What is the retention period?
The retention period decides how long Stippa keeps a customer's personal data after their last appointment. The count starts again after every appointment and applies per customer. Once the period has passed, the customer is anonymized: name, email, phone number and notes are erased. Appointments and payments stay visible, but without personal data.
Where do I set this?
Go to Administration > Data retention. You find it in the sidebar under Customers & data.
If you don't see the page, the Data retention module is switched off or isn't in your subscription. It's in Groei and higher. You switch it on under Administration > Modules.
Available options
Under Retention window you choose a fixed period:
- Short-term / one-off: 12 months
- Hairdresser and beautician: 24 months
- Coach and trainer: 36 months
- Physiotherapist and medical: 240 months
Or choose Custom and fill in a number of months yourself, from 6 to 240.
Below the options is the Preview. It shows how many customers would be anonymized with this setting straight away, within 7 days and within 30 days. Take a look at it before you change anything.
What's the recommended setting for hairdressers?
The GDPR doesn't prescribe a fixed retention period for service businesses. A period of 24 months is a common choice for hairdressers and similar service providers. If you're unsure what applies to your trade, ask your trade association.
Sending customers a reminder
If you switch on Send reminders, customers get an email 30 days and 7 days before their data is anonymized. From that email a customer can let you know they want to keep their data. The period then moves on, and on the customer card you see until when. This is in Pro and higher.
Handling it per customer
On the customer card is the Data retention block:
- Keep data permanently: this customer is never anonymized automatically.
- Anonymize now: erases this customer's personal data straight away, for example when they ask for it themselves. This can't be undone.
Anonymization log
On Pro and higher, the Anonymization log is at the bottom of the page. With View log you see which customers were anonymized, when, and whether that happened automatically, manually or on a GDPR request.
Watch out: shortening the period
If you shorten the retention period, data is erased sooner than customers might expect. Stippa therefore asks for confirmation first. Customers who already fall outside the new period are anonymized the following night.