ZCS Administrator Guide 8.0

Network Edition

Email Retention Management

You can configure retention policies for user account’s email, trash, and junk folders. The basic email retention policy is to set the email, trash and spam message lifetime in the COS or for individual accounts.

You can set up specific retention policies that users can enable for the Inbox and other email folders in their account. Users can also create their own retention policies.

You can enable the dumpster feature to save messages that are deleted from Trash. When an message lifetime has been reached based on email lifetime rules or deletion policies, the message is moved to the dumpster if it is enabled. Users can recover deleted items from the dumpster until the threshold set in the Visibility lifetime in dumpster for end user setting. If dumpster is not enabled, messages are purged from the server when the email retention lifetime is reached.

You can also set up a legal hold on an account to prevent message from being deleted.

Configure Email Lifetime Rules

You can configure when email messages should be deleted from an accounts folders, and the trash and junk folders by COS or for individual accounts.

 

Feature Name	Description
Email message lifetime	Number of days a message can remain in a folder before it is purged. This includes data in RSS folders. The default is 0; email messages are not deleted. The minimum configuration for email message lifetime is 30 days.
Trashed message lifetime	Number of days a message remains in the Trash folder before it is purged. The default is 30 days.
Spam message lifetime	Number of days a message can remain in the Junk folder before it is purged. The default is 30 days.

By default, the server purges email messages that have exceeded their lifetime every minute.You can change the duration of time that the server should “rest” between purging mailboxes in the administration console, Global settings or Server settings, General Information page.

For example, the purge interval is set to 1 minute, after mailbox1 is purged of messages that meet the message lifetime setting, the server waits 1 minute before beginning to purge mailbox2.

If the message purge schedule is set to 0, messages are not purged even if the mail, trash and spam message lifetime is set.

Note:

Because users cannot see these message lifetime settings, if you set a purge limit, make the purge policy known to your users.

Configure Message Retention and Deletion Policies

Retention and deletion policies can be configured as a global setting or as a COS setting. Users can select these policies to apply to their message folders in their account. They can also set up their own retention and deletion policies. Users enable a policy you set up or create their own policies from their folders’ Edit Properties dialog box.

System wide retention and deletion policies can be managed from the administration console.

To configure global retention or deletion policies, go to the Configure>Global Settings>Retention Policy page.

To configure retention or deletion policies by COS, go to the Configure>Class of Service><COS>, Retention Policy page. Make sure Enable COS-level policies instead of inheriting from the policy defined in Global Settings is enabled.

The retention policy is not automatically enforced on a folder. If users delete an item in a folder that has not met the threshold of the retention policy, the following message is displayed, You are deleting a message that is within its folder’s retention period. Do you wish to delete the message?

When the threshold for the deletion policy is reached, items are deleted from the account. They are not sent to the Trash folder. If the dumpster feature is enabled, they are sent to the dumpster, if it is not enabled, they are purged from the server.

How Lifetime and Retention/Deletion Policies Work Together

If the Email Message Lifetime is set to a value other than zero (0), this setting applies in addition to the disposal or retention policy values applied to a folder. For example:

Email Message Lifetime is set to 120 days

Folder A has a policy with a disposal threshold of 360 days. Messages in Folder a are disposed of in 120 days.

Folder B has a policy with disposal threshold of 90 days. Messages in Folder B are disposed of in 90 days.

Folder C has a policy with retention range of 150 days. Messages in Folder C are disposed of in 120 days.

Managing the Dumpster

When a message, trash or spam lifetime has been reached, the message is moved to the dumpster if the feature is enabled. When users right-click on Trash, they can click Recover deleted items to retrieve items from their trash that has been deleted in the last x days. This threshold is based on the Visibility lifetime in dumpster for end user setting.

The Retention lifetime in dumpster before purging setting sets retention lifetime for items in dumpster. Items in dumpster older than the threshold are purged and cannot be retrieved.

Administrators can access the individual dumpster’s content, including spam, and they can delete data at any time before the message lifetime is reached.

To search for an item in the dumpster folder, type

zmmailbox --dumpster --types <message,converstation,contact,document>

To delete items in the dumpster folder, type

zmmailbox dumpsterDeleteItem <item-ids>

The dumpster folder feature can be managed from the administration console.

1.	To enable this feature, go to the Configure>Class of service>[COSname], Features page, General Features section. Check Dumpster folder.

2.	To set Visibility lifetime in dumpster for end user, go to the COS’s, Advanced page, Timeout Policy section.

3.	To set Retention lifetime in dumpster before purging, go to the COS’s Advanced page, Email Retention Policy section.

Configure Legal Hold on an Account

If the dumpster folder feature is enabled, you can set up a legal hold to preserve all items in user accounts.

When dumpster is enabled, Can purge dumpster folder is also enabled. Disabling this feature turns off purging of items in the user’s dumpster. This can be set by a COS or for individual accounts. When Can purge dumpster folder is enabled, any deletion policies set up on the accounts’ folders are ignored.

To configure legal hold on an account from the administration console by COS, go to Configure>Class of Service>Features page and deselect Can purge dumpster folder.

For individual accounts, go to Manage>Accounts and select the account. Disable the feature on the Features page.