In part 1 in this series about Exchange 2010 archiving I talked about setting up the Exchange environment and make it ready for archiving. In this part a company wide policy will be created.
In my opinion, the company wide policy has a somewhat strange way of setting it up. Looking at it from Exchange’s point of view, you have to create a policy that will be used “when no other policy effects the mailbox / folder”. When you follow the steps below you will see what I mean.
1. Set up your Exchange environment.
Part 1 in this series on Exchange 2010 SP1 archiving talks about setting up our Exchange environment to make it ready for archiving. It is a prerequisite to follow part 1 first.
2. Create the retention policy tags
2a. Using the Exchange Management Console (EMC):
- Start the EMC
- Navigate to Organization Configuration – Mailbox
- Select the retention policy tags tab
- Choose “new retention policy tag” in the actions pane
- Name the retention policy tag
- Choose “All other folders in the mailbox” as tag type
- Choose the age limit
- Choose the retention action
- Click new
As you can see in the screenshot above, the policy tag has to be applied to “All other folders in the mailbox”. This way, it is created as a default policy tag, which is applied to all folders that have no other Retention Policy Tag applied. This includes default folders like inbox, drafts and so on.
When a mailbox has multiple default policy tags, for example one with the move to archive action, and one with the permanently delete option, the one with a “move to archive” action has to have a lower age limit than the one which would delete the message. Default policy tags apply to both the normal and the users archive mailbox.
2b. Using the Exchange Management Shell (EMS):
New-RetentionPolicyTag -Name CompanyDefaultPS -Type All -Comment "All items that have no other policy tag applied to them will be moved to the archive after 1 year" -RetentionEnabled $true -AgeLimitForRetention 365 -RetentionAction MoveToArchive
3. Add the Retention Policy Tags to a Retention Policy
All created Retention Policy Tags are now being grouped in a retention policy. Note that only 1 retention policy can be applied to a mailbox. It’s allowed (mostly also needed) to add Multiple Policy Tags to 1 retention policy!
3a. Using the Exchange Management Console (EMC):
- Start the EMC
- Navigate to Organization Configuration – Mailbox
- Select the retention policies tab
- In the actions pane, click “new retention policy”
- Name the policy and add the in step 2 created policy tags
- Attach the policy to mailboxes
- Click New
3b. Using the Exchange Management Shell (EMS):
New-RetentionPolicy -Name "Techdom.nl Company Policy for IT employees" -RetentionPolicyTagLinks "CompanyDefaultPS"
4. Add The Retention Policy to Mailboxes afterward
4a. Using the Exchange Management Console (EMC):
- Start the EMC
- Navigate to Organization Configuration, Mailbox
- Select the Retention Policies tab
- Select the policy and add mailboxes on the mailboxes tab
4b. Using the Exchange Management Shell (EMS):
Attach a policy to all mailboxes:
Get-Mailbox | Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy "Techdom.nl Company Policy for IT employees"
Attach a policy to selected mailboxes:
Get-Mailbox -Identity "William Adama"| Set-Mailbox -RetentionPolicy "Techdom.nl Company Policy for IT employees"
Now we have created a company wide policy. In the next article Retention for default folders is configured.
Back to Exchange 2010 Archiving Guide Index.
