine is active. When it is, a version selector or date picker becomes visible on those screens. When it is inactive, that control is absent or greyed out. If users report that they cannot find the version history controls on a detail screen, this settings page is the first place to check.
The edit button on detail screens during time travel — When a user is browsing a past snapshot of a record (travelling back in time), the edit button on that detail screen is automatically disabled. This is by design: you cannot edit historical data. If a user says "I can't edit this record", check whether they may have accidentally navigated to a past version. They would need to return to the current ("today's") view to make edits.
Audit evidence and accountability — Regulators asking for version history of your processing activities under GDPR Article 5(2) (accountability principle) rely on this feature being active. The "Enabled since" date on this screen is your documented starting point for that evidence trail.

After saving your settings here, no further action is required — the change takes effect immediately for all users. You may wish to tell your compliance team and auditors the "Enabled since" date and the current retention window so they know the boundaries of the available history.

Tips & common pitfalls

Heads up: Enabling Time Machine does not create retroactive history. Snapshots only exist from the "Enabled since" date onward. Enable this feature as early as possible in your DPMS setup to build up a useful archive.

Heads up: If you disable Time Machine (for a migration, for example) and then re-enable it, there will be a permanent gap in your version history covering the period it was switched off. You cannot fill that gap later.

Reducing the retention window is not immediate. When you shorten the number of retention days, older snapshots are removed by a background cleanup process, not instantly. Do not count on them being gone straight away.
Read and edit permissions are separate. A user with read access to this screen will see the pencil icon but cannot click it — it will be greyed out with a tooltip. If someone needs to change the retention window, make sure their account has the Time Machine edit permission, not just read.
Unsaved changes persist in your browser session. If you open the edit form, type a new retention value, then navigate away without saving, the value will still be there when you return to the edit form in the same browser session. This is helpful if you get interrupted, but it can be surprising. The form clears this saved draft when you load the edit page afresh.
"I can't see the version selector on my ROPA." This is almost always because Time Machine is inactive on this screen. Open General Settings > Time Machine and check the status field.

Time machine settings