Final answer:
To enable retention policies, organizations must determine applicable data retention periods and identify specific requirements for data storage and deletion, considering compliance, legal, and storage cost factors.
Step-by-step explanation:
To enable retention policies, you must determine the retention periods that apply to the data across your organization and identify the specific requirements for data storage and deletion. The process of data retention is essential for compliance with legal, regulatory, and organizational policies.
It involves setting up rules within an organization’s IT system that dictate how long different types of data, such as emails, documents, and transaction records, should be kept before they are either archived or permanently deleted. Factors that influence retention periods include regulatory compliance requirements, the business value of the information, potential legal considerations, and storage costs. Once the retention periods are defined, organizations must implement mechanisms to automatically enforce these periods to ensure that data is managed appropriately over its lifecycle.