Does anyone know that SharePoint workflow history is getting deleted after 60days. By default there is a timer job called “Workflow Auto Cleanup” associated with your web application which will delete all your workflow task history after 60 days if the status is Completed or Cancelled.
Now the question is, Does it really deletes whole workflow history?
No, Technically, the workflow history is not deleted. The association between the workflow (what you see on the workflow status page) and the history list is removed. This is done for performance reasons. Once a workflow is completed, by default the connection between the workflow and the workflow history is deleted after 60 days.
Is it Possible to disable this timer job?
Yes, You can disable the “Workflow Auto Cleanup” timer job if you wish to keep the workflow data. however, this is not really recommended due to the potential impact to performance of allowing these lists to grow indefinitely.
To disable automatic workflow cleanup follow below steps
- From Central Administration, click the Monitoring tab
- On the Monitoring page, click Review job definitions.
- On the Timer Job Definitions page, click Workflow Auto Cleanup to edit the appropriate timer job.
- On the Edit Timer Job page, click Disable and then click OK to disable the Workflow Auto Cleanup feature.
NOTE: If you later decide that you want to enable automatic workflow cleanup, access this page again and click Enable to enable automatic workflow cleanup.
What is the alternate solution to audit my workflows?
Unfortunately, this auditing report is not available out of the box. However, a custom audit report can be created in Visual Studio in order to extend the auditing functionality to include workflows.Read here
