Quick Start

The following is intended to be a quick start for those familiar with data retention tools and are looking to quickly deploy Content Retention Manager for Jira.

In this guide we'll do the following

1. Install the app
2. Set your policy
3. Audit your content
4. Grant exceptions
5. Deploy automated retention enforcement

Prerequisites

1. A defined company policy on data retention or information governance. This is the amount of time since the last modification date of the content. We'll want to use this to define our policy within Content Retention Manager for Jira.
2. An active Jira Cloud or Jira Service Management site.
3. A user account with Jira Admin (Site-Admin) privileges.

Warning

We recommend trying our app out first on a development, test, or staging tenant first to familiarize yourself with the features and capabilities. This will help make sure the app conforms to your policies and expectations.

Installation

1. Install Content Retention Manager for Jira on the Atlassian Marketplace on your desired Jira instance.

2. You can find Content Retention Manager for Jira in the Jira Admin space under Apps on the left navigation pane.

Setting up your Retention Policies

Set your Retention Period and Warning

1. Click the Policies tab. Here you will set your team's defined retention policy in days and designate and granular project specific retention policies.

   Feature	Definition
   Default Retention	Where you select your site wide retention policy. This will be your global default across all projects.
   Retention Rules	Where you can set custom retention policies for specific projects.
   Policies	Where you create your custom content retention policies to be set against projects or your global default. The days you set will help the audit tool flag all content that is nearing the end of the retention period or has expired past the retention policy. When automation is enabled, Retention Manager will purge content from Jira according to these policies.

At this point no content is being removed or purged, Content Retention Manager is simply auditing.

1. Create a custom policy in Policies if you don't see a preset policy that matches your desired retention schedule. Each policy has a defined retention period and a warning period. The warning period happens at the set number of days before expiration to notify users and admins of the upcoming content removal. This will help your team keep an eye on content expiring before they expire and request content to be excepted against the policy. Exceptions can be granted manually on the Content Audit tab.

Setting up Automated Content Removal

Leave automation off until you have performed a manual audit of all content you wish to retain and purge.

Once you enable automation any expired content will be purged from your space as defined by the policies you set.

1. Click the Automation tab. This is where you can enable automation.

2. Enable the Automation slider.

3. Set the number of days after a expiration you want the content fully purged (no longer discoverable).

4. Click Save. At this point, automation will start purging any content based on your policies and the lifecycle of the content with Atlassian Jira.

Warning

We recommend you have a few days between expire and purge as a backstop should content be removed that should have been retained but not flagged ahead of time.

Audit your content

1. Click on Content Audit. Here you will find the dashboard that allows you to comb through all content by status against the defined retention policy. You can use Filters to sort through content that is in the following statuses:

   Status	Definition	Document Status
   Retained	Content is in an active state and available. This means it hasn't expired per your policy or any exceptions.	Accessible & Discoverable
   Extended	Content in which an admin has granted a specific retention policy that can either be shorter or longer than the company's global retention period.	Accessible & Discoverable
   Evergreen	Content in which an admin has extended the retention policy indefinitely. This content will never expire or be automatically removed.	Accessible & Discoverable
   Ending	Content is nearing end of your retention period and you should determine if it needs to be granted an exception or if it's ok to be removed.	Accessible & Discoverable
   Ended	Content has expired against your defined retention policy. When a retention period of content ends, the content is then Purged (irrecoverable) after a defined period of time in your Policies.	Purged non-Discoverable

2. Set exceptions by filtering for content that has Ended or is Ending which you would like to extend. You may want to also audit all active content for those which you may want to have an altered retention policy. Common use cases are Human Resources Content, Company Policies, Legal documents, and anything which you would like to be retained for a longer period. Remember, you can bulk edit multiple pieces of content to save time.

   a. Defined Exceptions - You can set an explicit retention period by content. This sets a specific date in the future you would like this content to conform to.

   b. Indefinite “Evergreen” Exceptions - This allows you to mark content such that it never expires against a retention policy.

   

Remove Expired Content

Warning

Only after you have audited your content and granted exceptions to your retention policies, should you begin removal of any content that has expired against your company's defined retention period.

There are two methods for removal in Content Retention Manager for Jira

1. Manual - The admin can remove individual content or bulk remove all ad-hoc in the Content Audit tab. This is recommended for your first time using the content since it's likely you will have a very large amount of content at first to remove.

2. Automation (Recommended) - On the automation tab you can enable automated purging of content. This allows the app to routinely remove content from your instance based on it's retention status. As content expires against the retention policy, it is purged based on your settings. Automated purge allows the app to fully remove content from your system after a period of time. At this point the content is irrecoverable to anyone and is no longer considered “discoverable.”

Warning

Remember: Automated Purging happens on the set period of time after a document's retention period has ended after its last modification datetime, not from when it may have been archived.

Content Status

Atlassian has multiple status levels to understand on how content exists. Discoverability for investigations and compliance is considered any time anyone (including an admin) can access or recover content.

Document Status	Visibility	Discoverable
Current	Anyone Can View (limited to the document's visibility settings)
Archived	Admins in Jira can archive projects and issues in Jira Premium
Purged	No longer visible nor recoverable. Any trace of the content is removed.

Final Steps and Considerations

Remember, ongoing retention management is critical to conform to the array of laws and regulations, how you plan on enforcing is up to your team's operational plan. With Content Retention Manager for Atlassian Jira to can decide how much automation or manual process you would like. We recommend starting with manual auditing and removal for a period of time as you get familiar with the product. This will also make sure you don't accidentally remove something important. Remember, the goal is to keep what you need and remove what you don't.

Discoverability and Liability is critical to understand

Archiving and Deleting is not enough, so long as someone can recover a project or issue in Jira, it's considered discoverable legal actions and privacy regulations. It's important that you actively maintain a policy that factors in what you want to be discoverable according to your Legal, CISO, and HR team requirements.

Don't forget the Audit Log

The Audit log is a permanent record for you to provide for any investigation to know who and when may have set or updated a policy, defined an exception, deleted, or purged content. If the issue or project is deleted or purged by automation it'll show up as such. The log only identifies content on a limited ID, it will not log the content itself.