Microsoft 365 - Retention Labels and Policies Services (2024)

It’s likely your business already has retention policies in place, even if you don’t realise it. Retention is simply the amount of time you keep a certain piece of information, so if you have to delete files or alter data after a period of time, this is part of a retention policy.

Where it can get complicated is when different items, teams, companies or sectors require different retention periods. The start of the retention period may be triggered as soon as you save a certain data set, or might come later depending on the file in question. It’s really important to stay on top of the retention endpoint and required deletion date (if there is one), because missing it and storing data too long can cause you to fall foul of important data protection rules and regulations such as GDPR.

With Microsoft and Valto’s hassle-free policies, creating robust and fool proof retention policies and retention labels for your business is straightforward. In essence, there are three main actions for retention labels:

• Delete only: after the retention period ends, content is permanently deleted
• Retain only: store content indefinitely, or until the retention period ends
• Retain and delete: keep the content for the specified retention period, and then permanently delete

In a nutshell, retention labels are more specific and applied on an item by item level, compared to retention policies.

Use a retention policy to set the same level of retention management to all the items within a particular location – perhaps across an entire mailbox or storage site. Retention labels should be applied when you went to use retention settings at a more specific level – for example on individual documents, files or folders.

Undergoing a Microsoft 365 migration, or moving data for another reason? When you apply a retention label to a document or file, it stays in place if that file is moved. So, your retention settings for that item migrate with that content. However, retention policies are specific to a particular site, so stay in place and won’t move over with any content you transfer.

Because retention labels apply at a file level, it allows businesses flexibility and control when it comes to retaining certain data. At Valto, we offer a complete security audit in which our team will make recommendations for automatically applying labels, depending on the type of information and your particular industry.

Some of the best uses of retention labels include:

• Setting a deletion date for time-sensitive information and choosing when to start the retention or deletion period – for example when an employee leaves the business or when a particular arm of the business is closed
• Applying labels automatically to certain content if it contains certain criteria – for example credit card numbers, financial details, medical records or other sensitive data
• Setting a set retention limit that starts from when the document or file was labelled, for easy GDPR control
• Using a ‘default’ retention label setting to an entire location, so that each file within is treated with the same retention period, and can be migrated