# Move an item to the trash with a recovery plan The exact item, active references and authorization to retire it. Updated October 27, 2026 ## Retire an item with a recovery plan Moving an item to the trash retires a lesson or course you no longer teach, such as a safety lesson about a program that ended, without breaking the courses that use it or erasing who completed it. Content librarians and training admins use it on material with years of completions behind it. Elvina opens a retirement proposal that lists referencing courses, active assignments and what learners would see. Completion records by person and the courses you update are available now. Permanent deletion is a separate, deliberate step. ## What happens on the free demo - Book 30 minutes. Pick a time with Elvina's team. The demo is free and runs on Zoom. - Show the team your goal. Bring one role or one procedure. The team shows how Elvina would handle it, using sample materials. - Agree on the next step. You leave with a plan for the first step and its price. Nothing reaches your team until you approve it. ## Who this is for, and when A content librarian at an environmental nonprofit is retiring a volunteer safety lesson that referenced a program the organization ended. The lesson is still linked from two courses and was completed by 600 volunteers over four years. She needs to remove it without breaking those courses and without erasing the record of who completed it. ## How it works in Elvina A retirement proposal identifies the item and what learners would see after removal. - The librarian selects the lesson in the Web workspace and chooses Move to Trash, which opens a retirement proposal instead of deleting immediately. - Elvina lists the two courses that reference the lesson, the active assignments that include it, and what learners would see after removal. - She replaces the reference in one course with the successor lesson and removes the lesson from the other course's required path. - She confirms the retirement, and Elvina moves the lesson to Trash while completion records stay in learner history. ## A worked example A fictional nonprofit, River Bend Conservancy, is retiring Trail-Crew-Safety-2022, which described a shuttle program that no longer runs. The lesson appears in Volunteer Orientation and in Trail Crew Certification. The successor is Trail-Crew-Safety-2026, approved by the volunteer coordinator. - Volunteer Orientation now points at the 2026 lesson, and Trail Crew Certification dropped the retired item from its required path. - The 600 completion records remained visible in learner history with the retired lesson's name. - The item sits in Trash with its retention date shown, and the retirement is noted in the course history. ## What to check before relying on it Confirm retention and recovery behavior before acting. Keep learner history distinct from editable training content. - Every course or assignment that referenced the item has been updated or consciously left with a gap. - Learner completion history for the retired item is still visible in the Learning Platform. - The item is in Trash with a visible retention window, not permanently gone. - The retirement is recorded with who approved it and why. ## Where a person stays in charge Moving an item to Trash is reversible within your workspace's retention window; permanent deletion is a separate, deliberate step. Elvina shows consequences but does not decide whether a lesson should be retired. Learner history is kept apart from editable content on purpose, and confirming the exact retention behavior with your workspace owner is part of a real rollout. ## Who this is not for, and when another tool fits ### This is not the right fit if - You want an item gone for good immediately. - You expect Elvina to decide whether a lesson should be retired. - Your retention rules for training material are not settled yet. ### Another kind of tool may fit better - Your current authoring tool, if one designer already builds every course by hand and the team is happy with it. - A shared drive, when people only need to find a file rather than learn a task. ## Questions **Q:** Will retiring a lesson remove it from learners' transcripts? No. Completion records stay in learner history. Only the editable lesson moves to Trash. **Q:** Can I retire a whole course at once? Yes. The proposal then lists every lesson, assignment and group affected, and each dependency needs the same review before you confirm. **Q:** What do learners see after a lesson is retired? That depends on what you change before confirming, and the retirement proposal shows it first. In the worked example, one course pointed to the successor lesson, the other dropped the item from its required path, and past completions stayed in learner history. ## Two things you can check on this site - See a sample on the demo. [Book a demo with my team](https://calendly.com/o-dutchak-smartexpert/30min?utm_source=elvina-site&utm_medium=proof) - Every lesson, plan and quiz stays a draft until you approve it. [Check the approval step in the chat](/capabilities/trash#talk-to-elvina) Checked October 27, 2026.