Retention Policies

Configuring > Policies > Retention Policies

Retention Policies

Retention PoliciesA system that enables you to control for how long to keep specific emails in your archive stores. define the length of time that an archived item is kept within an Archive Store before it is deleted. For example, you can configure GFI Archiver to retain emails marked ‘Sales’ for two years while keeping emails marked as ‘Legal’ indefinitely.

GFI Archiver also provides you with the facility to temporarily suspend (hold) retention policies. This prevents archived items from being deleted. For example, you can hold retention policies until a court case is resolved. In this case, archived items are marked for deletion and deleted once the hold is switched off. For more information refer to Configuring Legal Hold.

Retroactive Retention is a feature that enables you to apply Retention policies created or modified after GFI Archiver has already stored an item in an archive store. For more information refer to Using Retroactive Retention.

How Are Retention Policies Applied?

Option	Description
When Retention Policies are already configured:	GFI Archiver checks item content against any existing retention policies at the time of archiving. Policies are applied according to priority. If the item matches the configured conditions, the retention policy is associated with the item. If the item does not match the highest priority retention policy, GFI Archiver checks against the next retention policy. This process is repeated until the item either matches a retention policy or there are no more retention policies.
When applying Retention Polices Retroactively:	When Retroactive Retention is run on demand, GFI Archiver checks the item content against configured retention policies, updating retention options assigned to an item after the item has been archived.

Option

Description

When Retention Policies are already configured:

GFI Archiver checks item content against any existing retention policies at the time of archiving. Policies are applied according to priority. If the item matches the configured conditions, the retention policy is associated with the item. If the item does not match the highest priority retention policy, GFI Archiver checks against the next retention policy.

This process is repeated until the item either matches a retention policy or there are no more retention policies.

When applying Retention Polices Retroactively:

When Retroactive Retention is run on demand, GFI Archiver checks the item content against configured retention policies, updating retention options assigned to an item after the item has been archived.

When an archived item does not match any retention policy, GFI Archiver archives the item indefinitely.

Important notes:

An archived item can match only one retention policy. Priorities assigned to retention policies are very important.
Any archived item that matches a retention policy where the configured action is ‘delete archived item immediately’ is discarded immediately without ever being stored in an archive store.
Any archived item that matches a retention policy where the configured action is set to delete after a number of days, is stored in an archive store. GFI Archiver removes the archived item from the archive store when the pre-configured time elapses.