Microsoft 365 management, reporting, and auditing - ManageEngine M365 Manager Plus (2024)

Email Journaling and Email Archiving are necessary to save storage space in the native database andcomply with IT regulations and legal obligations. It's important to keep a record of all the essential conversations, events, and mails.In Microsoft 365,you can placea mailboxon Litigation Hold or In-Place Hold, for this purpose. Litigation holdkeeps a record of all mailbox items including the deleted ones and original version of items that were modified.Entities placedon Litigation Hold would be retained and held until theconfigured retention period.TheeDiscovery feature allowsan Microsoft 365 admin or compliance manager,who has access to selected mailboxes (including the ones puton Litigation Hold),to discover and acquire data.This datadiscovery can enable your organization to perform forensic analysis for both audit and legal purposes.

Litigation Hold in Microsoft 365

To enable Litigation Hold in Microsoft365, follow the steps as given:

1. OpenExchange Admin Center.
2. Navigate toRecipient → Mailboxes → Edit → Mailbox Features → Litigation Hold → Enable.
3. Enter theLitigation hold duration,for which you want the items to be held.

Note:You can also get redirected to a website for more information about litigation hold using theURLsection.This URL will appear in the user's mailbox for Outlook 2010 and above.

Litigation Hold canalsobe enabled in Microsoft 365 using PowerShellwiththeSet-Mailbox <Mailbox Name> -LitigationHoldEnabled $true and related cmdlets.

Why M365 Manager Plus is a better option

In Microsoft 365, you have to perform the tedious task of enabling Litigation Hold and configuring the retention period for each mailbox individually.M365 Manager Plus helps you put multiple mailboxes under Litigation Hold simultaneously using a CSV file import. You may also select mailbox(es) from other tenants across the organization if you need to. In addition to this,you can set anownerfor theLitigation Holdmailbox(ex), to have access permissions to all the files and data stored.To put a mailbox on Litigation Hold using M365 Manager Plus follow the given steps:

1. Login toM365 Manager Plus.
2. Navigate toManagement tab → Exchange Online → Mailbox Management in the left pane.
3. UnderExchange Configurations,chooseSet Mailbox Litigation Hold.
4. In theSet Mailbox Litigation Hold page that appears, check theConfigure Litigation Hold box.
5. Enable Litigation Hold andselect a Litigation Hold owner mailbox.
6. Specify theHold duration for which the mailbox items must be retained.
7. In theFind Mailbox(es) to Modify section, choose the tenant andenterthemailboxes you want to configure or if the mailboxes list is available ina CSV file, you may import the CSV file to configure Litigation Hold for multiple mailboxes simultaneously.
8. Click Find.
9. Choose the mailboxesand click on the Applybuttonappearing on the left corner.

   

This is how we can set Litigation Hold for multiple mailboxes simultaneously using M365 Manager Plus. You may also read our article,How to assign group based licensing for Microsoft 365 users in bulk,to see how M365 Manager Plus eases this process.