Cloud FlowData OperationsIntermediate

Box Retention and Cleanup Automation

On a schedule, the flow scans Box folders for files past a retention window, archives them to Azure Blob, removes the originals, and emails an owner a cleanup report. Enforces retention and reclaims Box storage.

BoxAzure Blob StorageOffice 365 Outlook

Unique name

FlowLibsBoxRetentionCleanup

Publisher

FlowLibs (flowlibs)

Version

1.0.0.0

Components

5 env vars + 1 cloud flow

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Provided as-is, without warranty of any kind. Review and test each pattern in a non-production environment before deploying it to live automations. See our Terms.

What it does

Overview

This flow enforces a retention policy on Box and reclaims storage. On a daily schedule it scans a configured Box folder, identifies files older than a retention window, archives each file to Azure Blob Storage, removes the original from Box, and emails an Outlook summary report of everything cleaned up.

Why it matters: Box folders accumulate stale files that raise cost and compliance risk. Automating archive-then-delete enforces retention consistently and gives owners an auditable report every run.

Ships Off (demo).

Why you'd use it

Use Case

IT / Operations needs old Box files archived to cold storage and removed from Box on a recurring retention schedule, with a report of what was cleaned up. Routine cleanup is automated; legal-hold cases should still use Box's native retention policies.

Step-by-step

Flow Architecture

Daily Retention Scan

Recurrence

Runs the cleanup scan once a day.

Initialize Config & Cutoff

Initialize variable

Sets the folder id, retention days, Blob account and path, report recipient, cutoff = addDays(utcNow(), -RetentionDays), and counters.

List Box Folder Files

Box - ListFolder

Lists items in the watched folder.

Per-file Retention Check

Apply to each + Condition

For each file (not subfolder) older than the cutoff, proceeds to archive and delete (sequential, concurrency 1).

Archive then Delete

Box GetFileContent + Azure Blob CreateFile_V2 + Box DeleteFile

Downloads the file, writes it to the blob archive, and deletes the Box original only after the archive Succeeded.

Send Cleanup Report

Office 365 Outlook - SendEmailV2

Emails the HTML retention/cleanup summary.

Solution config

Environment Variables

Schema name	Type	Default	Description
flowlibs_BoxRetentionFolderId	String	0	Box folder ID to scan (0 = root).
flowlibs_BoxRetentionDays	String	90	Days a file may stay before cleanup.
flowlibs_BoxArchiveStorageAccount	String	flowlibsarchive	Azure Blob storage account (dataset).
flowlibs_BoxArchiveFolderPath	String	/box-archive	Target folder/container path for archives.
flowlibs_BoxRetentionReportRecipient	String	alerts@yourcompany.com	Report recipient address.

Auth dependencies

Connectors & Connections

Connector	API name	Actions used
Box	shared_box	ListFolder GetFileContent DeleteFile
Azure Blob Storage	shared_azureblob	CreateFile_V2
Office 365 Outlook	shared_office365	SendEmailV2

Note — All connections are referenced as solution connection references; the flow is portable between environments as long as a connection is mapped at import time.

Tweaks & variations

Customization Guide

Almost every realistic variant of this flow can be implemented by changing environment variable values. A few cases require small edits inside the flow definition — those are called out explicitly below.

Legal hold: Add a condition to skip files tagged or in a held subfolder before archiving.
Tiered retention: Use different RetentionDays per folder by parameterizing or looping over multiple folder ids.
Dry run: Disable Delete Original From Box to report what would be cleaned without removing anything.
Archive to SharePoint instead of Blob: Swap the Azure Blob archive action for a SharePoint CreateFile action.
Frequency: Change the Recurrence interval/frequency for weekly or hourly cleanup windows.

Helpers & literals

Key Expressions

The flow is intentionally light on Power Fx / WDL gymnastics — the heaviest expressions are the branch-name concatenation and the approval outcome check. They are listed below in the order they appear in the flow.

EXPR.01Cutoff date

Retention window start.

workflow definition language

addDays(utcNow(), mul(-1, variables('varRetentionDays')))

EXPR.02Retention test (Condition)

Numeric date comparison via ticks().