

A preservation hold preserves files and emails in an custodian's Microsoft 365 account, OneDrive and Exchange, as well as any files in an custodian's Sharepoint. A preservation hold ensures that original copies, prior to any edits or deletions, of emails and files are preserved in a Microsoft 365 Preservation Library. The Preservation Library ensures that there is no loss of data through accidental or willful deletion or editing of items under a Preservation Hold. Preservation Holds are transparent to custodians. For more information on the Security and Compliance Center, see Microsoft 365 Security Compliance Center.
Note: A custodian can be active in multiple projects and can be on multiple preservation holds. If one preservation hold is removed, another could still be in place. When a preservation hold is removed in Relativity, only that one preservation hold is removed in Security & Compliance Center.
Enable the Preservation Hold Settings security permission in order to create a Preservation Hold Setting. For more information on security permissions, see Legal Hold Application Permissions.
Note: A custodian can be active in multiple projects and can be on multiple preservation holds. If one preservation hold is removed, another could still be in place. When a preservation hold is removed in Relativity, only that one preservation hold is removed in Security & Compliance Center.
Before creating a Preservation Hold, add a Preservation Hold Setting. Fill out the information for the Preservation Hold Setting to create a data source in which preservation holds will be created. To learn more about Preservation Hold Settings, see Adding preservation hold settings.
In the Projects edit layout, there is a Preservation Case field. Enter the created Preservation Hold Setting to the Preservation Case. To create a Preservation Case, follow the steps below:
Add a Preservation Case to the project to specify the data sources for the preservation holds.
Enable the Preservation Hold security permission to add, edit, or remove Preservation Holds within projects.. For more information on security permissions, see Legal Hold Application Permissions.
Before creating a Preservation Hold, add a Preservation Hold Setting. Fill out the information for the Preservation Hold Setting to create a data source in which preservation holds will be created. To learn more about Preservation Hold Settings, see Adding preservation hold settings.
To hold mailbox data, you must create a Microsoft 365 account with basic authentication and assign the eDiscovery Manager, SharePoint admin and Compliance admin roles to the account. For more information, see Creating a Microsoft 365 admin account.
Before adding a preservation, consider the following list. If a data source is not listed, there are no considerations or limitations.
Microsoft 365
If you want to preserve data in multiple tenants, you must create two separate legal hold projects. One project for each tenant.
You must have a user account must with basic authentication to be able to preserve in Microsoft.
The service account, URL, and other items related to Relativity's implementation of preservation cannot be made more secure than what is currently available.
Microsoft Archived mailbox
The configuration on your SharePoint site can cause performance limitations. The larger the Sharepoint footprint, the less performant preservation is.
Microsoft Teams
You can preserve data in one-on-one chats only. Teams Channels, group chats, are not preserved because channels are not tied to individual custodian mailboxes. Microsoft stores Teams Channel data in Sharepoint. They are stored in Group Mailboxes.
You can preserve Teams Channel attachments if you know which SharePoint site they reside on.
You must target OneDrive to collect all Teams data. Microsoft preserves Teams messages in a custodian’s Outlook mailbox. Microsoft preserves Teams message attachments in a custodian’s OneDrive.
In the Projects edit layout, there is a Preservation Case field. Enter the created Preservation Hold Setting to the Preservation Case. To create a preservation case, follow the steps below:
Add a Preservation Case to the project to specify the data sources for the preservation holds.
After running a preservation hold, a status of the hold available in the Preservation Hold section on the Projects tab. Any changes made to the preservation is reflected within an hour. For a list of the statuses available, see below:
The Preservation Target Status tab shares the progress of the target discovery for each custodian. The discovery process is the inventorying of the sites each custodian has access to. This status indicates where in the discovery process the targets are. The statuses are:
Manage SharePoint preservation targets after they have been discovered. The following buttons are available in the Project console:
The length of the SharePoint targets discovery process in your environment depends on the size of your Microsoft 365 environment. Size depends on the number of users and how many custodians are on hold.
After discovering SharePoint targets, you need to select targets based on SharePoint URLs associated to a custodian.
To select targets, follow the steps below.
Click the Select Targets console button.
In the Select window, select the check boxes next to the custodian name and target URL you want to put on a preservation hold.
Use the arrows to select the custodians.
Click Select Targets.
After running a preservation hold, a status of the hold available in the Preservation Hold section on the Projects tab. Any changes made to the preservation is reflected within an hour. For a list of the statuses available, see below:
The Preservation Target Status tab shares the progress of the target discovery for each custodian. The discovery process is the inventorying of the sites each custodian has access to. This status indicates where in the discovery process the targets are. The statuses are:
Manage SharePoint preservation targets after they've been discovered. The following buttons are available in the Project Console:
After discovering SharePoint targets, you need to select targets based on SharePoint URLs associated to a custodian.
To select targets, follow the steps below.
Click the Select Targets console button.
In the Select window, select the check boxes next to the custodian name and target URL you want to put on a preservation hold.
Use the arrows to select the custodians.
Click Select Targets.
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