Retention policy with a twist of MRM Exchange 2010
I was recently working on a project that involved creating some Retention policies for our Exchange 2010 sp1 environment. The project got a bit scary in the testing phase when we realized that the Inbox deletion policies were also deleting emails in the user’s sub-folder. The came as a surprise to us since we were able to use the same type of policy in Exchange 2003 prior to upgrading.
To solve this issue we had to create retention policies to manage our deleted items, sent items, and drafts but use message record management to handle our inbox. Since MRM was being phased out of 2010 this solution needed to be implemented via the Exchange management shell (Powershell).
Implementing MRM:
Messaging records management (MRM) is the records management technology in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 that helps organizations reduce the legal risks associated with e-mail. MRM makes it easier to keep the messages needed to comply with company policy, government regulations, or legal needs, and to remove content that has no legal or business value.
Prior to implementing this its best to check to see if any additional policies were created and if you don’t play on using them going forward delete them. You can do so with the below commands:
Review commands:
ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy
Name ManagedFolderLinks
—- ——————
Test Policy1 {Inbox}
ManagedContentSettings
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-ManagedContentSettings
Name MessageClass ManagedFolderName
—- ————- ———— —————–
Inbox Content * Inbox1
ManagedFolder
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-ManagedFolder
Name FolderName Description
—- ———- ———–
Inbox1 Inbox ManagedDefaultFolder
After retrieving this information you can now issue the following commands to remove any old or test policy:
Remove Policy from users
Set-Mailbox username -ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy $null
Removed ManagedFolder Mailbox Policy
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Remove-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy “Test Inbox Policy”
Remove Manage Content Setting
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Remove-ManagedContentSettings “Inbox Content”
Creating and Implementing MRM:
- Create your managed folder
- Create your managed folder content setting
- Create your manage mailbox folder policy
- Apply your policy to a user or to an exchange data store.
- Start the managed folder assistant service or wait for it process on schedule
The below policy will delete all emails from the user mailbox that are 60 days old without touching any sub folders in the user’s Inbox.
Managed Folder Creation
New-ManagedFolder -Name “Test Inbox” -DefaultFolderType Inbox -BaseFolderOnly $true -Comment “Items would be moved to deleted items for 60 days” -MustDisplayCommentEnabled $true
Managed Folder Content Settings
New-ManagedContentSettings -Name “Test Content” -FolderName “Test Inbox” -MessageClass * -AgeLimitForRetention 60 -RetentionAction MoveToDeletedItems -RetentionEnabled $true -TriggerForRetention WhenDelivered
Managed Mailbox Folder Policy
New-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy -Name “TestPolicy” -ManagedFolderLinks “Test Inbox”
Verify settings
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy “TestPolicy” |fl
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-ManagedContentSettings “Test Content”|fl
[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-ManagedFolder “Test Inbox” |fl
Start the Managed Folder Assistant to process the mailbox.
Apply to single user:
Set-Mailbox -Identity testuser -ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy “TestPolicy”
Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -ID testuser
Apply to a database level:
Get-Mailbox –database “Database Name” | Set-Mailbox –ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy “Name of the Policy”
Tip:
If you run into issues wait about 30 mins for the folders to replicate after created them. You can also stop and restart the “Managed Folder Assistant” service.
Would love to know how others handled this issue.
References:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb508901%28EXCHG.80%29.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335093.aspx
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