Microsoft Purview Records Management

Records Management is the formal, auditable side of data lifecycle in Microsoft 365. Where general retention manages bulk data lifecycle, Records Management declares specific content as a record (cannot be modified or deleted) or regulatory record (immutable, no label change allowed once applied) and produces proof of disposition — the artefact regulators and auditors actually ask for.

When to use

You have legal, regulatory, or industry obligations (SEC 17a-4, GxP, GDPR Article 30, public-sector records acts) that require provable record retention and defensible disposition workflows.

Do not use this skill for general retention without record declaration (purview-data-lifecycle), DLP (purview-dlp-policy), or eDiscovery (purview-ediscovery).

Retention label flavors — pick deliberately