For each FAQ, click the down arrow next to the header to read the answer.
Panopto (the company) changed its licensing and fee structure. The new model has significant price increases and imposes new storage limits. In order to ensure we are within our licensed storage limits, SLU will need to re-institute a regular file retention process on an ongoing basis, beginning in fall 2025.
Most universities have a regular, ongoing cleanup process to ensure storage limits are maintained. In the past, prior to the adoption of Panopto, SLU regularly deleted lecture capture content on an ongoing basis (deletions happened on a regular cadence each academic year, deleting recordings that had not been viewed in the previous 24 months). While we have not yet approved a new file retention process, we expect it to be similar to our previous process.
On an ongoing basis, monitor your Panopto recordings to delete videos you no longer need, to archive videos you may wish to preserve long-term but to which you do not need immediate access, and to reset the last-viewed date for videos you want to continue to be viewable for students.
You have several options for ensuring your recordings are not deleted during future cleanup efforts:
Archive the recording in Panopto. Note: The Archive is long-term storage, which means it takes 24-48 hours to retrieve a recording stored in the Archive. In the future, SLU may also have to engage in a cleanup of the Archive by deleting files that are a certain number of years old. No decisions have been made about deleting Archived recordings at this time.
Export the recording as an MP4 and save it elsewhere (e.g., a personal storage drive, OneDrive, Google Drive). Note: materials that belong to you -- such as teaching materials -- are best preserved in a personal storage space to ensure they won't be identified for deletion at some future time, should SLU need to reduce storage in University-provided systems (such as OneDrive and Google Drive).
View the recording to reset the "last-viewed" date. Note: this will keep the recording from being deleted as part of this process, but it will likely be identified for deletion again in the future, unless you use the recording. Additionally, if everyone resets the viewing date, we will be unable to meet our numbers and will have to initiate more aggressive file retention strategies.
No. Due to the way Panopto handles Archiving, recordings must be archived one file at a time. This design is likely intended to ensure you don't accidentally Archive recordings, since there is a 24-48-hour retrieval window for Archived recordings.
Good news, though: when you go to the Archive to restore archived recordings, you ARE able to restore more than one at a time.
ITS is not able to restore or Archive your recordings for you. See the Resources page for instructions on managing your Panopto content.
At this time, we do not have plans to delete recordings moved to the Panopto Archive. However, it is possible the University will, eventually, need to institute a deletion process for Archived recordings that are older than a certain date. Any decision to delete recordings from the Panopto Archive will be communicated widely to all SLU faculty, staff, and students.
All available, non-Archived recordings count against SLU's total "stored hours" with Panopto. This includes recordings in Panopto folders (My Folder and any subfolders), course-related folders (in Blackboard and/or Canvas folders), and the Recycle Bin. Videos stored in all these locations are considered "available" because they can be watched on demand.
Archived hours do not count against our storage limit at this time. They are stored differently, which is why they take 24-48 hours to retrieve.