Forum Discussion
Retention Policies and SharePoint sites
The reason why you put Office 365 Groups on retention is to ensure that the content in all the resources owned by the group is kept for a certain period.
When a group passes 30 days post-deletion, the Azure Active Directory object that represents the group is removed. This effectively breaks the link that ties all the group resources together. At the same time, instructions go to the associated workloads (like SharePoint and Exchange) to say that the group no longer exists. The workloads then check whether any retention holds exist. If they do, the content is held until the hold elapses. If not, the content is removed using the workload's normal processing (for instance, the mailbox is cleaned up by the Exchange Mailbox Folder Assistant).
Content under retention can always be accessed by a content search and export.
Thanks, Adam.
I can see that sites belonging to teams that I have deleted are still present in the SPO Adminstration portal and it is marked with"This site has a compliance policy set to block deletion". But when I try to access such a site, I am denied access both a the owner and as admin (Global Administrator). So how do I gain access?
Thanks again.
One final question: If I am given the right permissions in the Security & Compliance Center and I need to restore a SharePoint site, will I have to do that vie eDiscovery or can I simply access the site using the url?
- Hmm! I’m a little confused here! Is the corresponding office 365 group still present? If the site is not deleted you should be able to access it! The retention just controls deletion
My point exactly!
Yes, the associated group is still present in Exchange Admin Center (marked as "Deleted").
The SharePoint site is still present in the SharePoint Admin Center in the Active sites list. It is not moved to the Deleted sites list (in the new Admin Center).