This document summarizes a presentation on implementing retention in Office 365 using a crawl-walk-run approach. It discusses key concepts like retention labels, policies, and disposition reviews. It also outlines a staged approach starting with defining some key labels, then expanding to targeted labels and policies. Gaps in Office 365 retention capabilities and the roadmap for future improvements are also summarized.

1. CRAWL, WALK, RUN
A SOUND APPROACH FOR IMPLEMENTING OFFICE 365 RETENTION
A PRESENTATION BY JOANNE C KLEINOTTAWA SHAREPOINT UG 2019

2. Hi! I’m Joanne!
@JoanneCKlein
joannecklein@nexnovus.com
joannecklein.com
SharePoint & Office 365 consultant | Speaker | Trainer | Mentor | Saskatchewan SharePoint & Office 365 UG

3. AGENDA
• What is Crawl-Walk-Run?
• What is Advanced Data Governance?
• Staffing up for Retention
• Retention Labels and Retention Policies
• The Crawl-Walk-Run stages
• What are the Gaps?
• What’s on the Roadmap?

4. TWITTER
POLL# 1

5. TWITTER
POLL# 2

6. WHAT IS CRAWL-WALK-RUN?
“It’s a measured, gradual
approach to adopting
something new to generate
a high-degree of success,
allowing for incremental
improvements along the
way.”

7. THE CRAWL-WALK-RUN ADVANTAGE
Allows you to
start without
having it all
figured out
Allows for
incremental
improvements
Eases information
workers into the
world of retention
Some retention is
better than none

8. RETENTION AND
DATA GOVERNANCE
IN OFFICE 365

9. OFFICE 365 ADVANCED DATA GOVERNANCE
Microsoft started rolling out Advanced Data
Governance in April 2017 with its focus on a single
administrative interface and approach designed to
apply retention across ALL workloads.

10. DATA GOVERNANCE IS ACROSS ALL WORKLOADS
Exchange SharePoint
OneDrive for
Business
Teams Yammer
Sway
Skype for
Business
Yammer Planner
Anything inside Office 365 should be subject to the governance policy set by the
organization
…

11. LEAVE THE DATA IN PLACE!
• Leave data in its native repository instead of moving it elsewhere
• Integrate technologies across all Office 365 applications
eDiscovery can
be done in-place
Hardware/softwa
re costs reduced
‘Chain of custody’
easier to prove
Less opportunity
for security
breach

12. OFFICE 365 ADVANCED DATA GOVERNANCE
A “POLICY-DRIVEN” FRAMEWORK
• Import from other repositories into Office 365 so it can be managed consistently
• Enforce retention policies across all Office 365 workloads
• Delete data no longer needed thru policies across all Office 365 workloads
• Classify information while you work and automatically recognize the sensitivity of some
information
Import Retain Delete
Classif
y
Where does Advanced Data Governance fit into Microsoft’s Information

13. Microsoft Information Protection

14. STAFFING UP FOR RETENTION
• Compliance Officer
• Records Manager
• Retention Administrator
• Disposition Reviewers
• Data Stewards
• Training/Adoption expert

15. SECURITY & COMPLIANCE PERMISSIONS
• Reviewer – see documents assigned to them in eDiscovery
• Records Management – manage and dispose record content
• eDiscovery Manager – perform eDiscovery searches and place holds on content
• Compliance Administrator – create and manage retention policies, records
management, retention settings, manage settings for device management, etc.

16. RETENTION READINESS FOR OFFICE 365
• File Plan
• Regulatory Requirements
• Information Management Team Office 365 Retention
training
• How will the File Plan translate into Office 365
capabilities?
• Know how to use the tools and monitor its usage

17. WHAT IS A RETENTION LABEL?
Site
Document
library
Folder
Document
 Defined in Security & Compliance Center
 Retention Labels are published to a site making it available to
all lists and libraries on the site
 Document Libraries & Folders can have a DEFAULT retention
label
 End user can set a Retention Label at the document level
 Labels can make a document a ‘Record’
“Retain for 2 years, then delete”
“Retain for 7 years”
“Declare the document a record, retain forever”
“Delete if older than 3 years”

18. ADDING A RETENTION LABEL
1
2
3
4
For days, months, years OR forever
Delete automatically or disposition review
When it was created, last modified, labeled
OR an event
Make it a “Record”
1
2
3
4
You have one chance to get these settings

19. RETENTION LABELS: GOOD THINGS TO KNOW!
• Same permissions required as updating metadata
(Contribute)
• Moving a document from 1 folder to another will not
change the label
• Moving/copying a document into a library with a default
label will not set the label but ‘New’ and ‘Upload’ will
• End user can remove a label (unless it’s a record)
• You cannot make a label required
• You cannot default an entire site to a label
• SharePoint Search managed property is ComplianceTag

20. SEARCH FOR
WHERE A LABEL
WAS APPLIED
ACROSS ALL
WORKLOADS

21. END-USER EXPERIENCE WITH LABELS

22. LABELING A DOCUMENT AS A RECORD
The item can’t
be deleted.
The item can’t
be edited.
The label can’t
be changed.
The label can’t
be removed.

23. DEFINING YOUR RETENTION LABELS
Start with your
organization’s
File Plan
Decide on
Retention Labels
to fill out
Retention
strategy
Rationalize them
down to a
manageable
number
Validate each
label against 3
rules
Categorize your
labels into ‘Types’
 Serves a distinct purpose
 Has a name easily understood by information workers (validate them!)
 Has a place(s) where they should be stored

24. TYPES OF RETENTION
LABELS
THE CROWN JEWEL LABELS
Incorporation
Documents
Patents
Board Meeting
minutes
Contracts Budgets Policies

25. TYPES OF RETENTION
LABELS
BOILERPLATE LABELS
Business
Record
Work in
Progress
Team
Knowledge

26. TYPES OF
RETENTION
LABELS
TARGETED LABELS
Project
documents
Financial
Statements
Legal
Opinions

27. SharePoint
Exchange
OneDrive
Label Policy A
Location(s) to publish the labels
Budget Policy
Budget
Contract
Policy
Patent
Invoice
Label Policy B
Location(s) to publish the labels
Policy Patent Invoice
1
Office 365
Groups
Labels Locations
Include/exclude 1:n,
All
Include/exclude 1:n,
All
Include/exclude 1:n,
All
Include/exclude 1:n,
All
2

28. PUBLISHING A RETENTION LABEL
TO A LABEL POLICY
STEP 1: select the labels you want to publish

29. PUBLISHING A
RETENTION LABEL
• STEP 2: where do you want to
publish it?

30. DEMO
RETENTION
LABELS
“Business Record” label
“Team Knowledge” label
“Contract” label

31. TYPES OF RETENTION
LABELS
AUTO-APPLY LABELS
Credit Card
Customer #
Personal
Information
Custom Value

32. AUTO-APPLY LABELS
• Sensitive Information types
• Keyword query

33. AUTO-APPLY LABEL: GOOD THINGS TO KNOW!
• Auto-apply can take up to 7 days
to apply a label
• Auto-apply doesn’t work against
Exchange
• Auto-apply will NOT apply a
label deemed a “record”
• Cannot currently apply retention
based on SharePoint metadata
(but this is coming!)

34. DEMO
AUTO-APPLY
LABELS
“Ottawa SPUG” label
“Customer #” label

35. DISPOSITION REVIEW – WHAT IS THIS?
• Some regulations require this
• Configured per Retention label
• Weekly email sent to reviewers
• Individual
• Mail-enabled Security Group

36. DISPOSITION REVIEW
• Can do bulk approval
• Can export for a Certificate of Destruction

37. DISPOSITION
REVIEW:
GOOD
THINGS TO
KNOW…
• One approval level only
• In a group, if 1 person approves it, it’s approved
• Only configurable with a retention label

38. CATCH-ALL POLICIES
• Default Retention Policies
• “Container” model
• Works in the background
• Works alongside Retention labels
• Map Retention Policies to:
• Org-wide
• Select group of locations
• PowerShell: Site Templates

39. 2 KINDS OF POLICIES RELATING TO RETENTION!
• Label Policy
• Defined in Security & Compliance Ctr
• Associated with a retention label
• User sees it and can apply a label
• No extra library required
• Retention Policy
• Defined in Security & Compliance Ctr
• Not associated with a retention label
• User is unaware retention is applied
• Uses Preservation Hold Library on site
Both can be
published to the
same site at the
same time!

40. ADD A RETENTION POLICY
1
2
3
4
• days, months, years OR forever
• created, last modified
• Delete it automatically (**No disposition
review option!!)
• Auto-apply
1
2
3
4

41. PUBLISH A
RETENTION
POLICY
• Where do you
want to publish
it?

42. LIMITS OF
RETENTION
POLICIES
• Limit of 10 organization-wide retention policies per
tenant
• Exchange email: no more than 1000 included/excluded
mailboxes per retention policy
• SharePoint: cannot include/exclude more than 100 sites
• Groups: cannot include/exclude more than 100 Groups
• OneDrive: cannot include/exclude more than 1000
accounts

43. PRESERVATION HOLD LIBRARY
• Site Contents shows it as a “List”, but it’s a library
• Only Site Collection Admins can see it

44. EDISCOVERY SEARCH LOOKS IN THE
PRESERVATION HOLD LIBRARY

45. DEMO
RETENTION
POLICIES
“Top Secret Project” Retention Policy

46. TEAMS CHAT RETENTION
POLICY
• For legal/risk concerns
• If targeting a specific user, chats
will be removed out of that user’s
mailbox after the deletion period
but will remain in the other user’s
mailbox they were chatting with

47. ROT IN SHAREPOINT
Redundant Trivial Obsolete
How can we avoid the shared network drive
“ROT” in SharePoint?
Can we?

48. TIP TO GET RID OF ROT IN SHAREPOINT
Apply a Deletion Policy to
the site to delete content
‘X’ years after last
modified to remain
compliant with regulatory
requirements
01
Publish Retention labels
to the same SharePoint
site for information
workers to selectively
apply to content they
REALLY want to keep
02
Redundant Trivial Obsolete
RETENTION POLICY + LABEL POLICY

49. BLANKET ROT RETENTION POLICY + TEAM LABEL POLICY
One of these labels have been applied to a doc:
• Team Knowledge – keep for 7 years then review
• Business Record – keep forever, declare record
Delete docs 5 years after last modified UNLESS…
Redundant Trivial Obsolete

50. DEMO
ROT
PREVENTION
“Obsolete” Retention Policy

51. AN ITEM CAN COME UNDER RETENTION IN ONE
OF THESE WAYS:
• Directly assign a label to an item
• A location comes under the scope of an org-wide or non-org-wide retention
policy
• SharePoint site owner assigns a default label to a library
• An auto-apply label is assigned
Explicit assignment is always favored over an implicit
assignment

52. PRINCIPLES OF
RETENTION
• 2 retention options at the same
time?
• Document with a label
• Retention Policy on the site
Which retention option would apply?

53. PRINCIPLES OF RETENTION
Retention wins
over deletion
1
Longest retention
period wins
2
Explicit inclusion
wins over implicit
inclusion
3
Shortest deletion
period wins
4
Tie-breaking flow

54. PRINCIPLES OF RETENTION EXAMPLES
Document has a label
to retain for 5 years.
The site has a Retention
policy to retain all
content for 2 years…
• Documents would be kept
for a minimum of 5 years
01
Document library has a
default label to retain
for 5 years. An end-user
applied a label to a
document to retain for
4 years and delete….
Document would be kept for 4
years and deleted
02
Document has a label
to delete after 3 years.
The site has a Retention
policy to delete all
content after 2 years…
• Document would be deleted
after 3 years
03

55. TRAINING/ADOPTION… THE COMMON THREAD
ACROSS CRAWL-WALK-RUN
• The impact of retention on the
collaboration experience
• Make training part of each stage
• Get end-user feedback and adjust!

56. GOVERNANCE TRAINING CENTER
(RETENTION IS ONLY PART OF IT…)
• SharePoint Communication site
• Your organization’s Retention Labels – what do they mean in layman’s terms
• Include practical governance guidance:
• Why do we need retention? What’s the risk?
• How do I apply a label?
• Can I remove a label?
• What’s a record?
• Who’s my data steward?
Data Governance is everyone’s responsibility!

57. BACK TO CRAWL-WALK-RUN
What are the prerequisites?

58. PREREQUISITES
• Have Retention Labels defined
• Have Assigned roles in the Security & Compliance Center
• Have Governance Processes in place
• Have Governance Training Center in place
• Roll out org-wide information-worker data governance training
• Have Data Stewards trained across organization

59. CRAWL STAGE

60. A GOOD PLACE TO START…
• 2 or 3 Retention Labels (Crown Jewels)
• Controlled group of users
• Steps:
 Design Information Architecture
 Create and Publish Retention labels to select
workloads
 Build composite solutions to assist
 Train information workers
• Test out the Disposition Review process
Get
feedback
Monitor usage
Learn and
documen
t

61. WALK STAGE

62. WHAT CAN WE ADD IN THE WALK STAGE?
• All Crown Jewel labels
• Add Targeted labels
• Test with controlled group of users
Get
feedback
Monitor usage
Learn and
documen
t

63. RUN STAGE

64. WHAT CAN WE ADD IN THE RUN STAGE?
• Publish Boilerplate labels across sites
 You need to get these right!
• Auto-apply labels if you can
• Retention Policies to “blanket” cover your
content where it makes sense
• Data Governance in place to audit label
usage
Get
feedback
Monitor usage
Learn and
documen
t

65. WHAT ARE THE GAPS IN OFFICE 365 RETENTION?
No Multi-
stage
retention
01
Only 1 label
can be
applied at a
time
02
Disposition
review is not
multi-level
approval
03
Auto-apply is
search-based
so… not
immediate
04
E5 license
required for
advanced
capabilities
05
Multilingual
labels not
available
06

66. CAN OFFICE 365 MEET ALL OF YOUR
RETENTION NEEDS?
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

67. IMPORTANT
THINGS TO
CONSIDER
• Works against content stored only in Office 365
• Auto-apply can take up to 7 days to apply a label
• Auto-apply doesn’t work against Exchange
• Auto-apply will NOT apply a label deemed a “record”
• Cannot currently apply retention based on
SharePoint content types/metadata
• Cannot do a disposition review on content under a
retention policy
• Disposition review & Event-based retention require an
E5 license

68. PROS OF USING OFFICE 365 RETENTION CONTROLS
• Keep Office 365 content IN Office 365
• Allows you to protect and retain content from the moment of
creation
• End-users do not have to go to multiple locations for content
• eDiscovery, search can find it
• Tools like Delve, MyAnalytics, Search are more valuable when
data stays inside Office 365
• Apply consistent protection across ALL workloads
• Define retention control in one place, apply everywhere

69. MICROSOFT ISV’S HELP FILL THE GAP
• Either a stop-gap or permanent
integration with a 3rd-party
product
• My preference is if you’re going
to do this, integrate with a
product that allows information
to stay within Office 365 and
NOT move it elsewhere

70. RETENTION
ROADMAP
COMING
Q4 2018
SOON
Content
Types and
Metadata
Automatic application of retention
labels based on SharePoint content
types and metadata
File Plan Import, manage, and classify multiple
retention using Excel-based File Plan
formats
Immutable
labels
An irreversible label making it
unchangeable and undeletable

71. RETENTION
ROADMAP
COMING
“LATER”
Automatic policy based on classifications
Flow used to set labels and dispose of documents
Label explorer – Advanced Data Governance
Retention against Planner and Yammer

72. Thank you!
Questions?
@JoanneCKlein
joannecklein@nexnovus.com
joannecklein.com
SharePoint & Office 365 consultant | Speaker | Trainer | Mentor | Saskatchewan SharePoint & Office 365 UG