Status: Delivered. Described from our own delivery records. Client identity, brand and commercial terms are withheld. Figures, where given, cover the period stated and nothing beyond it.
Context
A revenue-cycle operation holding personal and health-related data across an estate of more than twenty related tables.
The estate is subject to a retention obligation requiring that data in aged accounts be redacted on a monthly cycle.
The problem
- Redaction was performed manually across a large number of tables.
- Manual execution against a compliance obligation is the wrong combination: it is both time-consuming and the failure mode is invisible until an audit finds it.
- Coverage depended on someone remembering every table, including the ones added since the procedure was written.
- There was no automatic evidence that the month's redaction had run and had covered what it should.
What we built
A monthly automated redaction process
Implemented as database stored procedures orchestrated by scheduled cloud workflows.
Systematic coverage across the full table set
Driven by a definition of what qualifies as aged rather than by a manually maintained list.
A run record
So each month's execution and its coverage can be evidenced without reconstruction.
How we delivered it
- 1
Establish the rule precisely
What qualifies as aged, which fields are in scope, what redaction means for each field type.
- 2
Map the estate
Including the tables the manual process had been missing.
- 3
Build and test against a restored copy
Never against live data, since this operation is not reversible.
- 4
Run for one cycle with output verified
Before the schedule was trusted.
- 5
Add run evidence
And hand over the procedure documentation.
How it was phased
Indicative phasing for work of this shape. Actual duration varies with data quality, access and decision speed.
What the client keeps
- The stored procedures and orchestration definitions
- The ageing and redaction rules as documentation
- The estate map
- The monthly run evidence