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Managing Accessions

Day-to-day work in the Accessions section: finding, sorting, editing, assigning, and deleting accessions.

The list​

Accessions in the left sidebar opens the list of every accession your account or organisation can see.

Accessions list

What you see per row:

  • Title and optional description
  • File count and processed count (e.g. 4 files · 4 processed)
  • Status — Draft (still being worked on) or Complete (all items reviewed)
  • Date of creation or completion
  • Edit (pencil) and Delete (trash) icons

Filters at the top​

FilterWhat it does
Search accessions…Full-text search across name and description
All / Documents / Photographs / Artefacts / Audio / VideoFilter by collection type
All Fonds dropdownShow only accessions assigned to a chosen fond
Date rangeFrom / to date pickers
Newest first sortToggle to oldest-first

The list view / table view toggle (top right) lets you switch to a denser, spreadsheet-style table — useful when you have dozens of accessions to scan.

The Select to Explore button puts the list into multi-select mode so you can pick a batch of accessions and launch a Research & Explore session over them.

Opening an accession​

Click the title to open the accession. You'll see:

  • Header — title, completion status, linked-authorities summary, fond assignment, file count, processed count, dates, review progress.
  • Tabs — Items (per-file metadata), Analysis (collection-level summary), Authorities (linked subjects, people, places, organisations).
  • Action buttons — Explore (start a research session scoped to this accession), + Add Files, … menu for delete and other actions.
  • Export panel at the bottom — quick links to PDF Report, BagIt, EAD3, AtoM CSV, ArchivesSpace CSV, Archivematica CSV, and the Other formats drawer.

Assigning to a fond​

Below the title is the fond assignment dropdown — labelled Unassigned by default. Click to choose a fond, sub-fond, series, or sub-series. The accession moves into your archival hierarchy at the level you pick.

See Assigning accessions for the full workflow.

Editing metadata after completion​

A Complete accession isn't locked.

  • Expand any item on the Items tab to edit its fields.
  • Click the title on the accession header to rename or update description.
  • Click +Add Files to add new files to an existing accession — they go through the same processing pipeline.

The accession's status remains Complete; edits don't roll it back to Draft.

Deleting an accession​

Click the … menu in the top right and select Delete. A confirmation dialog will appear.

To prevent accidental deletion, you must type the word DELETE in the text field to confirm. Once typed, the Delete accession button activates.

This cannot be undone

Deleting an accession removes all its files, derived metadata, transcripts, OCR text, and linked authority records permanently. Storage and quota are immediately freed. If you need to keep a copy first, export to BagIt before deleting.

Card view delete. You can also delete an accession from the card view on the Accessions list. Hover over the card and click the trash icon, then confirm in the same typed-confirmation dialog.

Possible duplicates​

After a file is processed, Archivers.ai automatically checks it against your existing archive for potential duplicates using AI similarity matching. Files that may be duplicates appear with an amber Possible duplicate badge on the Items tab.

What to do if you see the badge:

  1. Click the badge to open a panel showing candidate matches — other items in your archive with similar content.
  2. Compare — click any candidate to see it side-by-side with your file.
  3. Decide — if it's actually a duplicate (a scan that shouldn't have been ingested twice, for example), delete the duplicate accession or item. If it's not a duplicate, click Not a duplicate to dismiss the flag for this pair.

Dismissed flags are remembered — the same pair won't appear as a potential duplicate again. If your archive changes and matches no longer align, stale flags are automatically cleared.

The duplicate check excludes files from the same accession (multi-page scans are legitimately similar) and only compares completed, non-deleted items.

Bulk operations​

Multi-select mode (the Select button on the list, or the Select all checkbox inside an open accession) gives you:

  • Bulk add to a Dossier — useful when you're pulling material together for a research project
  • Bulk export in one of the configured formats
  • Bulk delete (admins only on Team / Enterprise)

Item-level bulk operations live inside the open accession — see Reviewing classifications.

See also​