How to Place Microsoft Teams Data on Legal Hold

1. Introduction to Teams legal hold

2. Licensing requirements to create legal holds in Microsoft 365

• eDiscovery (Standard): Included with Microsoft 365 E3/E5, Office 365 E3/E5, or equivalent enterprise licenses

• eDiscovery (Premium): Available with Microsoft 365 E5 or as an add-on to E3

3. Content locations to place on hold to preserve Teams content

4. How to place a user or team on legal hold

• Step 1: Navigate to the Microsoft Purview portal and sign in with your credentials.

• Step 2: Select the eDiscovery solution card and then select Cases (preview) in the left nav. Choose an existing case or create a new one by selecting Create case, providing a unique name and description, and then selecting Save.

• Step 3: Select a case, then select the Hold policies tab. On the Hold policies dashboard, select Create policy. Enter a name and description. Select Create to create the new hold policy

• Step 4: Select Add data sources on the Hold policy tab. In the Manage data sources pane, specify the users, groups, or organizational locations to include in the hold.

• Step 5: Configure Hold settings:

• Step 6: Review your hold settings and click the Apply hold button to create the hold.

5. Limitations of using legal holds as a backup solution

• If the Microsoft 365 account falls victim to a ransomware attack and becomes encrypted, so will all the data on legal hold. 

• eDiscovery feature is available for organizations with Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 or E5 plans, which are more expensive than Microsoft (Office) 365 Business plans.

• Data cannot be restored from one user account to another. If you have a user leaving the company, you need to manually export the user’s data and import it to another account, which will take a significant amount of manual effort and time.  

Conclusion