Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management - Retention Policy vs. Retention Label

Question

Hello MS Community!

I have a question regarding how Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management works with retention policy vs. retention labels.

We currently have a DLM policy that is applied to all exchange, sharepoint, and OneDrive accounts that states to keep everything, everywhere, forever. This isn't sustainable and is driving storage costs up so the plan was to replace the org wide retention policy that states to keep everything forever, with a retention policy that states to retain all items in these locations for 30 years and delete automatically after. We would like to supplement this policy with retention labels based on different document types for different retention periods, all followed by a disposition so we could have these documents reviewed before being permanently deleted.

The question is if we have a retention POLICY that states to keep everything in these locations for 30 years but we have a retention LABEL that states to retain a specific item in one of these locations for 1 year.... what takes precedence?

Given the item has both the 30 year retention policy AND a retention label that states to keep for one year and then go into disposition - what happens after 1 year, does the item go into disposition because of the label or will it not do anything until the 30 years has passed?

I found the documentation on this issue a bit confusing, if someone could provide confirmation on what would actually happen in this scenario that would be greatly appreciated, thank you!!

Answer 1

Hello Tyler Page, in your scenario, where you have a retention policy that retains items for 30 years and a retention label that retains specific items for 1 year, the retention label will take precedence over the retention policy for those specific items. This means that after 1 year, the item will follow the retention label's instructions and go into disposition for review before being permanently deleted. In summary, the retention policies apply broadly to all items within specified locations while retention labels apply to individual items and can override retention policies for those items.

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