QAD Data Archival Built for Manufacturing Compliance

QAD data archival is the process of moving closed-period transactional data, completed work-order detail, terminated supplier and customer records, and historical inventory transactions out of the operational QAD Adaptive ERP (or MFG/PRO) Progress OpenEdge database into a queryable long-term archive. Manufacturers archive QAD data for four reasons: compliance retention (SOX 7 years, IRS 7 years, IATF 16949 PPAP 15 years post-EOP, FDA 21 CFR Part 11 up to 30 years), database-size control (gl_hist, wod_det, and tr_hist grow at 200M–500M rows per year in mid-size manufacturers), migration prep (a smaller production footprint is faster, cheaper, and less risky to migrate to Fusion or SAP), and OpenEdge skills-shortage mitigation (reducing the operational surface that requires Progress expertise). Syntra ETL's QAD data archival routes cold data to cloud object storage in Parquet, exposes a SQL/REST query interface so auditors, regulators, and tier-1 OEM customers can read the data on demand.

Retention varies sharply by industry and data class. General Ledger and AP/AR detail: 7 years (SOX, IRS in the US; 6 years HMRC in the UK; up to 10 years in some EU jurisdictions). Manufacturing automotive: 15 years post-end-of-production for PPAP lot/serial traceability under IATF 16949 — and tier-1 OEMs (Ford, GM, Stellantis, Toyota, BMW) often impose stricter customer-specific retention. Pharma and medical device under FDA 21 CFR Part 11: typically 7 years minimum but commonly 30+ years for class-III devices and implantable products. Aerospace/defense under ITAR / DFARS: lifetime of the part plus 10 years, often indefinite. Food & beverage under FSMA: 2–7 years depending on product class. Syntra ETL's archival policies are configurable per data domain and per item-class so each retains under its own rule without paying to keep everything everywhere.

Yes. The QAD data archival path preserves the source table schema — column names, datatypes, Progress OpenEdge record structure including denormalized arrays — in the archive. Archived data lives as Parquet with embedded schema, plus a JSON Schema sidecar for tooling. The archive query interface lets auditors and OEM quality engineers run familiar SELECT statements against pt_mstr, wo_mstr, wod_det, tr_hist, gl_hist and so on, returning results that match what they would have seen in the live QAD database — including lot/serial traceability links, domain/site context, and BOM/routing references. No translation, no schema flattening, no shape changes.

Code itself isn't archived as data — it's preserved as a customization inventory artifact. Syntra ETL's discovery engine catalogs every custom .p file in the QAD application directory tree, every QAD Reporting Framework report, every trigger procedure registered against pt_mstr/wo_mstr/so_mstr, every QXtend interface, and every sequence/numbering routine. The catalog includes source code, last-modified date, file-system path, and (where derivable) the business purpose. This serves two needs: post-decommission audit evidence ('what did our QAD system actually do?') and migration support ('what custom logic did we need to re-implement in Fusion?'). The catalog is signed, timestamped, and retained per the same retention rules as the data.

Yes, for manufacturers that have completed migration to Fusion (or SAP, or any other target) and no longer need operational QAD. The Syntra archive holds the complete data, the .p file customization catalog, the QAD security model snapshot, and the report library — everything an auditor, FDA inspector, or tier-1 OEM PPAP auditor would otherwise demand a live QAD instance for. Customers save 70–90% on QAD licensing, OpenEdge support, infrastructure, and the maintenance team. The archive query interface satisfies SOX, IRS, IATF 16949, 21 CFR Part 11, and ITAR access requirements for the full retention window — sub-second query response and signed, timestamped evidence packs ready for inspection.

Access is role-based with mandatory audit logging. Every query against the archive is logged with user, timestamp, query text, rows returned, and data classification accessed. Archive data is encrypted at rest with KMS-managed keys and in transit with TLS 1.3. Sensitive data (supplier banking, customer banking, pricing detail, ITAR-controlled drawings) is masked by default and requires explicit role permission to unmask. Pharma customers using the archive for 21 CFR Part 11 records get separate role partitioning so quality-system access doesn't bleed into general manufacturing access — and every quality-record read leaves an immutable audit trail acceptable to FDA Part 11 inspectors.

Yes. The Syntra archive exposes a standard SQL interface (JDBC/ODBC), so any BI, audit, or quality-management tool that connects to a relational database — Tableau, Power BI, Alteryx, ACL, IDEA, Minitab — works without modification. There's also a REST API for programmatic access, and the underlying Parquet files can be queried directly from Athena, BigQuery, Snowflake, or Spark if your quality team prefers warehouse-native access. Standard auditor and OEM-PPAP extracts (lot genealogy, work-order travelers, supplier non-conformance history) ship as pre-built saved queries.

Sub-second for typical auditor and quality-engineer queries (a single GL period for one entity, a work-order lookup, a lot genealogy trace for one serial number, a supplier history for one vd_mstr record). Multi-period or multi-year aggregation queries against billion-row gl_hist or wod_det history typically return in 5–30 seconds depending on partitioning. Archive data is stored in Parquet partitioned by fiscal year, domain, site, and item-class, and the query engine uses column pruning and partition pruning to minimize scan. For year-end audits and recurring PPAP submissions, customers commonly pre-materialize an auditor/OEM-facing dataset (trial balance, AP aging, work-order traveler snapshots, PPAP lot genealogy) for instant access.