Enterprise Vault™ Managing Retention
About retention plans
Retention plans let you configure the following classification, retention, retention folders, and expiry criteria on an individual archive, or on a group of archives:
The retention category to associate with the retention plan.
The retention folders to create in archives to which the retention plan is assigned. (Currently only supported in Exchange Mailbox and Internet Mail archives.)
Whether to classify items using the Enterprise Vault classification feature.
If classification is used, the classification policy to apply to items.
When expiring items in the archive, whether to use the retention category that is specified for the retention plan or retention folders, or the existing retention categories that are applied to the items. The expiry options in the retention plan and retention folders are only available if you are not using classification, or you are using classification but the classification policy does not set the retention category.
Retention plans are applied at archive level. Applying a retention plan to an archive gives you greater control over the retention periods of the items in the archive. In particular, a retention plan lets you dispose of already-archived items by giving them a retention period that is different from the one that is currently assigned to them.
Retention folders let you control the retention and expiry of archived items at folder level within a user's archive. You use a retention plan to set up retention folders in a user's archive. The attributes that you set for each retention folder determine the retention and expiry settings that Enterprise Vault applies to the items in the folder. For example, you can create a folder that applies a retention category with a one-year retention period to the items, overriding the retention categories that Enterprise Vault has previously applied to them. The retention category selected for a retention folder overrides the retention category selected for the retention plan, the archive, site properties, or assigned using a feature such as Policy Manager (EVPM). Only a retention category that is set using classification can override the retention category on items in retention folders.
Using features such as Virtual Vault, Enterprise Vault Search, and IMAP, users can access the retention folders directly, and move items into or out of them.
You can also provide user access to the retention folders in Outlook by creating in the mailbox a hierarchy of folders that matches the retention folder hierarchy. The user can then file items in the retention folders by moving the items or shortcuts into the associated folders in Outlook.
For more information on retention folders, see "Working with retention categories and retention plans" in the Administrator's Guide.