Archive transaction descriptions, when you use them, are always used in addition to standard transaction descriptions. The archive transaction description determines the content of an additional transfer file called the archive file.
There are at least two possible uses of archive transactions:
Save data about forms sent to an archive system.
FORMS can be integrated with systems for digital archiving or printing of forms. This means that you can export to an external system the images of each individual form, or any fields you choose, or both. The images are packed and saved to files by Scan, Interpret or Transfer.
When you use this capability, you must also transfer the file names of the image files so that you can retrieve them later. You do this by including specific system variables in a transaction description. You can include the variables in the standard transaction description, but many users create a separate archive transaction description, which specifies the content and format of the data you want to transfer to an archive file or other separate output file. It is up to you to design the archive transaction to suit the external archive system and the needs of your organization.
Create batch files.
You can create an archive transaction description that creates a batch file when the Transfer job is run. Such a batch file could, for example, rename image files or delete image files.
When you run a Transfer job that includes an archive transaction description, Transfer saves data that you specified in the archive transaction description to a separate file (that is, separate from the data specified in the standard transaction description).
Because a job description can include several form definitions but only one archive transaction description, the archive transaction description must be valid for all forms in the job.
Strongly recommended: Before you set up your form definitions, you decide on standard names for any fields to be included in archive transaction descriptions.
Creating an archive transaction description for writing output to a second transfer file
Creating an archive transaction description for exported images