Security & Compliance Labels - Still Not Working

[Craig Greenslade]

I raised a query last year with the Data Governance team about Labels not working correctly.  I also note that others have raised issues with this feature not working correctly. (New Labels feature does not work)

With GDPR laws coming into force in the UK very soon, I need to implement retention and deletion policies as a matter of urgency.  However it still appears that the released functionality still does not work as intended.

For my current issue, I have create a Label to retain content (not marked as a record).  I have applied this Label Policy and associated label to my SharePoint Online library.  I am unable to delete documents with the label applied.  My understanding is that the item should appear to be deleted but moved to the Preservation Library.  It appears that the Preservation Library is not created.

Would it be possible to receive clarification on this functionality and when this will work as expected?

It is critical that we (all European users) are able to apply Labels in a simple, transparent and non-obstructive way.  Given that GDPR comes into force at the end of May I am concerned that we do not have the tools to implement proper procedures within O365.

[#2]

yes, that's correct. That's the current situation and part of the confusion.

[#3]

Still seeing the same here.

[#4]

I have basically been told that they are planning to change the documentation, not fix the product.  Not the result I was hoping for.

[#5]

Wow, that's not good. Have you been speaking with 365 support, or with Premier?

[#6]

That's such a shame.  There's no documentation to fix because that's not the root cause of the problem - they need to work out what the consistent implementation should be.  They also need to urgently resolve the issue where someone can delete a group containing records that *can't* be deleted. 

[#7]

I'm in touch with a "Office 365 Modern Support Ambassador" who is relaying to the devs.  The line seems to be that the products are working as intended, even though it is inconsistent between OneDrive and SharePoint. 

They are aware of this thread also, so please continue to add your comments as I have hope that will be heard.

[#8]

OK great.  Whilst it sounds really harsh of me, I'd take what you've been told with a pinch of salt.  We need to get our views to a product/program manager who makes the decisions on how this stuff works.  So I'm hopeful, as you are, that the relevant folks get to see this thread.

[#9]

The inconsistency is crazy and I can't really see a reason why the preservation hold library isn't also used in SharePoint sites as well as OneDrive. Strange design decision but ok.

You really can't have a position where it is possible to delete content which is under hold though. Pretty much show stopping. It will be interesting to see how much of this if anything changes with the MIP / unified labels stuff coming through.

[#10]

Agreed. It feels like there are multiple teams working on similar things but completely independently.

I'm not looking forward to explaining to my organisation why I can't implement the retention/deletion policies as the product I was promised by Microsoft does not deliver.

[#11]

While reviewing my label policies today the instructions within the Compliance Centre still state:

"If users modify or delete the content, we'll keep a copy of it in a secure location so you can get to it if you need to."

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@Craig Greenslade wrote:
Agreed. It feels like there are multiple teams working on similar things but completely independently.

I'm not looking forward to explaining to my organisation why I can't implement the retention/deletion policies as the product I was promised by Microsoft does not deliver.

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[#12]

I've been doing a bit more testing around the deletion of groups in order to demonstrate the issue and have discovered that in my own test tenants it would appear that the deletion of groups only actually remove the SharePoint site if the user doing the deletion is a tenant admin.

Normal group owner can "delete" the group but the SharePoint site hangs around if content has a record label applied to it.

I think previously I was doing it as my own tenant admin account. It still isn't ideal, is different to the preservation hold library where even tenant admins can not do this and still shouldn't allow deletion of records full stop. The scale of the issue is not quite as show-stopping though.

[#13]

We seem to be getting nowhere fast with support - but I would encourage everyone to vote on this relevant uservoice - https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/289138-office-365-security-compliance/suggestions/34687639-of...