Forum Discussion
Using Office 365 retention policies with Office 365 Groups
1. The only data covered by retention policies assigned to Office 365 Groups are the conversations in the group mailbox and the documents in the site belonging to the groups.
2. You need separate policies to cover other SharePoint sites (not connected to groups). Likewise, you need separate policies to deal with Teams chat and channel conversations.
3. The same policy can cover Office 365 Groups (Microsoft 365 Groups) and SharePoint. It can't cover Teams.
All documented to the nth degree in the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook...
TonyRedmond Apologies for resurrecting this from so long ago - but I'm seeing behaviour in multiple tenants that leads me to question whether that is still the case.
Namely - that a retention policy applied only to a single Microsoft 365 group (and not applied to any SharePoint sites)...
...appears to block deletion of the group connected SharePoint site:
The behaviour when trying to delete non-empty folders from the SharePoint site also indicates a retention policy is in effect:
I will raise through the normal support channels, but if you are able to impart any wisdom, I would be grateful!
- The simple answer is that the retention policy applied to Microsoft 365 Groups covers the group mailbox and the SharePoint Online site (see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/solutions/groups-teams-compliance-governance?view=o365-worldwide#information-retention). What you're seeing is as expected. The retention policies applied to SharePoint sites are for non-group connected sites.
- Thanks Tony - so based on your points mentioned in 2020, the behaviour has changed - you no longer need a separate policy to cover the group connected SharePoint site.
- I think it's fair to say that a certain amount of confusion existed in this space. It's clear now. The penny dropped for me when a bunch of SPO sites were retained long after their group disappeared. You live and learn, which is why we republish the Office 365 for IT Pros book every month.