Extract from Jim Gill’s article “Collaboration Data Challenges Before Litigation (And How Technology Can Help)”
Collaboration data is essential for many businesses in the digital age. However, determining how long to keep records on communication tools like Slack and Teams has become a challenge due to legal cases. Companies must balance regulatory requirements, business needs, and records hygiene when managing collaboration data. To help with information governance, many organizations are turning to technology. This article (which is part two of a four-part blog series) investigates the challenges faced by companies when using chat applications and how technology can assist with managing collaboration data.
Collaboration Data Challenges Before Litigation
Clients often struggle with determining a reasonable retention period for workplace collaboration data before a legal matter arises. This challenge has become more prevalent in court, causing headaches for both legal teams and IT departments. Fortunately, an increasing number of companies are now implementing retention policies and schedules for workplace collaboration tools to mitigate this issue.
A recent survey by Hanzo found that 55% of respondents had a collaboration data retention policy throughout their organization in 2021, which increased to 65% in 2022. However, determining the retention period for communication tools like Slack and Teams presents challenges for companies. Unlike email, these tools have unique retention settings that may depend on the company’s license. By default, all messages and files are retained for the lifetime of the workspace, but users can still edit and delete posts. Companies can set different retention periods based on their licenses, allowing messages to be automatically deleted after a specific timeframe.
