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Product Archive Checks

Purpose​

Product Archive Checks adds a preflight review to product and variant archiving. It identifies remaining stock, reservations, open stock operations, and relevant inventory configuration, then classifies each selected target as Safe, Warning, or Blocked. Managers can archive eligible targets from the review while blocked targets remain active.

The guard also checks ordinary archive actions and changes to the active flag. It preserves historical stock operations and an immutable archive audit. It extends Inventory and product forms rather than introducing a separate application.

Before you start​

Install the package for your exact Odoo major version. The base addon depends on Inventory (stock) and declares no Enterprise-only dependency. Optional Sales, Purchase, and Manufacturing bridges add those applications' dependencies to the same preflight.

Review the products' actual stock and open work before choosing archive. Archiving is not a way to clear stock quantities, cancel orders, or remove historical transactions.

The workflow below is based on the 19.0 source. Other listed versions received targeted comparisons; no runtime test, archive operation, or PDF rendering was performed for this guide.

Access and roles​

Inventory users can run preflight, read policies and audits, and export the review. Only Inventory managers can archive or unarchive products through the guard and maintain core archive policies. Users must also have the underlying product rights. Audit creation is restricted to the guard's workflows; audit records and lines cannot be edited or deleted.

Company rules govern policies and audits. Dependencies in other companies still affect archive safety, but company and warehouse names are restricted in summaries. Open is available only when the reader can access the linked dependency; a hidden link does not mean the dependency is absent.

Setup and menu​

Inventory includes Product Archive Preflight, Product Archive Policies in configuration, and Product Archive Audit in reporting. Product templates and variants gain Archive Preflight and Archive Audits smart buttons. The Archive Preflight action is also available for selected products in list or kanban views.

Create or review the company's policy. A policy can apply to a product category; the closest matching category ancestor wins over the company default. Batch Size defaults to 200 and accepts 1–2,000.

Policies offer Ignore, Warning, and Block for Open Moves, Inventory Counts, Reordering Rules, Putaway Rules, Product UoMs / Packaging, Storage Capacities, and Package Content. The supplied main-company policy blocks open moves, pending inventory counts, and package content, and warns for the configuration dependencies. Non-zero on-hand stock and reserved stock in internal or transit locations are always blockers. “Ignore” retains an informational finding instead of making the dependency disappear.

Workflow​

  1. Open a product and choose Archive Preflight, or select products and run the action. A template review includes its variants, including previously archived variants. The result is grouped into Safe, Warning, and Blocked tabs.
  2. Open a warning or blocked row. Read the issue, quantity, company/warehouse summary, earliest date where provided, and suggested corrective action. Use Open to reach an accessible dependency. It opens a representative related record; review the whole summarized dependency set when several records are counted.
  3. Resolve genuine blockers through normal business workflows. Examples include completing or cancelling open transfers, unreserving stock, applying or clearing pending counts, and retiring obsolete replenishment configuration. Do not manufacture stock adjustments merely to make a product appear safe.
  4. Select Refresh after corrections. This creates a new preflight result and updates the product's last-check summary. Export CSV downloads the current review for follow-up.
  5. As an Inventory manager, choose Safe only or Safe and acknowledged warnings under Archive Options. The second option requires I acknowledge warning dependencies. Select Archive Eligible. Safe targets, and explicitly acknowledged warning targets when selected, are archived; blocked targets are unchanged.
  6. If the guard reports that dependencies changed, refresh and review again. It locks the products and recomputes findings immediately before archive; an old preview cannot authorize changed circumstances.
  7. Inspect Archive Audits on the product or Product Archive Audit in reporting. Audits retain the result and dependency details and provide CSV export and the Product Archive Audit PDF report. An Inventory manager can later unarchive a product; template restoration uses the saved set of variants that was active at its archive.

Practice scenario​

In an authorised test database, create fictional products “Retired Cedar Mug” with no stock or configuration and “Cedar Mug Refill” with an active reordering rule but no stock. With the default warning policy, preflight should place the first in Safe and the second in Warning. Select Safe only and archive eligible targets. The source-derived expectation is that only the first is archived. Review the second product's rule before deciding whether to retire it or acknowledge the warning. This scenario was not executed.

Troubleshooting and limitations​

The ordinary Archive action refuses warnings until they are acknowledged through preflight. A blocked item cannot be overridden by checking the acknowledgement box. Completed and cancelled stock operations are informational history and are retained.

A stale result requires Refresh, while a concurrent product update may require retrying preflight. Restricted-company findings require the responsible team's help; changing active companies does not eliminate the underlying dependency. The base addon checks inventory dependencies only: install the relevant bridge before relying on preflight to flag sales, purchase, or manufacturing documents.

Qualified catalogue versions are 15.0, 16.0, 17.0, 18.0, 19.0, and 20.0. Versions 15–18 use the earlier native packaging model and version-specific list/form APIs; 19–20 use product unit/packaging records. Version 20 changes access declarations and stock-capacity aggregation. Full workflows on these secondary versions remain unreviewed.

Live Test — Odoo 19 is a catalogue-qualified selector; no demo was launched. Choose your exact version in the Corvus catalogue for purchase information.

Related guides: Product Archive: Sales, Product Archive: Purchase, and Product Archive: MRP.