Forum Discussion

Holger Axelgaard's avatar
Holger Axelgaard
Copper Contributor
May 10, 2017

Data retention departed users

Hi!
As a part of our internal departed users policy, we want to make sure their data (onedrive and exchange) is kept for a period of time after their departing (5 years). 
Up until now, we have followed the MS recommendation of creating a litigation hold and placing the departed users in this hold, to retain their mailbox data after disabling them. 
However, MS has now launched the Security and Compliance center, where is possible to create a retention policy for all data, including mailbox and onedrive. So i have created a retention policy that saves all data forever (just as a test). 
Does this also work for disabled and deleted users? Can i discard my old procedure of putting the departed users on litigation hold before deletion/disableing? Or should i still follow that procedure to make sure i dont lose any data? 

 

Thanks for your reply. 

ediscovery
office 365
security

1 Reply

  • VasilMichev's avatar
    VasilMichev
    MVP
    May 10, 2017

    Deletion and disabling are two very different operations and have different effects here. If you put a user on hold and delete it, the associated mailbox is converted to Inactive mailbox and preserved for the duration of the hold. Said mailbox is now not visible in the GAL, cannot receive mail and can only be accessed by admin tools. For any other scenario (such as you disable the account and remove the license), you end up with mailbox in error state, that is kept because of the litigation hold. It can still receive mail, is visible in the GAL and so on.

     

    But to answer the question, yes the SCC functionality can also work, it's all hold based underneath.