How Policies Differ

The most important ways that policy types differ is:

What actions are blocked
How long the policy is effective
What happens when a policy expires

The following table identifies what actions are blocked for each type of retention policy.

Policy Type	Reads Blocked	Moves Blocked	Copies Blocked	Updates Blocked	Deletes Blocked	Policy Length	Expiration Actions
Admin Hold	NO	YES	NO	YES	YES	Indefinite	No Action
Legal Hold	NO	YES	NO	YES	YES	Fixed Date Indefinite	No Action
Archival	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES	Time Period Fixed Date	Archive to a path
Retention	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES	Time Period Fixed Date Indefinite	Delete No Action
Trash Retention	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES	Time Period Fixed Date Indefinite	Permanently Delete No Action

Any time you configure when a policy should expire, keep in mind that all expiration dates are dictated by when the next Cron job is run.

You can specify when a policy should expire.

This helps an administrator set up a process to run automatically in the future. For example, if phone records only have to be kept for 5 years, then the Administrator doesn't have to remember to delete current records in 5 years.
This allows a process to run independent of an employee's length of service. For example, if the same employee is no longer an Administrator in 5 years, but the old records still need to be deleted, they will be.

The following options can be selected depending on which type of Retention Policy you are creating:

Policy Length	Available on Types	Description
Indefinite	Admin Hold Legal Hold Retention Trash Retention	A policy never expires. For example, if you are required to retain accounting records for the entire length of your company's existence, you can never delete your accounting records
Fixed Date	Legal Hold Archival Retention Trash Retention	The date a policy expires with no exceptions. This means you are locked out of the policy at 11:59:59 PM on that calendar date. Policy expiration is end of day (midnight), UTC adjusted. The ACTUAL expire time is the time of the next Cron run. If the next Crom run isn't for another 24 hours, the policy will expire 24 hours later at midnight If you want the policy to expire exactly at midnight, you can always force a Cron run
Time Period - not Renewed on Access	Archival Retention Trash Retention	A set number of days or years that is used to calculate when the policy expires based on the creation date. For example, if a file is created on March 1, 2019 and you select 30 days, the policy on that file will expire on April 1, 2019. You can select from: 30 days 60 days 90 days 1 year 2 years Custom
Time Period - Renewed on Access	Archive Retention Trash Retention	A set number of days or years that is used to calculate when the policy expires based on the last access date. For example, if on March 2, 2019, for an X-ray, you set expiry to: Time Period = 60 days Renew on Access = selected Then the policy will expire on May 2, 2019 UNLESS: If a doctor previews the file before May 2, say on May 1, 2019 Then the 60-day time period will be reset to July 1, 2019. The ACTUAL date is reset by a user every time they access the file.

When a policy expires, you can configure it to move or delete files. This is another way that policies interact with files.

Expiration actions allow you to provide any special instructions for use of the content after the policy expires.

Policy Type	Expiration Actions	Notes
Admin Hold		An administrative hold is designed to help an administrator block access to files and folders so that they can determine what should happen next. An Admin hold only blocks user access, it does not block other policies from expiring. However, if an Admin Hold is in place, any other policies will expire gracefully without completing any move or delete expiry options. For Admin Holds, a policy expiration date cannot be set The policy can only be removed by an administrator Since the policy does not expire on a specific date, there are no automatic actions on expiration For example: An administrator looks at the Governance dashboard and sees that a Retention with Deletion policy is about to expire on files that have been kept for 3 years. The Retention with Deletion policy will delete 200 files when it expires in 2 days. However, the administrator notices that some of these files have been recently updated. The Administrator puts an Admin Hold policy in place on the files in the Retention with Deletion policy that is about to expire. The Administrator can now investigate the files without worrying about users updating them at the same time. However, it takes the Administrator 3 days to identify which files should not be deleted and which can be deleted. During this time, the Retention with Deletion policy expires, but because of the Admin Hold, no files are removed. The Administrator removes the Admin Hold from the files. The Administrator removes the files that don't need to be saved from FileCloud. A new Retention with No Deletion policy is created for the remaining files that need to be saved.
Legal Hold		A Legal Hold is designed to retain data, therefore, there is no deletion or move option available when the policy expires. Legal Holds cannot be reversed once applied unless they are set to expire after a fixed number of days
Retention		Retention policies are designed to keep digital content around for a specified amount of time. When a retention policy expires, it can automatically: Allow users to access the files again and delete them if they want (No Action) Delete all the files that have this policy attached from the system, without retaining them in the Trash bin (Permanently Delete) Retention policies cannot be reversed once applied
Archival		An Archival policy type is designed to help you create a more cost effective systems for long term. Therefore, you can create a policy to move and store old organizational content in the following ways: If you choose No Action, you will see an error that it is not supported and you will not be able to create the policy After the specified time period is reached, content gets moved to a specific folder or location (Archive) This type of policy helps an administrator plan for the future by setting up a process to run automatically when the time comes. For example: If phone records only have to be accessible in the system for 5 years, but stored for at least 10 years, then the Administrator doesn't have to just remember to move the current phone records in 5 years into storage. The administrator can just create an Archival policy to move them automatically in 5 years. This also allows a process to run independent of an employee's length of service. For example: if the same employee is no longer an Administrator in 5 years, but the old records still need to be moved, they will be.
Trash Retention		The Trash Retention policy is designed to help you control if files in the Trash Bin can be permanently deleted from FileCloud. You can allow the policy to automatically and permanently delete all files in the Trash bin when the policy expires You can allow the policy to expire with no actions - thereby using this policy to control how long files and folders are retained in the trash before being completely removed

An as administrator, you can create Retention policies to automate some of the processing related to protecting files and their folder groupings. This policy-based automation is designed to help secure digital content for compliance, but it can also enhance the management of digital content for other internal reasons.

Retention policies are created and attached to files and folders.
These special policies allow you to define the conditions that enforce a set of restrictions on how each file or folder can be manipulated.
For example, you can create a Retention Policy that disables a user's ability to delete or edit any of the files and folders named in the policy.

To resolve the issue of conflicting policies, FileCloud ranks retention policies by what best protects and retains the digital content. There are five different types of retention policies that can be configured and assigned.

Policy Type	Rank	Description
Admin Hold	1 Outranks all other policies Is outranked by no other policy	Prevents any update or delete of digital content for an indefinite period of time Admin Hold policies applied to folders can be removed Admin policies applied to files can be removed Create an Admin Hold policy
Legal Hold	2 Outranks policies 3,4,5,6,7 Is outranked by Admin Hold	Freezes digital content to aid discovery or legal challenges During a legal hold, file modifications are not allowed Holds cannot be reversed once applied Create a Legal Hold policy
Retention - Indefinite	3 Outranks policies 4,5,6,7 Is outranked by Admin and Legal Holds	Allows an organization to identify specific content that is required to be stored for a specific period of time before it can be disposed. During the retention period, the content cannot be deleted. Retention - Indefinite keeps the content indefinitely Retention policies cannot be reversed once applied Create a Retention policy
Archival	4 Outranks policies 5,6,7 Is outranked by Admin Hold Is outranked by Legal Hold Is outranked by Retention -Indefinite	Moves and stores old organizational content, for example, to a more cost effective systems for long term No Deletion is allowed until a specific time period is reached After the specified time period is reached, content gets moved to a specific folder or location Create an Archival policy
Retention - No delete on expiry	5 Outranks policies 6 and 7 Is outranked by Admin Hold Is outranked by Legal Hold Is outranked by Retention - Indefinite Is outranked by Archival	Allows an organization to identify specific content that is required to be stored for a specific period of time before it can be disposed. During the retention period, the content cannot be deleted. Retention - No delete on expiry doesn't delete the content upon policy expiration Retention policies cannot be reversed once applied Create a Retention policy
Retention - Delete on expiry	6 Outranks policy 7 Is outranked by Admin Hold Is outranked by Legal Hold Is outranked by Retention - Indefinite Is outranked by Archival Is outranked by Retention - No delete on expiry	Allows an organization to identify specific content that is required to be stored for a specific period of time before it can be accessed. During the retention period, the content cannot be deleted. Retention - Delete on expiry deletes the content upon policy expiration Retention policies cannot be reversed once applied Create a Retention policy
Trash Retention	7 Outranks no other policies Is outranked by all other policies	Controls if files can permanently be deleted completely from FileCloud Can be configured for automatic and permanent deletion of all files in the Trash bins or to expire with no actions Create a Trash Retention policy