MC295570: Records management Advanced eDiscovery – Preserve and discover the file version shared as cloud attachment

To help you efficiently meet regulatory obligations and improve the discovery of all elements which are part of electronic communications, Advanced eDiscovery will soon support the ability to discover the specific version of a file at the time that it was shared. This is facilitated by a new Records Management capability that enables you to automatically apply a retention label to the version of files shared as cloud attachments. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 70580 and 70718.

Microsoft 365 compliance center: Information governance – Auto-labeling of cloud attachments

This update enables organizations to automatically apply retention labels to the version of files shared as cloud attachments, which are live links of SharePoint or OneDrive content that can be shared via emails or Teams messages.

Microsoft 365 compliance center | Advanced eDiscovery: Discover only the document version that has been shared

Many customers often consider shared documents or cloud attachments as a form of communication, and therefore are required to preserve and make that content discoverable. While end users benefit from quickly sharing files for visibility and collaboration, this practice has been challenging for eDiscovery and legal professionals. To help customers efficiently meet their regulatory obligations for discovery, Advanced eDiscovery plans to support the ability to discover the version of the document at the time that it was shared. This helps ensure that the correct document information is available to eDiscovery processes.

When this will happen

Rollout will begin in late January (previously early December) and is expected to be complete by mid-April (previously early January).

How this will affect your organization

Information workers in organizations benefit from quickly sharing files for visibility and collaboration, however this practice has been challenging for compliance and legal professionals who are required to preserve and investigate as much of the content of a communication as possible. With this feature update, compliance administrators will be able to configure a new type of retention auto-labeling policy to label the version of a file shared as a cloud attachment (links to SharePoint or OneDrive content shared via emails or Teams messages that looks like a traditional attachment).

For any of these preserved versions, Advanced eDiscovery will support the ability to include these preserved versions of files when collecting data for a case. This helps ensure that the correct document information is available to eDiscovery processes.

What you need to do to prepare

You don’t need to do anything to prepare for this change, however if you want to leverage this new capability, please read the following links to learn more about how to setup an auto-labeling policy for cloud attachments and discover these versions in eDiscovery.

Learn more

• Automatically apply a retention label to retain or delete content
• Collect cloud attachments in Advanced eDiscovery (preview)
• Learn more about Advanced eDiscovery in Microsoft 365
• Get started with retention policies and retention labels

Message ID: MC295570
Published: 02 November 2021
Updated: 06 January 2022
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