Your organization's data is yours, and you can take a copy of it whenever you like. This article covers how that export works, exactly what it contains, and — separately — the one thing ARRIVE deletes on a schedule.
Where the export lives
Settings → Advanced → Export your data. You need the Reports · Export permission. Without it the card explains what's missing and who can grant it; an admin adds it in Settings → Permissions.
Press Download export and the archive is built there and then and handed straight to your browser. Nothing is stored on ARRIVE's servers — no file is written, no link is emailed, nothing waits in a queue. The only copy that outlives the click is the one in your Downloads folder.
What's in the archive
A ZIP of CSV files, one per dataset:
- Contacts — contacts.csv
- Bookings — bookings.csv
- Events — events.csv
- Programs — programs.csv
- Locations — locations.csv
- Spaces — spaces.csv
- Opportunities — opportunities.csv
- Performer relationships — performer-relationships.csv
- Assets (metadata only) — assets.csv
Plus a README.txt listing every file, its row count, and who requested the export.
The rule that matters: your export can't exceed your access
Reports · Export gets you to the button. It is not a skeleton key. Each dataset is filtered additionally by your own view permission for the area it comes from — Contacts needs CRM & Contacts · View, Bookings needs Bookings · View, Opportunities and Performer relationships need Marketplace · View, Assets needs Settings · View, and so on. A dataset you can't open a page and read is never even loaded, let alone written to the archive.
And the README names what was withheld, and why — each omitted dataset is listed with the exact permission that would include it next time. A short archive that didn't say it was short would be indistinguishable from a broken export, and whoever you hand it to would have no way to tell.
A few smaller things the README also explains:
- Asset files are not included — only their details. Titles, categories, filenames, types, sizes and tags travel; the files themselves stay in your asset library, where you download them individually.
- An empty file is intentional. A bookings.csv with only a header row means you have no bookings. A missing file would mean something went wrong, so we never omit one.
- Values starting with = + - or @ are prefixed with an apostrophe so spreadsheets treat them as text rather than formulas. Remove it if you need the raw value.
If one of the datasets can't be retrieved, the export fails rather than shipping a file that looks complete. You'll be told which one and asked to retry. Taking an export is itself recorded in your activity log — it's the moment data leaves the platform.
Activity log retention
Settings → Advanced → Activity log retention. Changing it needs Settings · Administer; everyone else sees the current window and who can change it.
Leave the field blank to use the ARRIVE default of 365 days. Set your own value between 30 and 3,650 days. Entries older than your window are removed automatically each day.
The floor is deliberate. The activity log is your audit trail, and an admin who could set retention to a day or two could quietly erase the record of their own actions.
What retention does not cover
This is the part worth reading twice. In the product's own words:
This governs the activity log only — the one thing ARRIVE deletes on a schedule. Bookings, events, contacts, messages and assets are kept until you delete them yourself. Minimum 30 days, so the audit trail can't be erased; maximum 3650.
There is no other scheduled deletion of your organization's data. Nothing expires, nothing ages out, nothing is quietly tidied away. Your records stay until you remove them — or until the organization itself is deleted, which is covered in Leaving or deleting an organization.
What this does not do yet
The export is built and downloaded in one go, so there's no scheduled export, no emailed link and no export history to re-download from. It covers the nine datasets above and no others — your activity log, your internal messages, your members list and your AI history are not among them. And it always exports everything you're allowed to see; there's no date range, no filter and no picking individual datasets.
For a regular figure you want to watch rather than a full copy of your records, a saved or scheduled report is usually the better tool — see Reports, and what they measure.