Purpose of Records Management in Office 365

Purpose of Records Management in Office 365

Records management in Office 365 is crucial for organizations that need to manage and retain important information, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and maintain records for legal, audit, and business continuity purposes.

Office 365’s Records Management capabilities help organizations classify, retain, and eventually dispose of information in a structured way. This helps maintain control over sensitive data and meet compliance and governance requirements.

Key Purposes:

  1. Retention: Ensuring that documents, emails, and other content are retained for a specific period to meet legal, regulatory, or business needs.
  2. Classification: Classifying content based on its importance and relevance to the organization’s record-keeping policies.
  3. Protection: Ensuring that records are not tampered with or deleted prematurely.
  4. Compliance: Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and more.
  5. Disposal: Securely deleting content that is no longer needed or is past its retention period, reducing risks of data breaches or non-compliance.

In Office 365, Records Management is integrated into the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center, where administrators can create, manage, and enforce policies related to data retention, classification, and disposal.

Step-by-Step Process for Setting Up Records Management in Office 365

Step 1: Access the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center

  1. Log in to your Microsoft 365 Admin Center with an account that has appropriate administrator privileges (Global Administrator, Compliance Administrator).
  2. From the admin center, navigate to the Compliance Center. You can also directly go to the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center by visiting https://compliance.microsoft.com.
  3. On the left pane, under Solutions, select Records Management.

Step 2: Plan Your Records Management Strategy

Before you start configuring settings in Office 365, you should plan your records management strategy. This will help you define:

  • Which content needs to be retained (emails, documents, metadata, etc.)
  • Retention periods for each type of content (e.g., retain emails for 5 years, documents for 7 years)
  • Security policies to ensure compliance
  • Disposition policies for when to delete content
  • What type of classification is needed (manual or automatic)

Key Considerations:

  • Which content should be classified as a record?
  • What are the retention requirements based on legal, regulatory, or organizational needs?
  • Who should be able to manage or access the records?

Step 3: Create Retention Policies

Retention policies are used to define how long content should be retained and what happens to it once the retention period ends.

  1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center.
  2. On the left pane, select Information governance.
  3. Under Information governance, select Retention.
  4. Click on the + Create retention policy to start the process.
  5. In the Create a retention policy wizard:
    • Name the Policy: Give the policy a clear name (e.g., “Email Retention Policy”).
    • Choose the Retention Type: You can choose to retain content for a specific period, delete it after a certain time, or set a combination.
      • Retain items for a specific period: Choose this if you need to keep content for a legal or business requirement.
      • Delete items after a certain period: Choose this if content should be deleted after a set retention period.
      • Do nothing: Choose if you want to leave content untouched.
    • Choose the retention period: Set the time period (e.g., 5 years, 7 years, etc.).
    • Choose the scope: Apply the retention policy to:
      • Exchange email,
      • SharePoint sites,
      • OneDrive accounts,
      • Microsoft Teams chats and channels, etc.
  6. Choose what happens at the end of the retention period: Decide if the content should be deleted or moved to another location.
  7. Review and Save: Review the policy settings and save the policy.

The retention policy will now apply to the content as per the selected scope.

Step 4: Set Up Record Declaration

A record is defined as content that cannot be modified or deleted because it has legal, regulatory, or business value. You can declare records manually or automatically.

  1. Automatic Declaration: You can configure a labeling policy to automatically declare certain content as records. Labels can be applied to content, including emails, documents, or SharePoint files.
    • Go to the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center.
    • Under Information governance, select Labels.
    • Click on + Create a label to create a retention label that can be applied to documents or emails, marking them as a record.
    • During label creation, select Declare as Record as part of the label configuration.
  2. Manual Declaration: Users can also manually declare records.
    • Select the file or document you want to declare as a record.
    • In SharePoint, OneDrive, or Outlook, go to the file properties and choose the option to Declare Record.

Step 5: Implement Content Types and Metadata (Optional)

To better manage your records, you can use content types and metadata. This helps you classify and tag content according to your records management policies.

  1. Content Types: A content type defines the template for a particular kind of content, including document types (e.g., contracts, invoices). Content types are helpful for categorizing and applying retention policies to specific types of records.
    • Go to the SharePoint Admin Center and navigate to Content Types.
    • Create or modify existing content types to match your records management strategy.
  2. Metadata: Metadata allows you to label and categorize documents. You can add metadata fields to your SharePoint libraries and use these fields to classify documents.
    • In SharePoint, go to the Document Library and modify the library settings to add metadata columns (e.g., Record Type, Retention Category).

Step 6: Enable Audit Logging (Optional)

Audit logging allows you to track user actions on records, providing transparency and accountability.

  1. In the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center, go to Audit.
  2. Enable Audit Logging for your organization. This will allow you to monitor and track who is viewing, editing, or deleting records, and other actions.

You can search for specific events like:

  • Access or modification of a record.
  • Deletion or retention of a record.
  • User activities that affect retention policies.

Step 7: Set Up Disposition Review (Optional)

Disposition review allows you to review records before they are deleted or disposed of after their retention period ends. This ensures compliance and reduces the risk of accidental or unauthorized deletions.

  1. Go to the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center.
  2. Under Information governance, select Disposition Reviews.
  3. Click + Create disposition review.
  4. Configure the review period, specify who will be notified about items pending disposal, and set up a process for reviewing records.

Step 8: Monitor and Manage Records

Once you’ve set up your records management policies, it’s important to continually monitor and manage your records. You can use the following tools:

  1. Compliance Center Dashboards: To get an overview of your records management status, including policy enforcement, retention, and disposition activities.
  2. Alerts and Notifications: Configure alerts to notify administrators about policy violations or pending disposition actions.
  3. Audit Reports: Generate reports to review the actions taken on records, ensuring they’re being managed according to your policies.

Conclusion

By setting up Records Management in Office 365, you ensure that your organization can manage and protect critical information for compliance, legal, and business purposes. With the built-in tools and policies in Microsoft 365 Compliance Center, you can create retention policies, classify content as records, and automate processes to ensure data is retained for the required period and properly disposed of when no longer needed. This process helps mitigate risks, ensures compliance with various regulations, and improves information governance across your organization.

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