Message Expiration

The Message Expiration Time setting controls the duration of time that messages are visible on the VST clients.

Individual messages have a default expiration time (typically 7 days, but it can range between 30 minutes and 30 days) that is specified by the hospital administrator. Messages that expire are removed from the VST client, but they are retained in the database of the VST server for the duration of the message retention period.

Messages in a conversation expire one-by-one. If the initial message in a conversation reaches its expiration date but the most recent message is current, the initial message is removed from all clients but the unexpired messages remain. Because organization administrators may customize their message expiration setting, each organization may specify a different message duration. If the recipients of a message span multiple organizations, VST honors the message duration setting of the sending organization.

The message retention period is set for an entire organization, and it determines the amount of time messages persist in the VST database. By default, messages are never purged from the VST database, but organizations may customize this behavior.

If the message retention period is shorter than the message expiration time, the message is both expired (on the client) and purged (in the database). In this situation, messages are removed from the handheld client when the app is placed in the background and then opened in the foreground; message are removed from the VST Web Client when the screen refreshes.