Welcome, IT professionals! Our five-part series on Microsoft Purview retention policies guides you through managing data in Microsoft 365. Part one introduced retention policies for automated data retention and deletion. Part two covered Exchange and Teams communications, and part three addressed SharePoint and OneDrive documents. Now, part four explores advanced features for IT admins and compliance officers, focusing on standard retention policies that retain data for business or audit purposes, such as preserving emails or files for operational needs.
Why read on? This series builds a complete Purview compliance toolkit. This article discusses three advanced features—adaptive scopes, MRM clashes, and Administrative Units (AUs)—showing how they streamline retention management. Through relatable scenarios, we’ll highlight their benefits and challenges to enhance your retention strategy. Let’s dive in!
Advanced Retention Features
Organizations managing data across Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive need efficient solutions to retain critical files and communications for standard business or audit purposes, like keeping HR records or project emails. Three advanced Purview features—adaptive scopes, MRM migration, and AUs—simplify retention management and enhance audit readiness.
Adaptive Scopes vs. Specific OneDrive Workload Setups
Some organizations manually select OneDrive accounts for retention, such as targeting HR users’ accounts individually. This ensures precision by excluding temporary staff accounts. However, staff changes require constant updates. If a new employee joins, their files might be missed without manual policy adjustments, complicating retention efforts.
Adaptive scopes offer a dynamic solution. By targeting users based on attributes, like department or role, policies automatically include new employees’ OneDrive files. For example, a new HR staff member’s files are retained without manual intervention, ensuring consistent retention of employee records.
Benefits
Adapts to team changes without manual policy updates.
Simplifies management for growing or changing workforces.
Ensures consistent retention of critical files.
Challenges
Overbroad attributes, like including unrelated roles, may retain unnecessary data.
Requires careful attribute planning to avoid over-retention.
Best Uses
Dynamic teams with frequent staff changes.
Large organizations needing scalable retention for departments.
MRM Policies Clashing with Purview
Many organizations use legacy Messaging Records Management (MRM) in Exchange, which deletes emails in folders like “Inbox” after a set period. MRM excels at folder-specific cleanup but conflicts with Purview’s retention policies, risking deletion of critical emails, such as project communications needed for audits.
Prioritizing Purview unifies retention across Exchange, Teams, and SharePoint. For instance, emails and chats critical to business operations are preserved consistently, streamlining audit preparation.
Benefits
Unifies retention across workloads for consistent management.
Prevents accidental deletions of important communications.
Simplifies policy oversight with a single system.
Challenges
Auditing MRM tags to avoid conflicts requires initial effort.
Purview lacks MRM’s folder-level granularity without labels.
Best Uses
Organizations needing unified retention across platforms.
Teams transitioning to centralized retention for audits.
Administrative Units for Secure Delegation
Compliance teams often need to delegate retention management to department admins, like HR managing OneDrive retention. Without controls, admins might access unrelated data. AUs in Microsoft Entra ID scope access to specific users or groups, but scoped admins may struggle to coordinate with broader retention policies.
AUs enable secure delegation. For example, an HR admin can manage retention for HR OneDrive files, ensuring critical records are preserved without accessing other departments’ data. During audits, AUs scope auditors to relevant data, streamlining reviews.
Benefits
Limits admin access for enhanced data security.
Streamlines departmental audit processes.
Empowers teams to manage their retention policies.
Challenges
Scoped admins may miss broader policies, risking fragmentation.
Defining AUs requires precise user or group mapping.
Best Uses
Delegating retention to department leads, like HR or legal.
Large organizations needing segmented auditor access.
Localized retention management for specific teams.
Suggesting More Topics
These features spark ideas: combining sensitivity labels with retention, automating migrations, or managing multi-region retention? Share your challenges in the comments!
Conclusion
Part four highlights how adaptive scopes, MRM migration, and AUs streamline retention management for standard policies, like upgrading from a paper map to GPS. Having navigated retention challenges myself, I can say these features simplify compliance. How will you enhance your retention strategy? Explore adaptive scopes in Purview today! Join us next week for part five, your ultimate Purview roadmap.
References
Mastering Retention Policies in Microsoft Purview: https://intranetfromthetrenches.substack.com/p/mastering-retention-policies-in-microsoft-purview
Exchange & Teams Retention Policies in Purview: https://intranetfromthetrenches.substack.com/p/exchange-and-teams-retention-policies-in-purview
Retention Policies for SharePoint Online and OneDrive in Purview: https://intranetfromthetrenches.substack.com/p/retention-policies-for-sharepoint-online-and-onedrive-in-purview
8 Must-Know Best Practices for Mastering Retention in Microsoft Purview: https://intranetfromthetrenches.substack.com/p/8-must-know-best-practices-for-mastering-retention-in-microsoft-purview
Adaptive scopes in Microsoft Purview: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/purview-adaptive-scopes
Administrative units in Microsoft Purview: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/purview-admin-units
Connect to Security & Compliance PowerShell: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/exchange/connect-to-scc-powershell?view=exchange-ps
Use retention policies and retention labels instead of older features: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/retention?tabs=table-overriden#use-retention-policies-and-retention-labels-instead-of-older-features