Calendar Retention Policy Office 365: Simplified Data Retention

Summary: In this comprehensive article, we learn the calendar retention policy Office 365. These guidelines are for managing the duration and preservation of calendar data. Retention policies include tags and rules to archive or delete calendar items. As we know the calendar folder can store crucial dates, events, meetings, and appointments, so the Exchange Online administrator needs to safeguard the folder. 

An Overview of Calendar Retention Policy Office 365

Every piece of data produced by an organization and its employees is valuable, even if its importance differs. Exchange Online Administrators are tasked with supervising and securing all data, which requires taking preemptive actions to safeguard each user’s information. Although the primary focus often revolves around protecting emails and contacts due to their essential role in business activities. 

On top of that, it is equally imperative to ensure the security of other data elements such as calendars, notes, records, and tasks. Implementation of retention policies can safeguard data and it plays a vital role in managing all mailbox items. Moreover, you can apply retention tags to several folders like calendars, tasks, clutter, deleted items, and many more. 

Key Considerations

The retention policy protects the selected folder from being deleted. Nevertheless, there are essential factors to bear in mind before crafting retention tags:

1. You can create retention tags within the exchange online.
2. In the contacts folder, retention tags will not work.
3. There is a limit to applying only a single tag to the default folder and you can use actions such as delete allow recovery, and permanently delete.

Additional resource: Setup Archive Policy in Office 365

Steps to Create a Retention Tag

To establish a calendar retention policy Office 365, proceed with these instructions:

1. Within the Microsoft 365 Admin Center Click on Show All>>Select Compliance.
2. Then, you see the Microsoft Purview compliance portal will open and select Exchange.
3. Go to the MRM Retention tag and click on the + New tag.
4. After that, write the suitable Name and Description.
5. In the Automatically to default folder option, hit the Apply tag>>Select Calendar. Click on Next.
6. Set the rules for how long to keep something and what to do with it after that time.
7. Lastly, Click on Finish.

So, the next task is to apply the Retention Tag to the calendar. Here are the steps for calendar retention policy Office 365:

1. Open the Outlook application.
2. Then, Choose Calendar>>Choose to apply the retention tags.

Retention Policies do not Serve as Backups

As we saw above the calendar retention policy Office 365, but some users think that the retention policy acts as a backup. So, this is wrong, because we use backups to create offline copies, and on the other hand, retention protects data from deletion. Therefore, backups are crucial to safeguard the data from accidental deletion. 

At present, there is a specialized software for the same which is SysTools’ Trustworthy Office 365 Backup & Restore Tool. On top of that, this software allows you to back up Office 365 mailboxes in bulk, including emails, contacts, calendars, and documents.

Moreover, to backup selective data it offers a Date filter option. Additionally, the tool can back up attachments, even cloud attachments.

Steps to Backup O365 Emails

Backuping the data with the help of the above-mentioned tool can make the procedure much easier than expected. So, here are the steps for the above-mentioned software:

Step 1. Download and Launch the backup tool.

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Step 2. Now, select “Office 365” as a source platform and “Outlook” as a destination platform.

Step 3. Select the categories that you want to back up from Office 365 under the Workload selection.

Step 4. By using the date filter option, you can back up selective data. Click on Next.

Step 5.  After that, enter the Admin email ID and Application ID of the Source platform and then click on the Validate button. 

Step 6. Then, browse the backup folder path to set the destination where the PST file will be saved.

Step 7. When it comes to mapping tasks, the software offers three choices: ‘Fetch Users,’ ‘Import Users,’ and ‘Download Template.’

Step 8. Lastly, click on the Start button.

Also read: How Long Does Office 365 Keep Deleted Emails

Needs to backup M365 Emails

Here are some common reasons to backup data:

1. It allows you to recover your data in situations of a security breach.
2. Microsoft’s retention policies will not cover long-term data preservation so in this situation, users need to backup the data.
3. Many organizations with cloud-based data need consistent backup since they need to ensure data availability.

Bring it all Together

For the calendar retention policy Office 365, we covered how to create retention tags, with easy steps. After that, we learned how to apply the retention tag to calendars. Besides, it is essential to have a copy of crucial data for the organization. So, we covered an expert-recommended software that streamlines the process and backup data efficiently.