EE: Team & Channel Data Retention Policies

Objective

Allow system admins to set custom retention policies for messages and files for specific teams and channels.

Background

Our current data retention policies only allow setting retention of files and messages at the global level (see docs). Enterprises (ProductBoard insights) need more granular control of specific teams and channels. Many channels are being used for automated monitoring, which does not require long retention, where channels with collaboration or incident response, require longer retention.

In addition, some users are partitioned into groups that are deemed “regulated” who have different retention requirements than those considered “normal”.

Furthermore, some customers use a channel for automated monitoring or short-term project communications and want resources (messages and files) pinned to the channel to be retained even if the retention policy removes non-pinned information.

Competitively, Slack offers:

• Data retention for messages and files - deletion is permanent and deletions run 1x day.

• Retention settings apply to all messages and files, including those that are pinned or saved.

• Permission for owners to delegate other admins the ability to edit message retention for public and private channels

• Permissions for owners to delegate members (not guests) the ability to set their own message retention for private channels and direct messages they are part of.

• https://slack.com/help/articles/203457187-Customize-message-and-file-retention#h_01EEE65N9D0FTCF55DSBNMXT6V

• https://slack.com/help/articles/115005393586-Edit-message-retention-settings-for-specific-conversations

MS Teams offers:

• The ability to customize retention policies for individual teams and chats (they do not currently support private channels)

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/retention-policies

Success metrics

User Scenarios

• System admin can set retention policies for files and messages on a specific team, overriding the system global retention policies.

• System admin can set retention policies for files and messages on a specific channel, overriding the system global retention policy and any team specific retention policies.

• System admins can set system-wide retention policies on direct and group messages.

• End-users are able to understand when data is deleted based on data retention policies.

• Nice to haves:

  • the ability to exclude pinned posts from data retention policies

  • the ability for channel and team admins to set data retention policies

  • the ability for members to set their own retention schedules for GMs and DMs.

Assumptions

Phases & Milestones

Areas Touched

• Permissions

• System Console UI (Channel Configuration page and permissions)

• Chat UI when messages and files are deleted

Requirements

Open Questions

Future Iterations

• Adding data retention policies to the channel management page

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Risks:

• UI in system console being accessible to jr roles who should/should not have access.