A well-designed retention schedule is the cornerstone of any effective records management policy. It’s not just a compliance tool—it’s a strategic asset that supports defensible disposition, reduces risk, and enables smarter data lifecycle management. Yet, many organizations struggle to make their retention schedules truly fit-for-purpose.
This post outlines the practical steps to build (or improve) and sustain a retention schedule that works —one that’s clear, compliant, and embraced across the organization.
Start with the End in Sight
A retention schedule must support the final stage of the information lifecycle – defensible disposition. There is no point in having something that looks nice on the shelf, to just be produced when a regulator asks to see it! It needs to work and result in defensible disposals taking place. The implementation approach, governance, structure and retention periods (particularly retention triggers) need to be defined with this in mind.
*Information Governance Implementation Model (IGIM) 2.1 by ARMA
Clarify Ownership and Accountability
Retention schedules will not meet their overall objective without clear governance in place. It is essential upfront to establish who owns the schedule and who is the decision authority for any changes. There should be a clear compliance mandate that retention periods must be adhered to, unambiguous direction on what happens when retention ends, as well as a documented process for regular updates and exception handling.
During implementation, the IG Steering Committee (as suggested in IGIM 2.1 by ARMA) may provide oversight of the development of the schedule to ensure stakeholder buy in across stakeholder groups such as Legal, Risk and IT. And getting the business on board early is also a key success factor. This can be achieved by:
- Identifying focal points or information owners and engage them in the process from the start.
- Build a focal point network and create a working group to sustain alignment across the different business areas.
- Communicate the requirements simply and clearly: Publish a user-friendly version of the schedule.
- Be open to improvement suggestions—but firm: Accept feedback but resist unnecessary complexity.
Structure for Simplicity: The Big Bucket Approach
Granular, very detailed schedules are hard to manage, can confuse end users and are more difficult to automate (for instance when using autoclassification functionality in Microsoft Purview). Instead, create “big buckets” by grouping similar types of records under one retention rule. For example, a single “Project Management” bucket with a 7-year retention may be established by merging:
- Project Charter – 6 years
- Budget/Costs – 7 years
- Closure Report – 7years.
For further examples see our blog post: From Big Buckets to Records Management in M365 – Infotechtion
Also, for a schedule intended to cover several different countries, create global retention periods and add country- specific exceptions only where needed. And don’t forget to include all formats of information where auto-deletion policies are in place including emails, Teams chat etc.
Simple and easy to understand for users
It must also be simple and easy to understand for end users who are required to classify against it. This will also make it easier to implement in the relevant tools and drive adoption. Don’t ask users to choose retention periods. They know the kind of information they have, that should be enough. For example, an “Investment Proposal” should be classified against an “Investment Proposal” Label Policy in Microsoft Purview and not a “Retain for 10 Years” Label Policy. Asking users to choose the right retention period can lead to inaccuracies and inconsistencies in retention periods being applied.
Align Legal, Privacy, and Business Needs
The retention periods that are chosen for each category in the schedule must balance 3 priorities:
- Legal requirements: retention periods must comply with the laws of the relevant country that state minimum (or maximum) periods for how long certain information much be retained, for example, tax and finance information.
- Business value: Some records (e.g. well files, geological data) will have long-term operational importance and require to be kept for a long time – often permanently. This result in the retention period for these records being extended beyond any legal minimum established above.
- Privacy laws: It is useful to identify those record categories that contain personal data. These categories will need special consideration to ensure compliance with privacy laws (such as the GDPR), especially where the justification for a long retention period is for business, rather than legal reasons (point 2 above). Personal data must only be retained as long as necessary for legitimate business purposes.
Remember, retention periods do not need to take account of the duty to preserve information in the event of a legal dispute or a regulatory investigation. The preservation hold process should take care of the duty to preserve potentially responsive information in the event of a dispute or investigation.
Tip: Maintain a legal citation register and business rationale log for every retention rule. Also flag those categories that contain personal data for special consideration (so you don’t forget!)
Use Year-Based Triggers Over Event-Based Ones and reduce reliance on disposition reviews.
Event-based retention is often poorly tracked, and the business processes to trigger reviews are often not robust enough to support consistent, on time disposition of these records. And records that require disposition reviews are often not disposed on time and in accordance with the specified retention period. Manual review is time consuming; resource heavy and information owners have day jobs that they need to focus on!
To address these challenges, use year-based retention triggers as much as possible. They are easier to automate and audit and will mean that your retention schedule does what it needs to – supports consistent defensible disposition. There will be situations where event triggers are necessary, for example Personnel Files where there is personal data that needs to be managed, however use them sparingly. For further examples and tips see our blog Records Management in SharePoint Online – Event Based Retention – Infotechtion
And finally, automate where possible!
The best outcomes are achieved when the burden is taken off the end users to manually classify their records. Automating records management is the most effective way to ensure your retention schedule delivers on its promise of consistent, defensible disposition. Manual processes are prone to error, delay, and inconsistency—especially in collaborative environments. By leveraging metadata, AI classification, and lifecycle workflows, automation applies retention rules uniformly and in real time, reducing risk and strengthening compliance. It transforms your schedule from a static policy into a living system that enforces governance with precision and scale.
If you would like to learn more about how to automate records management in Microsoft Purview get in touch at contact@infotechtion.com to speak with one of our experts and see how we can support your organization.
