What is stored in an Exchange Online mailbox?

Email mailboxes have long been the primary repository for work-related emails (and attachments) and calendaring information. Some of these emails may have been copied to electronic document and records management (EDRM) systems or saved to network drives. Very often some form of mailbox archiving was introduced to help reduce storage by moving inactive content to …

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Sharing SharePoint sites

Modern SharePoint sites include the option to 'Share site' or 'Share site only' (for sites linked with Microsoft 365 Groups). This option is found under 'Site Permissions'. Left - Non-Group based site / Right - Group based site When the option to share site is selected, a note states the following: 'Add users, Microsoft 365 …

Where are the records in Microsoft 365?

One of the consequences of the (relatively sudden) requirement to work from home from early 2020, was that Microsoft 365 - primarily Outlook and Teams (with 'Files' or SharePoint and OneDrive for Business behind the scenes) - became the de facto system to create and capture 'unstructured' records. Unlike centralised electronic document and records management …

Different approaches for managing records with Microsoft 365

The COVID pandemic from early 2020 led to the requirement for many employees to work from home (WFH). IT Departments scrambled to enable this capability, many making use of Microsoft (MS) Teams that was already bundled with their Microsoft 365 licences. The rapid enabling and uptake (rather than an actual 'implementation') of MS Teams was …

In place vs in place management of records in Microsoft 365

The ability to manage records 'in place' in SharePoint has existed since around 2013. But this is not the same thing as leaving records where they were created or captured and managing them there - 'in place'. This post explains the difference between the two 'in place' options. In brief: The Microsoft 'in place' model …

The enduring problem of emails as records

Ever since emails first appeared as a way to communicate more than 30 years ago they have been a problem for records management, for two main reasons. Emails (and attachments) are created and captured in a separate (email) system, and are stored in mailboxes that are inaccessible to records managers (a bit like 'personal' drives). …

Using MS Teams without an Exchange Online mailbox

When people chat in Microsoft Teams (MS Teams), a 'compliance' copy of the chat is saved to either personal or (Microsoft 365) Group mailboxes. This copy is subject to retention policies, and can be found and exported via Content Search. But what happens if there is no Exchange Online mailbox? It seems the chats become …

Microsoft 365 – Options for collating, grouping and aggregating records

The international standard for records management, ISO 15489-1:2016 (‘Information and documentation – Records management – Part 1: Concepts and Principles’), defines records as 'information created, received, and maintained as evidence and as an asset by an organization or person, in pursuit of legal obligations or in the transaction of business'. Among other things, the standard notes that …

Planning for records retention in Office 365

Office 365 is sometimes referred to as an 'ecosystem'. In theory this means that records could be stored anywhere across that ecosystem. Unlike the 'old' on-premise world of standalone servers for each Microsoft application (Exchange, SharePoint, Skype) - and where specific retention policies could apply (including the Exchange Messaging Records Management MRM policy), the various …

Managing emails as records in Office 365

Records managers have been struggling with managing emails as records ever since they first appeared in the workplace. For a long time the accepted practice, as with other digital records, was to print them out and put them on the appropriate file. With the introduction of electronic document and records management (EDRM) systems, end users …