The Records management solution in the Microsoft 365 compliance center has some important controls for retention labels. Two new controls allow organizations to decide if they will allow users to unlock items assigned a record retention label. If they can’t, they won’t be able to update document contents or change an item’s metadata. This won’t suit all organizations, but it will make those which want locked down records management very happy indeed.
Users attempting to delete SharePoint Online files assigned Microsoft 365 retention labels are blocked. That is, until a change arrives in November to make SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business behave in the same manner. It’s a good change because it avoid the scenario where users remove retention labels to delete files, which undermines the organization’s compliance strategy. Now, deleted items go into the preservation hold library and stay there until their retention period expires. My only complaint is that the control over the mechanism is not as simple as it should be, but that’s a small and relatively unimportant flaw in the overall scheme of things.
