Scenario 2 “Official” Answer
Disclaimer: This is my answer, not endorsed by Microsoft, which is why I put quotes around “Official”. 🙂 To provide you confidence in my answers, I’ve tested this scenario end-to-end in a SharePoint Online site in the past month to validate all results.
SCENARIO:
A retention policy is configured to retain content for 1 year past created date then delete and is published to a SharePoint Online site.
A retention label is configured to retain content 6 months past created date, and then delete. It is published to the same SharePoint Online site as above, and applied to 3 documents on the site.
If you haven’t had a chance to respond to the anonymous survey yet, why not fill it out now and check your answers against mine? Link to form: https://joannecklein.com/Scenario2
Please refer to my Principles of Retention in Microsoft 365 post for an explanation of how to use the Principles of Retention levels when determining the retention/deletion outcome for each piece of content.
Here are the principles for your reference:
Scenario Questions and Answers
Refer to this Microsoft documentation to support my answers:
Based on the scenario, what is the lifecycle of LABELED documents in the SharePoint site?
Answer: The 3 labeled documents will be retained for 1 year past the created date and then automatically deleted (the same as unlabeled documents on the site). At the end of the retention period (1 year), they will be automatically deleted and will go into the first-stage recycle bin where they will follow normal recycle-bin processing.
Explanation: In this scenario, there are 2 retention mechanisms in effect for labeled documents on the site: the retention policy and the retention label. Start the Principles of Retention comparison at Level 1 and compare the 2 retention mechanisms. They both retain content so they are tied at LEVEL 1; we must proceed to LEVEL 2 to see if we can “break the tie”. The retention policy has a longer retention period than the retention label, so LEVEL 2, “Longest retention period wins”, is won by the retention policy. The Principles of Retention comparisons stop.
Note: You are prevented from deleting labeled documents in SharePoint if the retention label has a retention component. **There is a change rolling out in August 2021 to change this behavior. The change will allow users to delete a labeled document set to “retain items for a specific period”; however it will be preserved in the Preservation Hold library until the specified period expires, which in this case is 1 year past created date. (MC264360)
Based on the scenario, what is the lifecycle of UNLABELED documents in the SharePoint site?
Answer: All unlabeled documents are retained for 1 year past created date and then automatically deleted. Once deleted, they go into the first-stage recycle bin where they will follow normal recycle-bin processing. Their retention is no different than labeled documents on the site.
Explanation: There is 1 retention mechanism in effect for unlabeled documents: the retention policy. Starting at LEVEL 1 of the Principles of Retention, it wins at that level.
Note: You are allowed to delete unlabeled documents prior to the retention policy retention period (1 year past created date); however, they are retained in the Preservation Hold Library on the site if you do. Once the retention period has passed, items in the Preservation Hold Library will be deleted and will go to the second-stage recycle bin and follow normal recycle-bin processing.
Based on the scenario, for LABELED documents on the SharePoint site, what principle “wins” in the Principles of Retention?
Answers from 14 anonymous respondents are below. You can see there was a wide variety of responses:
Answer: Level 2.
Explanation: Since both the retention policy and the retention label have a retention component to them and are applied to labeled documents; the comparison is a tie at LEVEL 1. Advancing to LEVEL 2, the one with the longest retention period wins for labeled documents – the retention policy.
Based on the scenario, for UNLABELED documents on the SharePoint site, what principle “wins” in the Principles of Retention?
Answers from 14 anonymous respondents are below. You can see there was a wide variety of responses:
Answer: Level 1.
Explanation: The “comparison” stops at LEVEL 1 because there’s a “winner” at the level. You could argue that “Not applicable” is also correct since technically there is no comparison required with only 1 retention mechanism in effect for unlabeled documents. Since that wasn’t an option… LEVEL 1 is the correct answer. 🙂
Thanks for joining in my anonymous challenge! Answer 3 post coming soon… 🙂
-JCK