Scenario 6 “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 and Exchange Online mailbox in the past month(s) to validate all results.
SCENARIO:
A retention policy is configured to delete content 1 year past created date and is published to a SharePoint Online site.
A retention label is configured to delete content 2 years past created date. 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/Scenario6
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 automatically deleted 2 years past the created date. At that time, they go into the first-stage recycle bin to follow normal recycle-bin processing.
An end-user is not prevented from deleting a labeled document anytime before 2 years. This is because there is no retention component in effect.
Explanation: In this scenario, there are 2 retention mechanisms in effect for labeled documents: the retention policy and the retention label, both having ONLY deletion components and no retention components. Using the Principles of Retention, we can stop at level 3 because a delete action from a retention label (explicit) always takes precedence over a delete action from any retention policy.
Based on the scenario, for LABELED documents on the SharePoint site, what principle “wins” in the Principles of Retention?
Answer from 1 anonymous respondent is below:
Answer: Level 3.
Explanation: Since both the retention policy and the retention label are in effect for labeled documents, we compare the settings of each against each other. Neither have a retention component to them, so we proceed to LEVEL 3. Since a retention label is considered explicit when deleting, it wins at LEVEL 3 – “Explicit wins over Implicit”.
Based on the scenario, what is the lifecycle of UNLABELED documents in the SharePoint site?
Answer: Unlabeled documents will be automatically deleted 1 year past the created date. They will go into the first-stage recycle bin and follow normal recycle bin processing. The Preservation Hold library does not come into play since there is no retention component in effect for them, only deletion. An end-user can delete an unlabeled document earlier than 1 year past the created date because there is no retention component in effect.
Explanation: Because the retention policy “wins” in the Principles of Retention for unlabeled documents, it determines the outcome for all content on the site and everything is automatically deleted 1 year past created date. There is no retention component in effect, only deletion. Since the retention policy was explicitly scoped to this SharePoint site, then Principles of Retention Level 3 wins for unlabeled documents.
Based on the scenario, for UNLABELED documents on the SharePoint site, what principle “wins” in the Principles of Retention?
Answer from 1 anonymous respondent is below:
Answer: Level 3.
Explanation: The retention policy is the only retention mechanism in effect, it only has a delete component, and the policy has been explicitly scoped to this SharePoint site, so we must proceed to LEVEL 3 in the Principles.
If instead the retention policy was scoped to ALL sites and mailboxes in the tenant, it would be considered implicit and Principles of Retention LEVEL 4 would win.
You could argue that “Not applicable” is also correct for this answer since technically there is no comparison required with only 1 retention mechanism in effect for unlabeled documents and emails.
Thanks for joining in my anonymous challenge! Hope you learned as much as I did! 🙂
-JCK