Archive "restructuring" situation

[Marc_Cacciola]

My situation:

1. 12 folders have been created for users to place email in for archiving using EVPM.
2. We have an infinite retention applied at the moment.
3. The powers that be have decided to do away with the three folders and use one, with one retention category applied.

My questions:

1. Has anyone had a good experience applying a new retention category to email that's already been archived?
2. When someone restores an old e-mail is it treated like a brand new message by Enterprise Vault?
3. Can you run a SQL query that will tell you exactly where archives reside for a particular user? How many messages archived while in the 'Inbox', 'Sent Items', etc.

I can provide more detail if need be. Any help is appreciated.

[Michael_Bilsbor]

Hi,

You cannot change the retention category of an item once it has been archived(not in any way that's really support anyhow)
If you restore and re-archive it will get assigned it's existing retention category no matter what folder it's put in.
You can use the usage.asp web page to show each of the archives and then if you click on the archive it will show you the amount in each folder

[Micah_Wyenn]

true 'nuff...changing retentions is a bit of a beatch. Here's an idea tho,...why don't you just change the time associated with the now incorrect categories to the time you want (ie from forever to 3 yrs or so). It's a bit messy, but it's the lowest impact solution administratively speaking. If you can stand the mess it's better then mass recalls, deletes, and re-archives.

micah

[Marc_Cacciola]

Thanks for all of your help thus far.

Since I'm out of luck changing retention categories, I think I will change the retention period on the existing categories. But let me throw this out there:

- I'm using an infinite retention period.
- I change my exiting retention categories to expire archived mail after 3 years.
- Will all e-mail currently archived be safe for another 3 years the day I put the new retention period in place?
- Or, would EVault look at how long e-mail has been in the vault and delete anything sitting around for 3 years?

Thanks again!

[Alan_M]

Depends on what you configured. Look at the site properties and you see that expiry is based either archived date or item date. Assuming you have archived date you should be OK. You could also change this if we required and still be OK as the Storage Expiry service will examine this value at run time.

[Marc_Cacciola]

> Depends on what you configured. Look at the site
> properties and you see that expiry is based either
> archived date or item date. Assuming you have
> archived date you should be OK. You could also change
> this if we required and still be OK as the Storage
> Expiry service will examine this value at run time.

Cool. One more question (promise) and I think I'm ready to 'restructure'. If a user restores an item, assuming we are using 'Modified Date' to expire items, does that restored item get a brand new modified date? That is, does EVault treat it like a new email?

[Alan_M]

You are correct a restored item has a modified date and is in effect new.

> > Depends on what you configured. Look at the site
> > properties and you see that expiry is based either
> > archived date or item date. Assuming you have
> > archived date you should be OK. You could also
> change
> > this if we required and still be OK as the Storage
> > Expiry service will examine this value at run
> time.
>
> Cool. One more question (promise) and I think I'm
> ready to 'restructure'. If a user restores an item,
> assuming we are using 'Modified Date' to expire
> items, does that restored item get a brand new
> modified date? That is, does EVault treat it like a
> new email?

[Marc_Cacciola]

Thanks to everyone involved. I have been able to craft a means of getting from point A to B solely because the help I've received in this forum.

Thanks again!

[MarkOlsen]

I would like to dig deeper on this response. Is it really true that if you Restore a Shortcutted E-mail from the Vault, move the restored item to a different folder with different retention period, let it be rearchived, that the mail still has the properties of the folder in which it was originally archived???

If that is true, how is one supposed to change the period assigned to an E-mail that has been archived? Something doesn't feel right here ...

[Marc_Cacciola]

> I would like to dig deeper on this response. Is it
> really true that if you Restore a Shortcutted E-mail
> from the Vault, move the restored item to a different
> folder with different retention period, let it be
> rearchived, that the mail still has the properties of
> the folder in which it was originally archived???
>
> If that is true, how is one supposed to change the
> period assigned to an E-mail that has been archived?
> Something doesn't feel right here ...

I think that once an archived item is restored it is essentially treated as a new e-mail. The archived item still exists.

As far as changing retention on an archived item, my understanding now is that the Retention Category cannot be changed, but the Retention Period on an existing category can be.