What All Policies Have In Common

All Retention Policy types have these attributes:

If you set a policy on a folder, all sub-files and sub-folders inherit the policy when it is enabled.

A policy setting inside a hierarchical structure is:

passed from parent to children
from children to grandchildren

This is termed inheritance. Inheritance will always occur, but it can be blocked or enforced based on the policies that are applied at each level.

For example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates this folder structure in FileCloud:

PARENT to CHILD INHERITANCE

CHILDREN to GRANDCHILDREN INHERITANCE

In the folder for all of the company's real estate holdings, all of these contracts are for leases that last for 1 year.

This means the Administrator needs to keep all the files in the RealEstate Holdings folder for 1 year.

To do this, the Administrator creates a retention policy that blocks any file in this folder from being deleted for 1 year.

When the policy is created:

The RealEstate Holdings folder cannot be deleted for 1 year
The document in this folder cannot be deleted for 1 year: 2367 W Main Building.docx
Any new files added to the RealEstate Holdings folder cannot be deleted for 1 year

To prevent a file with a longer retention period than its folder from being deleted when the folder's retention period is reached:

A folder with a retention policy on it can only be deleted when the file it contains with the longest retention period is deleted. Therefore, the retention policy on a folder can change when a file it contains is given a longer retention period. But the other files the folder contains maintain their original briefer retention period.

For example, The RealEstate Holdings folder has a 1 year retention period which is applied to all its files. Then the retention policy on one file is increased to 5 years. As a result, the retention policy on the RealEstate Holdings folder is increased to 5 years, but the retention policies on the other files it contains remain at 1 year.

Now let's say that due to tax regulations, all legal contracts need to be retained for 5 years.

This means the Administrator needs to keep all the files in the Legal Contracts folder for 5 years.

To do this, the Administrator creates a retention policy that blocks any file in this folder from being deleted for 5 years.

When the policy is created:

No file in the Legal Contracts folder can be deleted for 5 years
The RealEstate Holdings folder now cannot be deleted for 5 years
No file in the RealEstate Holdings folder can be deleted for 5 years
The document in the RealEstate Holdings folder: 2367 W Main Building.docx now has 2 policies applied
On the 2367 W Main Building.docx file, the retention policy to block any files from being deleted for 5 years becomes effective and the policy to retain the file for 1 year is not effective
The document in the RealEstate Holdings folder: 2367 W Main Building.docx now cannot be deleted for 5 years

Once you apply a policy to a file or folder, no matter where that object goes in the FileCloud System, the policy information will be retained.

The policy will be retained, but may not be in effect if a higher-ranking policy is inherited or applied
Note: When a file is restored from the recycle bin, it does not maintain the retention policy.

For example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates this folder structure in FileCloud:

ORIGINAL POLICY ASSIGNMENT

POLICY ASSIGNMENT AFTER MOVES

In the folder for all of the company's real estate holdings, all of these contracts are for leases that last for 1 year.

This means the Administrator needs to keep all the files in the RealEstate Holdings folder for 1 year.

To do this, the Administrator creates a retention policy that blocks any file in this folder from being deleted for 1 year.

When the policy is created:

The RealEstate Holdings folder cannot be deleted for 1 year
The document in this folder cannot be deleted for 1 year: 2367 W Main Building.docx
Any new files added to the RealEstate Holdings folder cannot be deleted for 1 year

Now let's say that tenants at 2367 W Main pay their rent for the entire year.

The administrator is asked to move the file to the Accounts Payable folder
The building will still be occupied, so the file still needs to be retained for 1 year
The Accounts Payable folder has a retention policy based on a custom metadata set for financial documents

When the file is moved:

The document 2367 W Main Building.docx now lives in the Accounts Payable folder
The document 2367 W Main Building.docx keeps the retention policy for 1 year
The document 2367 W Main Building.docx inherits the Accounts Payable retention policy based on metadata even though it does not meet the metadata condition of being a financial document

The Path and the Metadata tabs allow you to define the conditions that specify how the policy will be applied in the system.

Add a Path

Add Path allows you to define a folder that a policy will apply to AS WELL AS all the files and sub-folders it contains

What you CAN do in the Path field

What you CANNOT do in the Path field

Paths work for managed storage ONLY
Since managed storage includes Team Folders, you CAN add a path to a Team Folder
A Path takes the form of: /username/sub-folder
You can add more than 1 path
You can set BOTH a path and specify metadata

You CANNOT add a path to network folders
You CANNOT add a path to external folders
You CANNOT add a path to shared folders
You CANNOT add a path to protected folders, such as /boot, /root, and /var in LINUX
You CANNOT edit a path. If you make a mistake, you must first remove the path and click Add to specify the correct path

The full path must exist before the policy will be enforced

When creating the policy the full path doesn't have to exist, however.

At a minimum:

The first component of the path has to already exist /username/
This means that the username or team folder has to already exist before you can save the policy

You CANNOT specify a path that does not exist

This will prevent you from saving the policy

Configure Metadata

Data that provides additional information about files and folders is called Metadata.

To specify files and folders that this policy should apply to, you can use metadata sets, attributes, and tags.
You can use metadata to apply a policy to all files that meet the metadata conditions even if they are not in the same folder.

You can select metadata from the following existing attributes or sets:

Default sets = provided with FileCloud and applies to every folder and cannot be modified
Built-In sets = provided with FileCloud and includes the Document Life Cycle and Image metadata sets
Custom attributes and sets = created by administrators in the Admin Portal

For more information about metadata, see Managing Metadata.

For example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates this custom metadata in FileCloud:

Term	Description	Cherry Road Example
Set	A set of metadata attributes that might be logically grouped and can be attached as a single entity to File Objects. In this example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates a set called Building Profile that contains 5 attributes	Building Profile Address Photo Square Feet Leasing Status Maintenance Status
Attribute	A single piece of information that describes the File Object. In this example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates an attribute called Address which identifies where the building is, such as 2367 W Main A tag is also defined called State which allows searches for properties by State, such as Texas.	Address State
Attribute	A single piece of information that describes the File Object. In this example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates an attribute called Photo A tag is also defined called Color which allows searches for properties that have color photos.	Photo Color
Attribute	A single piece of information that describes the File Object. In this example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates an attribute called Square Feet Two tags are also defined to allow for property searches by a range of square feet.	Square Feet 0-1500 1500-3000
Attribute	A single piece of information that describes the File Object. In this example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates an attribute called Leasing Status which identifies the building as occupied or vacant.	Leasing Status
Attribute	A single piece of information that describes the File Object. In this example, The Cherry Road Brokerage company creates an attribute called Maintenance Status which identifies the building as In Repair or No Repair.	Maintenance Status

Now, when an administrator needs to configure a Legal Hold policy for properties that are 1,500 square feet or larger in the state of Texas, they can use this metadata to apply the policy to all files that meet these conditions even if they are not in the same folder.

The following properties exist for all retention policy types and do not change how the policy functions.

Property	Description
Policy Name	A string of characters, letters, and numbers that provide a title for the policy
Description	Required A string of characters, letters, and numbers that provide details about why the policy is necessary This description is displayed in the User Portal when the cursor hovers over the Policy Name in the Details tab.
Hide Policy from Users	Prevents policy details from being shown and leaked. Selecting this option removes the display of applied policies and their expiration dates from the Details tab in the User Portal. Selecting this option also blocks the API call to the backend to find out which policies are applied. This is how data leaks are prevented. Although the policy name and expiration date are not shown, the restrictions are still enforced. For example, if the policy you are hiding from users prevents them from deleting the file, although the policy information is not shown, the user will not be able to delete the file. Administrators need to be aware that users might report issues with the system when a retention policy is blocking their ability to access or delete a file or folder. The user will not be aware of why certain options are greyed out if they don't see the policy restrictions listed. However, if the user is able to select the option and it is restricted by a policy, they will see an error message telling them why when they try to select the option.
Alert on Violation	Displays an alert in the Admin portal on the Governance dashboard. Administrators need to be aware that not all violations are logged here. The reason for this is that all permissions for a file are collected in one file- including user permissions and sharing permissions. In some cases, a sharing permission that was set first might stop a file from being deleted before a retention policy that was added later. The reason why the file cannot be deleted, or which set of permissions or policy is stopping the deletion, is not FileCloud's main priority. FileCloud's main concern is protecting the file and finding out if it cannot be deleted. This is why you might not always see a violation in the Dashboard, but the file will always be protected. If a user is constantly trying to delete a file that is protected by a retention policy then the chances of seeing the violation in the Governance Dashboard increase.
Send email alert	Notifies all provided recipients that there are only 7 days until the policy expires. The same information is available on the Governance dashboard. The Governance Dashboard list each file individually, and displays the date and time when a policy will expire so the Admin knows and can take action if any is needed.
Alerts	A list of email addresses separated by a comma who will receive the email notification that there are only 7 days until the policy expires.

Notes:

Retention Policies and Versioning

When a file is protected by any type of retention policy, file versions are updated using the following logic:

Users will not have the option to 'Make version live' to protect the current file version from being deleted
Files with a retention policy assigned will automatically work as if the 'Unlimited number of versions' setting is selected

Files without a retention policy applied will follow normal versioning behavior.