Managing Compliance and Legal Holds in Office 365

5 February 11, 2025

Introduction
In today’s regulatory environment, managing compliance and legal holds effectively is crucial for any organization using Office 365. The Security & Compliance Center in Office 365 provides tools to help manage these requirements efficiently. This guide will walk you through how to use this center to apply legal holds and ensure compliance.

Requirements

  • Admin access to the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center.
  • Appropriate permissions to manage compliance settings and legal holds.

Step 1: Accessing the Compliance Center

  1. Log into the Microsoft 365 admin center.
  2. Navigate to the Security & Compliance Center by selecting All admin centers > Security & Compliance.

Step 2: Setting Up Compliance Policies

  1. In the Compliance Center, select Policies > Retention to create and manage retention policies.
  2. Click + Create to start a new policy. Specify the locations (like Exchange email, SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts) and set retention conditions based on your organizational compliance requirements.

Step 3: Applying Legal Holds

  1. Navigate to Data Governance: In the Compliance Center, select Data governance > eDiscovery.
  2. Create an eDiscovery case: Click + Create a case. Name your case and provide a description.
  3. Place Content on Hold: Once the case is created, click on Hold in the left panel of the eDiscovery case dashboard. Here, you can create a new hold policy for the case.
  4. Specify the content locations (such as specific user mailboxes, OneDrive accounts, or Teams sites) and set the conditions for the hold, such as keywords or date ranges. This will preserve content that meets the criteria indefinitely until the hold is removed.

Step 4: Monitoring Compliance

  1. Use the Audit log search in the Compliance Center to monitor activities related to your compliance policies and holds.
  2. Regularly review the Dashboard in the Compliance Center for real-time insights into your compliance status and alerts for potential issues.

Best Practices

  • Regularly update and review compliance policies and holds to ensure they reflect current legal requirements and organizational policies.
  • Train your team on compliance features in Office 365 to ensure proper handling of sensitive data.
  • Leverage Alerts in the Compliance Center to get notified about activities that could pose compliance risks.

Conclusion The Security & Compliance Center in Office 365 is a powerful tool that helps organizations manage their compliance and legal obligations effectively. By setting up proper retention policies and legal holds, you can ensure that your organization meets legal requirements and minimizes risks related to data governance and compliance.

For further details and step-by-step instructions on using additional features within the Compliance Center, refer to Microsoft’s official documentation on compliance and eDiscovery: Office 365 Security & Compliance Center.