A delete task collects the guests whose retention period has expired. The hotel checks the list, exempts individual guests and has the rest deleted. The menu path is Settings › Data Protection and Privacy › Delete tasks.
Example: Check guests with an expired period and have them deleted
Open the list. Settings › Data Protection and Privacy › Delete tasks shows the list “Delete tasks” with the columns “Status”, “Creation date” and “Created by”.
Create a delete task. “New delete task” immediately creates a new delete task with the status “New”, without asking for confirmation, and opens its detail page. In the progress bar, the step “Calculating data” is highlighted; depending on the volume, the calculation can take anywhere from a few minutes to more than an hour.
Wait for the data collection. ReGuest collects the guests whose period has expired. If the collection has found at least one guest, the creator of the task receives the notification “New data protection delete task”.
Open the task again. In the list “Delete tasks”, the date in the column “Creation date” opens the detail page of the task.
Check the guests. In the status “Prepared / check”, the detail page shows “Number of guests”, “Excluded” and the list of guests with “Name / Email address” and “Reason for delete”.
Keep a guest. The switch at the end of their row exempts the guest from the deletion. The row then shows “keep”, and the change is saved immediately.
Start the deletion. “Start delete task” immediately sets the task to the status “Ready to delete”, without asking for confirmation.
Result. ReGuest carries out the remaining steps itself: the task passes through “Deleting” and then shows “Done”. The guests deleted are those who are neither set to “keep” nor excluded because of “never delete” on the guest profile, and whose data has not changed since the collection.
The pages in detail
Delete tasks
The list shows all of the hotel's delete tasks with “Status”, “Creation date” and “Created by”. The date in the column “Creation date” is a link that opens the detail page of the task.
“New delete task” creates a delete task by hand. The button is locked as long as no active privacy policy has a retention period.
A delete task is also created automatically: when, in the retention period of the active privacy policy, the field “Interval (days) for automatic data collection” is greater than 0. Every 6 hours, ReGuest checks whether the most recent task, whether it was created by hand or automatically, is older than this interval, and if so creates a new one. As the creator, ReGuest enters the first active user whose role has access to the delete tasks. If there is none, no task is created. If an automatic task finds no guest, it is removed again; a task created by hand stays.
The statuses. A task passes through six statuses: “New”, “Calculating data”, “Prepared / check”, “Ready to delete”, “Deleting” and “Done”. Of these changes, the hotel makes only two by hand: creating the task with “New delete task” and, in the status “Prepared / check”, “Start delete task”. ReGuest makes all other changes itself.
Delete task
Who is included in the task. For each guest, the period of the privacy policy they most recently consented to applies. If they have not consented to any, the period of the active privacy policy applies. Guests with consent to email marketing are not included in the task at all if, in the retention period, “Exclude persons with email marketing consent from all deletions” is ticked. Guests with “never delete” on the guest profile are included in the task, but as excluded.
The list of guests has the columns “Name / Email address”, “Reason for delete” and a switch without a heading. The “Reason for delete” is “without correspondence”, “without reservation” or “with reservation”; this corresponds to the groups “Guests without correspondence”, “Guests with correspondence but without reservation” and “Guests with reservation” of the retention period. The switch can only be used in the status “Prepared / check”. It exempts a guest from the deletion.
The buttons:
“To list” leads back to the list “Delete tasks”.
“Start delete task” immediately sets the task in the status “Prepared / check” to “Ready to delete”, without asking for confirmation. ReGuest then deletes the guests who are neither kept nor excluded.
“Remove delete task” immediately deletes the task together with its list of guests, without asking for confirmation, and shows the list “Delete tasks” again. This is possible as long as the task is in the status “New”, “Calculating data” or “Prepared / check”.
What happens on deletion. If anything about a guest has changed since the collection, the guest is kept instead of deleted. A deleted guest is marked as deleted; their master data is not overwritten. Their correspondence with requests, offers, conversations and reservations is also marked as deleted and is kept for statistics. Their consents to the privacy policy remain in place.
Prerequisites
‘Delete tasks’ does not need a licence module of its own.
Access to ‘Delete tasks’ is enabled for specific users through their role. The following each need their own access in the role: every action on a delete task and the list of guests of a delete task. Roles are managed by ReGuest support.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't “New delete task” be clicked? No active privacy policy has a retention period. Under Settings › Data Protection and Privacy › Privacy policies, a period is selected on the page “Modify privacy policy” of the active policy, in the “Data retention” box.
Why are no delete tasks created on their own? The field “Interval (days) for automatic data collection” in the retention period is set to 0, that is “Deactivated”; a number greater than 0 switches it on. Or no active user has access to the delete tasks in their role. Roles are managed by ReGuest support.
Why has an automatic delete task disappeared again? It found no guest. An automatic task without guests is removed again. A task created by hand with “New delete task” stays.
Can a guest be exempted from the deletion? Yes. Permanently with “never delete” on the guest profile, or in a single task in the status “Prepared / check” with the switch in their row, which sets them to “keep”.
Why was a guest in the task not deleted? They were set to “keep”, they were excluded because of “never delete”, or something about their data has changed since the collection. In the last case, ReGuest keeps them.
Can a started delete task be undone? “Remove delete task” is only available as long as the task is in the status “New”, “Calculating data” or “Prepared / check”. After “Start delete task”, this is no longer possible.
Is the data of a deleted guest overwritten? No. The guest is marked as deleted; their master data is not overwritten.
Why is the menu item “Delete tasks” missing? The user's role does not enable it. Roles are managed by ReGuest support.
As of: 2026-10-29.