Forum Discussion
Best Practice - Retaining Mailboxes Exchange Online
TonyRedmond Have you heard of large organizations placing all mailboxes on litigation hold and enable auto-archiving on all mailboxes as to avoid issue with mailboxes reaching max capacity? Pros/cons?
What i have been following in my current organization and recommending other Partners/Clients too is below -
1. Have a Retention Hold Policy - SecurityCenter < Data Governance < Retention < New Policy - All Mailboxes. (define max timeline as per your requirement)
This ensures all my current and future mailboxes have there data retained for as long as i want (defined in retention policy). It is easy to recover data, if user returns or for legal/compliance need by simply using the E-Discovery search(EXO)/Content Search (SCC).
2. Actions we take when a user leaves the organization - (don't convert to Shared Mailbox) we now have Licensing Must for bigger sized shared mailboxes in Office 365 and if your user happens to be carrying tons of data in there Primary &/or Online Archive. Always remember, Shared Mailbox are Active Users too and without license if size exceeds more than 50 GB then there are problems !!
Once user leaves -
a. Block Sign in (Set-msoluser upn -blockedcredential $true)
b. Setup Delegate access to Manager or replacement (if needed be, and you cant setup delegation on inactive/soft deleted mailbox if msol id is deleted or purged)
c. Setup forwarding (if needed and also block receive/send limit (Set-mailbox -maxsendsize -maxreceivesize )
d. Delete Msol account ( Remove-msoluser ) - soft delete (auto purges after 30 days)
Because mailbox is under retention hold ( SCC Retention Policy) you dont need place separate holds (in-place, litigation) and can recover/restore data to another mailbox or PST using content search.
Hope that answers your question/queries.
Cheers !
Ankit Shukla