Modifying a retention policy
Policies can evolve over time by the addition or removal of
tags. The easiest way to modify a retention policy is to edit it with
EAC; the console will take care of all complexities involved in
selecting whatever tags you want to add to or remove from the policy
and then making sure that the tags are processed correctly. If you
want, you can do the same work with EMS, but this is not recommended
because great care must be taken to ensure that the retention tags are
written correctly into the policy.
Customizing retention policies for specific mailboxes
You can tailor the retention policy for a specific user by
assigning personal tags on a per-mailbox basis. You can do this only if
a retention policy already applies to the user’s mailbox. For example,
assume that you want to assign a new personal tag to a user so he can
mark an item to be moved into the archive after a year. You can do this
as follows:
Set-RetentionPolicyTag –Mailbox JSmith –OptionalInMailbox '5 Year Delete'
Exchange
adds the optional tag to the set of tags covered in the retention
policy that already applies to the mailbox and makes the expanded set
available the next time the user connects. Unfortunately, no cmdlet is
available to report whether a mailbox has been assigned optional tags.
If you examine a mailbox with Get-Mailbox, it tells you only whether a
retention policy is assigned. Therefore, if you want to change the list
of optional tags assigned to a mailbox, you have to write the complete
list with Set-RetentionPolicyTag. For example, to add a tag to the one
that has already been assigned, use this command:
Set-RetentionPolicyTag –Mailbox JSmith –OptionalInMailbox '5 Year Delete', '2 Year Delete'
EMS
doesn’t validate that the tags you assign to a mailbox will be
effective. For example, you can assign a new archive tag to a mailbox
that doesn’t have a personal archive. This is really a null operation
because neither Outlook Web App nor Outlook displays archive tags if
the mailbox doesn’t have a personal archive.
To remove all optional retention tags from a mailbox, set the list to $Null as follows:
Set-RetentionPolicyTag –Mailbox JSmith –OptionalInMailbox $Null
User interaction with retention policies
The
first evidence users see that their mailbox has been assigned a
retention policy is when retention information appears when they look
at messages. This information is based on the tag stamped on an item by
the MFA. Thirty days or so before an item’s retention period expires,
Outlook and Outlook Web App begin to inform users that they might want
to take action to preserve the item; otherwise, the MFA will process it
again and delete it or move it into the archive, depending on the
action required by policy. These warnings are visible when a message is
opened or shown in the message preview. Figure 13
shows how Outlook Web App advises that a message has five days before
it expires as the result of the retention policy tag placed on the
Inbox. The user now has the choice either to take action or to let the
message expire, in which case the MFA will process whatever action is
defined in the tag.
Users
have two options. First, they can move the item to a different folder
and so remove it from the influence of the retention policy tag that
applies to Inbox items. After it is moved, the item is governed by the
default policy tag defined in the retention policy that applies to the
mailbox, if one exists, or by an explicit tag that is applied to the
folder and therefore inherited by all items that are added to the
folder. If neither of these conditions exists, the item is left
untagged and is therefore not subject to processing by the MFA.
The
second option is to apply a personal tag to the item. Users can choose
from any of the personal tags defined in the retention policy applied
to their mailbox by right-clicking an item and then selecting the
personal tag to apply.
You won’t see the user interface for
retention policies unless a policy is applied to your mailbox and the
MFA has processed the mailbox to apply the retention policy. As part of
this process, the MFA creates a hidden folder-associated item (FAI) in
the user mailbox that clients use to populate the retention tag picker.
If the policy is subsequently updated with a new retention or archive
tag, the new tag will not be visible to clients until after the MFA
next processes the mailbox.
After a personal tag has been applied
to an item, the item is no longer subject to the provisions of either
the folder policy or the default policy because an explicit tag always
takes precedence over a tag placed on a folder. The personal tag also
remains with the item if it is moved to another folder or into the
personal archive. If users want to impose a different retention policy
on the item, they must replace the existing tag with a new personal tag.
