The reasons to use data retention policies

Relying solely on 'backup' is inadequate to ensure compliance with retention regulations, legal documentation requirements, and information risk management.

Microsoft 365 offers data managers a more effective tool for data retention compliance: Retention Policies.

Advantages of Using Retention Policies:

• Proactive decision-making: Retention policies empower organisations to proactively decide whether to retain, delete, or retain and subsequently delete content when necessary.
• Selective application: These policies can be applied to all content or specifically to content meeting certain conditions, such as items with specific keywords or types of sensitive information.
• Flexibility in application: Organisations can apply a single policy to the entire organisation or target specific locations or users.
• Discoverability and security: Retention policies maintain the discoverability of content for legal and audit purposes while protecting it from changes or access by unauthorised users.

When content is subject to a retention policy, individuals can continue editing and working with the data because the content is retained in its original location. The retention policy manages the content in the background until the specified timeframe for action is reached. For example, if an organisation has a retention policy for "destroy after 7 years," the content remains accessible until the 7-year timeframe, after which the data is destroyed.

It's essential to distinguish between "Retention Policies" and "Retention Label Policies." While they achieve the same objectives, a retention policy is automatically applied, whereas retention label policies are only enforced when the content is tagged with the associated retention label. Retention Label Policies require manual application, either by end-users or content creators.

Retention Policies are applicable to all Microsoft 365 workspaces, each with its peculiarities.

Key considerations include:

• All content retained under a policy is discoverable via the Compliance Center eDiscovery console, regardless of license, workspace, or end-user visibility.
• Any policy-based hold, whether retention, label, eDiscovery, or other, prevents content from moving to the second-stage recycle bin. All holds must be removed before deletion.
• Content under retention is retained in the second-stage recycle bin until the retention period ends, plus the default retention time period.
• Content must be owned by a user with an appropriate Microsoft 365 license to have a retention policy applied.

While Microsoft 365 retention policies may seem complex initially, understanding and implementing them correctly alleviate concerns about surprise licensing costs, space consumption, and the effectiveness of the retention policies.