Site And Site Collection Retention Policy In SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 has introduced new feature Site and Site Collection Retention Policy. Usually Site has lifecycle – site creation, site deletion. Also in life cycle we can track which sites are used, unused and old. SharePoint 2013 comes with the new option to easily delete old site, not in used site, sites which has lot of data etc. Through this way (Site retention Policy) we can easily track, delete, provide the expiry date by using and providing some information to Site Policies.

Site Policies:

• We can assign Site retention policy at site creation.
• Site Policies are created in Site collection level.
• You can configure how site under this policy are closed and eventually deleted automatically.

The following are the three options set to create new site policies.

• Closed and then deleted automatically.
• Deleted automatically after certain period of time.
• Marked read-only.

Create a Site Policy

Here are the steps to create new site policy at the site collection level to apply this site policy to close and delete sub-sites automatically.

1. Go to the Site (Site collection) and click on Site Settings on the left ribbon.


                                                   Figure 01: Home page with Site Settings

2. In Site Settings page click on Site Policies under the Site Collection Administration section.


                  Figure 02: Site Policies feature under Site Collection administration

3. To create new Site Policies click on the Create. New Site Policy pop up opens to enter the information.


                                                      Figure 03: Create new Site Policies


                                                            Figure 04: New Site Policy

4. Enter a name, description and in Site Closure and deletion for the policy click on close and delete sites automatically. Fill the appropriate information and click OK.




                                                            Figure 05: Edit Site Policy

Useful terms in Site Closure and deletion:

• Close Event: We can set the close event of Site created date start with days, year and month.
  
  
• Deletion Event: We can set site closed date under Deletion event with days, year and month.
  
  
• Send an email notification to site owner this far in advance of deletion.
  
  
• Send follow-up notifications every: We can set send follow-up notifications every values which we choose for send like 1 year/month/days.
  
  
• Postpone deletion: owner can postpone imminent deletion for it may be 5 years/month etc.
  
  
• Site Collection Closure: When a site collection is closed, you can choose for it to become read only.

5. Click Ok to create the new policy. New created policy displays Site polices list: “Test Site Policies”.


                                             Figure 06: New Created Site policies

To apply the site policy in site collection to new sub site/existing sub site

The following are the steps to apply the site policy to sub site. Let’s go to sub site on which we are going to apply the site policy.

1. Go to site and click Site settings menu.
   
   
2. On Site settings page click Site Closure and Deletion which is under Site Administration.
   
   
                                                Figure 07: Click on Site Closure and Deletion
   
   
3. In Site Closure and Deletion page select the site policy name from drop down listing which we have created earlier.
   
   
                                          Figure 08: Site Closure and Deletion in new window
   
   
4. Select the “Test Site Policies” site policy to apply for selected sub site.
   
   
                                                      Figure 09: Select Site policy from listing
   
   
5. Click OK. The policy is applied to the site.
   
   
6. Go to Site Closure and Deletion link again, applied policy result displays in the Site Closure and Site Deletion window:
   
   
                                          Figure 10: Result applied site policy in to Sub sites
   
   
7. To postpone site deletion you can click on Postpone deletion of this site for 5 years button so the site will postpone for 5 years deletion.
   
   
8. Now go to site home page to see applied result of the site Closure. At the top of the ribbon, message will be visible at the time of site deletion “The site will be deleted on 9/2/2015”. At the time of site closed site is read only mode and we cannot modify the site. On the other pointer, site collection has the ready only mode indicator that appear on the top of ribbon home page.
   
   
                                       Figure 11: Notification result at time of site deletion

So this way we can accomplish and apply Site collection policies in SharePoint 2013.