Hello all. I am wrapping up a test lab deployment of Skype for Business which we will be putting into production this week. One feature that we are rolling out is archiving IM transcripts to the users' Exchange Mailboxes. From what I have gathered, these IM transcripts will no longer follow the Skype/Lync archiving policies and will now be handled via Exchange Archiving Policies.
I have never done this before and I cannot really seem to find much on this as far as recommendations or even how to properly do this. Couple questions:
- How often is it recommended that these transcripts be purged? With native Skype/Lync archiving I have read that it is not recommended to leave the data for long periods of time as it is going to a SQL server, however, with Exchange the data will go to mailboxes which ARE designed to hold data for longer periods of time. Does anyone have any guidance on how long they generally set the retention on IM transcripts? We have about 700 users and we have a requirement to archive all transcripts for everyone. For example, would it be considered safe practice to hold the transcripts for a year before purging?
- More generally, and I hate to ask for hand holding but it is difficult to find documentation/guidance on this, but how exactly would I accomplish this? The most specific two things I have read on this are that "transcripts are stored in the users' purges folders" and that I "will need to set archiving policies in Exchange to purge the transcripts as necessary and to prevent the transcripts from counting against my users' mailbox quotas". Beyond that, I don't really know how to safely set a policy that will target this and only this for purge.
I am a fairly seasoned Exchange guy but this is just a part that I have never really ventured into so guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!