How can you determine if Purview Records Management Event has worked correctly?

Question

How can you determine if Purview Records Management Event has worked correctly?

jasmeeners 70

I have a purview event-based records label applied successfully to all documents in a sharepoint document library. I have created a purview records management event (of the same event type as the records label). The event shows that the distribution status is successful.

My assumption is that this event, will cause the expiration date of all related documents to be set (event date + retention period of records label). However, I am not sure how to confirm that this has been done successfully.

I have looked at the "compliance details" form, available on a document by document basis in sharepoint, but I don't see any information related to the event, event type, event date, or expiration date for the documents that should be affected. I do not see any reference in the documentation as to how to confirm this.

Does anyone know how I can confirm that the document has had its expiration date correctly set based on the event?

Ganesh Gurram 7,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-26T17:37:29.2433333+00:00
@jasmeeners

Thank you for the clarification! Setting the ComplianceAssetId alone does not trigger the retention period; it simply marks the item as eligible. The retention period only starts once a matching retention event has been created and successfully processed by Microsoft Purview.

How can I confirm that the document has been assigned a disposition date?

Microsoft Graph API - You can query the document’s metadata using the Graph API (beta) to check:

retentionLabel

retentionEventType

retentionTriggerDate

expirationDateTime

This is the most reliable way to confirm if the document's retention period has been triggered and what the resulting expiration date is.

Microsoft Purview Audit Logs - Run an audit log search for operations such as:

RetentionEventProcessed

RetentionLabelApplied

RetentionExpirationDateSet

This helps verify that the retention event has been processed for the target items.

PowerShell or PnP (Limited visibility): Using Get-PnPListItem, you might see internal fields such as ComplianceTag or RetentionExpirationDate, though this information is not always exposed in SharePoint.

Limitations - Currently, the SharePoint "Compliance Details" panel does not display the event-triggered expiration date or related metadata, so it's expected that you wouldn’t see this information there.

I hope this information helps.

Kindly consider upvoting the comment if the information provided is helpful. This can assist other community members in resolving similar issues.
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-05-26T18:14:29.39+00:00
thanks for the reply Ganesh.

I have checked extensively using pnp.powershell using get-pnplistitem and I have not been able to find any properties such as "rententionExpirationDate"

you mention that you can use Graph Api to determine "retentionEventType", "retentionTriggerDate" and "expirationDateTime". That is exactly what I am looking for.

Do you know which API call to use? Are you sure these properties are exposed? It seems odd that they wouldn't be exposed also in pnp.powershell. I will try.

ALSO

I see you mention that I can run a MICROSOFT Purview audit log search for operations such as:

RetentionEventProcessed

RetentionLabelApplied

RetentionExpirationDateSet

however, when I look at the list of available audit log activities, here

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/audit-log-activities?view=o365-worldwide

I do not see any of those operations mentioned.

so how would I go about searching on one of those operations?
Ganesh Gurram 7,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-27T19:24:24.2966667+00:00

@jasmeeners

Thanks for the follow up!

Graph API Availability - Properties like retentionEventType, retentionTriggerDate, and expirationDateTime are not currently exposed via the Microsoft Graph API, even in beta. Only basic metadata like complianceTag (label name) and isRecord are available.

I agree it's surprising these aren’t exposed, and this limitation is a known gap. Feedback to Microsoft via their feedback portal can help prioritize this.

Audit Logs - Activities like RetentionEventProcessed or RetentionExpirationDateSet are not available in Purview audit logs. You can audit when a label is applied (LabelApplied), and when an event is created or modified but not the impact on individual items.

While direct confirmation isn’t currently possible, here are some practical steps:

Use PowerShell (Get-PnPListItem) to verify that items have both the correct ComplianceTag and ComplianceAssetId.

Monitor the Dispositions dashboard in Purview to see if items appear when their retention ends.

Track dates manually, based on event date + retention period, for expected expiration.

I hope this helps.
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-05-28T13:42:41.7466667+00:00

thanks Ganesh.

The problem I am having is that the retention period may be YEARS. what if the disposition date hasn't been applied or applied incorrectly. An organization could assume that their documents are being tracked for disposition but they are actually not. There has to be a way to confirm that the event based disposition date has been set correctly? If not programatically is there a way to do this through the GUI?

I have looked at the "compliance details" form, but so far have not found any disposition date displayed for my documents affected by my events. The disposition date is displayed however for documents labelled with time-based record labels. I do not know if this is because of the way event based record labels are handled, or that none of my events have been processed correctly. Again, I get no feedback except for "distribution status: successful"

Do you know if the "compliance details" form should display the disposition date for any documents that have been labelled with event based retention labels and an event has been created that has targeted them?

I have been trying to get an answer to this conundrum for weeks!

thanks
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-05-30T13:28:43.2366667+00:00

Hi Shraddha , thanks for the clarification.

you can see that this is a significant problem. for example if your retention period is 5 years, and you assume your documents have correctly been tagged by your event but they actually haven't. you will assume that the document will be deleted in 5 years. in 5 years time you might lose track of this information and if the document might continue to reside in the system indefinitely. worse yet, this may apply to thousands of documents.

If it is not possible to verify that the documents have been successfully tagged, then I strongly recommend that this feature be added asap.
Shraddha Pore 525 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-03T15:03:39.0833333+00:00
Hi @jasmeeners, Thank you for your response. It's really interesting to answer your queries.

Since Microsoft Purview currently lacks a built-in way to confirm whether documents have been successfully tagged by event-based retention, I recommend the following internal process to maintain governance oversight:

After triggering a retention event:

Query Document Libraries: Use PowerShell, Microsoft Graph, or SharePoint search to identify all documents that:

Have the expected ComplianceAssetId,

Are labeled with the correct event-based retention label

Build an Audit Register: Capture a snapshot of the relevant documents in a structured format (CSV, Excel, or SharePoint List), including:

Document name or URL

The label applied

ComplianceAssetId value

Date the retention event was triggered

Retention duration (e.g. 5 years)

Calculated expected disposition date (event date + retention period)

Look for 'Label Event Date' Field: If your SharePoint library has the LabelEventDate column visible, check whether it has been populated. While not always reliable, it may be one of the few visible indicators that the retention period has started.

Store the Register: Archive the register securely. This will act as your baseline for future audits and help ensure nothing was missed or misconfigured.

Ongoing Monitoring (Quarterly or Semi-Annually): Establish a schedule to recheck tagged documents periodically: Confirm that the correct retention label is still applied Ensure the document hasn’t been altered or moved outside the retention scope Look for any documents that may have been excluded or misconfigured Update your register with any changes

This process ensures you have an internal system of record for documents expected to be dispositioned through event-based retention, even if Microsoft Purview doesn’t yet expose that status directly. you're right to not be satisfied with the current state. Assuming retention has started when it hasn’t been a governance blind spot that undermines trust in the entire retention system.

I am sharing you link to raise [feature request](https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/forum/9325d19e-0225-ec11-b6e6-000d3a4f07b8) to highlight the issue in Microsoft forum.

Please do not forget to click "UPVOTE the comment” and Yes wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members. If you have any other questions or still running into more issues, let me know in the comments and I would be happy to help you.
Shraddha Pore 525 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-04T12:10:41.24+00:00

Hi @jasmeeners, We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. In case if you have any resolution, please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others. Otherwise, will respond with more details and happy to help you.
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-06-06T20:47:55.69+00:00
HI Shraddha, thanks for the detailed response.

I can get some of this information about labelled documents but not all of it.

I can get:

Document name or URL --> I can get this

The label applied --> I can get this

ComplianceAssetId value --> I can get this (although I do not use it for my records managment events)

Date the retention event was triggered --> how do I determine this? it is not stored at the document (listitem) level. I do not know how to link a document to an event!

Retention duration (e.g. 5 years) --> I can get this based on the records label

Calculated expected disposition date (event date + retention period) --> I can't calculate this until I can determine which event is linked to my document!

the missing piece is how to determine which event is linked to the document. I am not sure how to do this.
Shraddha Pore 525 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-10T20:14:25.0633333+00:00
Hi @jasmeeners, Thank you for your response. Below is the Strategies to Determine the Event Trigger Date you can consider:

Utilize the Dispositions Dashboard: Once the retention period ends, the document will appear in the Dispositions dashboard in Microsoft Purview. By reviewing the disposition records, you can determine the disposition date, which indirectly indicates when the retention period concluded. While this doesn't provide the exact event trigger date, it can help you infer the timeframe during which the event occurred.

Monitor Activity Explorer: The Activity Explorer in Microsoft Purview logs various activities, including label applications and modifications. By filtering for activities related to the application of retention labels, you can identify when a label was applied to a document. While this doesn't directly indicate the event trigger date, it can provide insights into when the document became subject to retention policies.

Implement Custom Logging Mechanisms: To gain more precise control over event tracking, consider implementing custom logging mechanisms:

Automated Event Creation: Use tools like Power Automate or PowerShell to automate the creation of retention events. When an event is triggered, log the event details, including the event trigger date, in a centralized location such as a SharePoint list or a database.

Document-Level Metadata: Incorporate custom metadata fields in your document libraries to record the event trigger date. When a document is associated with a retention event, populate this field with the corresponding date.

By maintaining these records, you can establish a clear link between documents and their respective retention events, facilitating accurate tracking and management.

The event trigger date is not stored on the document (list item) metadata. Microsoft Purview does not update the document’s metadata with the actual event trigger date once the event-based retention period starts.

To track event trigger dates, you need to maintain an external record of retention events with their trigger dates and ComplianceAssetIds. Then you can link that event record to documents by matching ComplianceAssetIds and compute the expected disposition date as: Expected disposition date = Event trigger date + Retention period.

You must keep track of retention events separately to link events to documents. Without this linkage, calculating the disposition date per document is not possible.

Please do not forget to click "upvote the comment” and Yes wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.

Accepted answer

1 additional answer

Your answer

Ganesh Gurram 7,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-26T17:37:29.2433333+00:00

@jasmeeners

Thank you for the clarification! Setting the ComplianceAssetId alone does not trigger the retention period; it simply marks the item as eligible. The retention period only starts once a matching retention event has been created and successfully processed by Microsoft Purview.

How can I confirm that the document has been assigned a disposition date?

Microsoft Graph API - You can query the document’s metadata using the Graph API (beta) to check:

retentionLabel

retentionEventType

retentionTriggerDate

expirationDateTime

This is the most reliable way to confirm if the document's retention period has been triggered and what the resulting expiration date is.

Microsoft Purview Audit Logs - Run an audit log search for operations such as:

RetentionEventProcessed

RetentionLabelApplied

RetentionExpirationDateSet

This helps verify that the retention event has been processed for the target items.

PowerShell or PnP (Limited visibility): Using Get-PnPListItem, you might see internal fields such as ComplianceTag or RetentionExpirationDate, though this information is not always exposed in SharePoint.

Limitations - Currently, the SharePoint "Compliance Details" panel does not display the event-triggered expiration date or related metadata, so it's expected that you wouldn’t see this information there.

I hope this information helps.

Kindly consider upvoting the comment if the information provided is helpful. This can assist other community members in resolving similar issues.
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-05-26T18:14:29.39+00:00

thanks for the reply Ganesh.

I have checked extensively using pnp.powershell using get-pnplistitem and I have not been able to find any properties such as "rententionExpirationDate"

you mention that you can use Graph Api to determine "retentionEventType", "retentionTriggerDate" and "expirationDateTime". That is exactly what I am looking for.

Do you know which API call to use? Are you sure these properties are exposed? It seems odd that they wouldn't be exposed also in pnp.powershell. I will try.

ALSO

I see you mention that I can run a MICROSOFT Purview audit log search for operations such as:

RetentionEventProcessed

RetentionLabelApplied

RetentionExpirationDateSet

however, when I look at the list of available audit log activities, here

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/audit-log-activities?view=o365-worldwide

I do not see any of those operations mentioned.

so how would I go about searching on one of those operations?
Ganesh Gurram 7,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-05-27T19:24:24.2966667+00:00

@jasmeeners

Thanks for the follow up!

Graph API Availability - Properties like retentionEventType, retentionTriggerDate, and expirationDateTime are not currently exposed via the Microsoft Graph API, even in beta. Only basic metadata like complianceTag (label name) and isRecord are available.

I agree it's surprising these aren’t exposed, and this limitation is a known gap. Feedback to Microsoft via their feedback portal can help prioritize this.

Audit Logs - Activities like RetentionEventProcessed or RetentionExpirationDateSet are not available in Purview audit logs. You can audit when a label is applied (LabelApplied), and when an event is created or modified but not the impact on individual items.

While direct confirmation isn’t currently possible, here are some practical steps:

Use PowerShell (Get-PnPListItem) to verify that items have both the correct ComplianceTag and ComplianceAssetId.

Monitor the Dispositions dashboard in Purview to see if items appear when their retention ends.

Track dates manually, based on event date + retention period, for expected expiration.

I hope this helps.
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-05-28T13:42:41.7466667+00:00

thanks Ganesh.

The problem I am having is that the retention period may be YEARS. what if the disposition date hasn't been applied or applied incorrectly. An organization could assume that their documents are being tracked for disposition but they are actually not. There has to be a way to confirm that the event based disposition date has been set correctly? If not programatically is there a way to do this through the GUI?

I have looked at the "compliance details" form, but so far have not found any disposition date displayed for my documents affected by my events. The disposition date is displayed however for documents labelled with time-based record labels. I do not know if this is because of the way event based record labels are handled, or that none of my events have been processed correctly. Again, I get no feedback except for "distribution status: successful"

Do you know if the "compliance details" form should display the disposition date for any documents that have been labelled with event based retention labels and an event has been created that has targeted them?

I have been trying to get an answer to this conundrum for weeks!

thanks
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-05-30T13:28:43.2366667+00:00

Hi Shraddha , thanks for the clarification.

you can see that this is a significant problem. for example if your retention period is 5 years, and you assume your documents have correctly been tagged by your event but they actually haven't. you will assume that the document will be deleted in 5 years. in 5 years time you might lose track of this information and if the document might continue to reside in the system indefinitely. worse yet, this may apply to thousands of documents.

If it is not possible to verify that the documents have been successfully tagged, then I strongly recommend that this feature be added asap.
Shraddha Pore 525 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-04T12:10:41.24+00:00

Hi @jasmeeners, We haven’t heard from you on the last response and was just checking back to see if you have a resolution yet. In case if you have any resolution, please do share that same with the community as it can be helpful to others. Otherwise, will respond with more details and happy to help you.
jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-06-06T20:47:55.69+00:00

HI Shraddha, thanks for the detailed response.

I can get some of this information about labelled documents but not all of it.

I can get:

Document name or URL --> I can get this

The label applied --> I can get this

ComplianceAssetId value --> I can get this (although I do not use it for my records managment events)

Date the retention event was triggered --> how do I determine this? it is not stored at the document (listitem) level. I do not know how to link a document to an event!

Retention duration (e.g. 5 years) --> I can get this based on the records label

Calculated expected disposition date (event date + retention period) --> I can't calculate this until I can determine which event is linked to my document!

the missing piece is how to determine which event is linked to the document. I am not sure how to do this.

Answer 1

Hi @jasmeeners, Thank you for your response.

How Event-Based Retention Works in Microsoft Purview. When you set a ComplianceAssetId on a document, it doesn’t start the retention period by itself. It just marks the document as eligible for retention based on an event. The retention period actually begins only after a matching retention event is created and applied to the documents with that ComplianceAssetId.

How Event-Based Retention Works in Microsoft Purview. When you set a ComplianceAssetId on a document, it doesn’t start the retention period by itself. It just marks the document as eligible for retention based on an event. The retention period actually begins only after a matching retention event is created and applied to the documents with that ComplianceAssetId.
What You Can See in SharePoint for documents with event-based retention labels, SharePoint’s Compliance Details panel does not show the expiration or disposition date. This information only appears for documents with time-based retention labels.
What You Can See in Metadata or APIs. Using PowerShell or Microsoft Graph API, you can see the label applied (ComplianceTag) and the ComplianceAssetId. However, important details like the retention start date or expiration date are not available through these tools.
How to Confirm Retention Is Working. The only way to be sure that the retention period has started and the disposition date has been set is to wait until the retention period ends and then check the Dispositions dashboard in Microsoft Purview. If the document appears there, it means the retention event was applied correctly and the document is being tracked for disposition.

You can refer this Documentation

Shraddha Pore 525 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-06-06T15:28:17.3333333+00:00

Hi @jasmeeners, Please do not forget to click "Accept the answer” and Yes wherever the information provided helps you, this can be beneficial to other community members.

If you have any other questions or still running into more issues, let me know in the "comments" and I would be happy to help you

Answer 2

Vasil Michev 119.9K MVP Volunteer Moderator

You can run an eDiscovery/content search based on the ComplianceAssetID keyword and provide the value of the asset Id(s) in question. Once a given item is tagged with the corresponding asset Id, its retention period is triggered.

jasmeeners 70 Reputation points

2025-05-23T17:55:46.4066667+00:00

I don't believe that is correct. I have assigned a ComplianceAssetID for multiple documents, this does not trigger the retention period - it merely sets that meta data property value. If the document has an event based records label, then its retention period is not triggered until an event is created that targets that document. My question is how can I confirm that the document has been assigned a disposition date. I could do a search on ComplianceAssetID (I can do that using kql search in powershell), but what meta data can I check to see that the disposition date has been set or that the documents retention period has been triggered.

Share via

How can you determine if Purview Records Management Event has worked correctly?

1 additional answer

Your answer