PURVIEW RETENTION LABELS CAN SEND DOCUMENTS TO ARCHIVE
audience: Information management advisors, Platform manager, Solutions designer
author: Jonathan Stuckey
short-read summary, plus guidance.
Here is the lead...
Retention labels now have the option to automatically trigger a move to Archive storage. Yep, a label can retain a document for x-years, but after specific period (say 3yrs), it can move that old-stuff out of the way into Archive.
So why is this important? Well... lets see:
it reduces dependency on (expensive) SharePoint storage - reducing my cost overhead when I hit the capacity ceiling;
it removes inactive or inappropriate content out of current search index (and results)
because of (2) it also removes items from Copilot and AI's grubby little mitts
therefore reducing the risk of ROT in your AI enablement!
Frankly this is an 'about time!' moment for anyone who had to struggle with cost of storage and content lifecycle management in M365 and SharePoint for last 15 years.
Now, you do have to do a couple of things in order to take advantage of this facility. Specifically your tenancy needs to be setup for PAYG billing, and attached to an Azure subscription. This is because the Archive service uses a charge-back to a billing subscription when items are moved to the service.
What's involved in enabling the integration?
Strap-in, this is where we go down the rabbit hole on some detail...
Enable the billing
To enable this handy bit of automation for storage and cost management you'll have to break-out your wallet and bank details, because you need to:
make sure you have the required roles for setup, including "Billing Administrator" role - or Global Admin;
go to Settings > Org Settings > Pay-as-you-go | M365 admin and check status of billing for Syntex services e.g. Autofill, document processing etc. this includes cost-management for Microsoft Archive, and Microsoft Backup services.
get details of your existing Azure subscription and the associated Resource Group, or create one under Azure Cost Management,
under 'Billing' tab click-to-connect the service to policy and Activate it for use, by connecting to the Azure Subscription, select your Azure Resource Group and nominate the region you are in
e.g.
example: payg billing configuration
...at this point you can now setup the Archive services!
To enable the Microsoft Archive service for use, stay in the PAYG services panel:
switch tabs to 'Settings', and click on 'Storage' for Archive and Backup options.
Click on Archive and ensure 'Status' switch is on, and the message indicates the update to how pay-as-you-go billing works:
Navigate to your SharePoint Admin to access the new Archive functionality and views
Site and content lifecycle automation
In a more useful case of automation, we can also strap-on Archiving as an action post checks and minimum inactive period of a site (or a team). What that means if we have inactive, unused or historic content we can:
check who (if anyone) still needs it if not touched for say, 6-months,
we can then run the site for extended period in Read-only, and then
automatically drop it into (low-cost, out-of-scope for AI) Archive storage for next period
...and then we could tie-in a disposal :)
The following is available if you have SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) enabled
To do this you
You attach automatic Archive stage to a SAM 'Inactive site policy'...
Open SharePoint Admin > Policies > Site lifecycle management panel
Click on 'Inactive site policy' option
run 'Create policy' wizard to add a new policy
identify sites in scope (CSV or 'Select sites at scale'
configure options to identify which sites are checked
IMPORTANT: always ref. exclusions - e.g. your tenancy home, appcatalog, CDNs etc
Configure policy, select 'Take an enforcement' - you now have an Archive option
Linking Retention labels to other lifecycle actions
Finally your get to the real reason to read, the setup changes for Retention Labels. Fortunately this has had some thought behind it, and we can update pre-existing labels which may be in use.
Updates for existing labels can be a simple as re-editing to see the new option check-box:
Navigate to Purview Data Lifecycle Management, and select labels (https://purview.microsoft.com/datalifecyclemanagement/labels)
Select the label to update (or click 'Create a label' from toolbar)
In the wizard check (or complete) details on the label home, click 'Next'
In 'Define label settings' screen
if existing label you can't change this - just click next;
if new label you have to select either 'Retain items forever...', or 'Enforce actions..'
In 'Define the retention period' screen we have 'Archive retained items..' box - tick:
Now select period after which to archive e.g. 5yrs, and
define 'Start the archive period based on' - toggle for options - just like retention period
Select Next, and proceed through rest of the wizard as normal for a label.
When done click 'Create label' for new label, or 'Edit label' for applying the updates.
And no, I don't understand why they use 'Edit label' for indicating save changes either
Points to remember:
As with anything from Microsoft there are some background gotchas and frustrations:
the Purview UI experience when creating or updating labels is 'One-at-a-time', and is laborious because the wizard and UI is phenomenally slow to respond;
changes to the labels may be recognised in 1 - 24 hours, but not actually distributed until full distribution policy re-runs. That can take up to 7-days to be processed.
sometimes updates to Retention labels do not deploy properly after saving. It is best to check the distribution policy status after committing changes.
Close
Somethings in the Purview and M365 platform have been made just too niche or overly complex to be useful. If you want a hand understanding what, why and how to apply these capabilities - give me a call.
References
Acknowledgement
Generative AI has been used in this article to: clean-up and review of article copy (spelling, grammar, tone), the creation of the article images, and QA review prior to publishing. Tools used: Wix Photo Studio AI Image Creator tool, Microsoft 365 Copilot for reference research. The article topic and written copy, ideas and visual imagery, key discussion points, frustrations and similes were created by the author based on personal experience and interactions with customers and business professionals. Any errors or issues with the content in this article are entirely the author's responsibility.
About the author: Jonathan Stuckey
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