Create a Legal Hold Policy

A Legal Hold is designed to retain data, therefore, there is no deletion or move option available when this policy is in effect.

Legal Holds cannot be removed once applied unless an expiration fixed date is set.

The following table identifies what actions are blocked for a Legal Hold type of retention policy.

Policy Type

Reads

Blocked

Moves

Blocked

Copies

Blocked

Updates

Blocked

Deletes

Blocked

Policy

Length

Expiration Actions

Legal Hold

NO

YES

NO

YES

Fixed Date
Indefinite

No Action

Copies cannot be created if there is a retention hold on the destination folder that prevents updates.

In the world of litigation, a legal hold is a notification

It is sent from an organization's legal team to employees
It instructs them not to delete electronically stored information (ESI)
It also instructs then not to discard any paper documents that may be relevant to a new or imminent legal case.

FileCloud allows administrators to place a legal hold on ESI.

FileCloud's Legal Hold policy prevents any of the attached file to be moved
FileCloud's Legal Hold policy prevents any of the attached file to be changed in any way
FileCloud's Legal Hold policy prevents any of the attached file to be deleted (either for a fixed number of days or indefinitely)

Creating the Policy

To create a Legal Hold Policy:

Log in to the Admin Portal.
From the left navigation pane, select Retention.
On the Manage Retention Policies screen, click the Add Policy button.

Property	Description
Policy Name	A string of characters, letters, and numbers that provide a title for the policy
Policy Type	Select Legal Hold
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.

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.

Legal holds can expire in either a Fixed Date or be set to Indefinite.

To set a fixed date:

In the Actions section, click Fixed Date.
Click in the Expiry Date text box.
A calendar will be shown with the current month.
Select a date from the calendar.