Messaging records management (MRM) includes retention tags and retention policies in Exchange Server and Exchange Online. These have traditionally been used to manage the life cycle of emails stored in mailboxes.
The following features are part of MRM:
- Retention policies: These are utilized to apply sets of retention tags to standard user mailboxes.
- Retention policy tags (RPTs): These are utilized on default folders, for example, Deleted Items, which have a standard setting of 30 days delete.
- Default policy tags (DPTs): These manage the retention of all untagged items in a mailbox, for example, the Default 2-year move to archive setting.
- Personal tags: These manage custom folders and separate items that are assigned by standard users.
All mailboxes are assigned an MRM retention policy, which is named Default MRM Policy as standard.
How to create a new retention tag
Administrators can use the Exchange admin center or Exchange Online PowerShell to create tags, amend existing policies, and assign them to mailboxes.
The following lab exercise will go through the steps to create a new retention tag in the Exchange Admin Center (EAC):
- Browse to the Exchange Admin Center at https://outlook.office365.com/ecp and sign in with an account that has Exchange Administrator permissions.
- Click on compliance management and then retention tags from the top windowpane:
Figure 11.11 – Exchange Admin Center retention tags
3. Click on the + button and then choose one of the following three options:
- Applied automatically to entire mailbox (default)
- Applied automatically to default folder
- Applied by users to items and folders (personal)
In our example, we will click on Applied automatically to entire mailbox (default):
- Type in a Name for the new tag and select the relevant Retention action and Retention period:
Figure 11.12 – New retention tag
2. Click on Save when all the relevant information has been inserted into the retention tag.
3. Click OK in the Information window.
Enter the following cmdlet in an elevated Exchange Online PowerShell window to perform the same actions:
New-RetentionPolicyTag <tag name> -Type Personal -Comment <tag comment> -RetentionEnabled $true -AgeLimitForRetention 2556 -RetentionAction PermanentlyDelete
<tag name> should be the name you want to give the retention tag and <tag comment> should be any relevant comment you wish to have on the retention tag. As you can see in the cmdlet, this will create a new policy tag that users can utilize for tagging emails that are removed after 2,556 days (7 years) from the mailbox.