Retention policies in Exchange and in O365 Compliance

Question

Hi
I few questions about these 2 types of retentions.

In Exchange (ECP) I have these 2 x retention policies:

And in Compliance I have the option to select Exchange again:

I don't have any retentions policies set, the above is just a test policy creation wizard page

And I have in-place archive on all my mailboxes as policy.

Questions are:

1. If I want to hold/retain Teams chat - either private or channel - do I need to configure the Compliance policy? Or is this held already as part of in-place archive?
2. In fact do I need to configure retentions for all areas at all?

I can retrieve teams chat from compliance since chats msg are stored in Exchange on a hidden folder.

Answer 1

This is an initiative to bring retention policies of all products at one place. The new Exchange Admin Center, doesn't have Microsoft 365 compliance center for Exchange security and compliance features. So, you may see the features in old admin center only. A single mechanism to centrally manage both retention and deletion of content across Microsoft 365 is a good idea going forward.

To answer the questions

1. If I want to hold/retain Teams chat - either private or channel - do I need to configure the Compliance policy? Or is this held already as part of in-place archive?
   Yes. You should create it separately as the compliance policy available at Exchange control panel is not used by Teams.
2. In fact do I need to configure retentions for all areas at all?
   It's a good idea to create policies for each product from the new interface. You can't use single policy created here for multiple products. So create separate policies for Teams and Exchange - retention

Answer 2

@Manu Philip @Joyce Shen - MSFT
That is a great reply, thank you!

To clarify:

• Should I create a retention policy for each product separately?
• Can I still keep the mailboxes on hold for 7 years (I think I set them) and still have the individual retention pols?

Thanks, M