On-demand records disposition: why archivists, not timers, should decide

When a retention schedule is translated into Microsoft 365, the tempting shortcut is a retention label set to delete items automatically at the end of the period. It's simple, it scales, and nobody has to do anything.

That last part is the problem. In a public body, destroying records is an administrative act with consequences, and "nobody had to do anything" is not an answer you want to give when someone asks why a document is gone.

Why automatic deletion appeals to IT

The case for automation is real. Content that is kept past its retention period is a liability: it costs storage, it widens the scope of every search and access request, and it contradicts the schedule the organization adopted. A timer applies the rule consistently, on every item, without anyone having to remember. For a lot of operational content, that's a reasonable choice.

Records governed by an archival retention schedule are different. The schedule decides when a record may be disposed of. It doesn't know everything that should affect the decision for a given file, on a given day.

What a timer can't know

• A pending access-to-information request. A document covered by an open request can't simply disappear because its period ended last week.
• A litigation, an audit or an investigation. Holds exist for that, but only if someone who knows about the matter sets them in time.
• Misclassification. A label applied to a whole library doesn't fit every document in it. A contract filed in a general-correspondence library inherits the wrong retention period.
• A file that isn't really closed. The date that starts the clock (creation, last modification) doesn't always match the end of the business activity.
• Selection. Some series must be sorted before disposal: part is destroyed, part is kept for its historical value. That's archival appraisal, and it's the archivist's call.

Microsoft Purview offers disposition review as an alternative to automatic deletion, and it's a step in the right direction. But review is still triggered by each item's clock, and an optional auto-approval can dispose of items nobody acted on. We compare the two approaches in detail in Microsoft Purview vs. Archiveo: who should run records disposition?

What "on demand" means in practice

On-demand disposition keeps the rules automatic and makes the decision deliberate. The archivist chooses a scope and a moment, typically when something has happened:

• a project ends, or a committee or working group is dissolved;
• a directorate is reorganized or moves;
• a shared drive or an old Teams site is about to be decommissioned;
• it's time for the annual disposal campaign, unit by unit.

In Archiveo, that becomes an archive request: a Teams or SharePoint site (folders or files), a network drive, or a set of paper boxes. For that scope, Archiveo cross-references the content with your retention rules and produces the disposal report: the list of items to destroy, and the list of items to keep, sort or transfer to the national archive.

The request then follows a tracked path, from Draft to Approved, Transferred and Completed, with every change timestamped. It doesn't live in someone's inbox.

A coherent batch, not a trickle

Per-item timers turn review into a queue that never empties: a few documents from one site today, a few from another tomorrow, each reviewed out of context. Reviewers end up approving items they can't really judge, or not reviewing at all.

A request scoped to a site, a drive or a unit gives the archivist and the manager a coherent set to look at, such as one committee's records or one directorate's drive. That's the level at which they can tell whether the result makes sense, spot what was misclassified, and decide what deserves to be kept.

Automate the work, not the decision

On demand doesn't mean manual. Archiveo automates everything that used to eat an archivist's week:

• calculating due dates from your retention rules;
• building the lists of items to destroy and to keep;
• generating the transfer package and deposit file for the national archive;
• deleting approved items and verifying they're gone, SharePoint recycle bin included;
• recording every step in the audit trail.

What stays human is the part that should: what to process and when, what to keep, and who approves. Every request needs the archivist's validation and the manager's approval before anything is executed. The third article in this series covers that proof in detail: Defensible records destruction.

The same approach beyond Microsoft 365

A retention schedule doesn't stop at the edge of the tenant, and neither should the process.

• Network drives. Archiveo proposes expired folders based on their creation or last-modified date. Nothing moves until the request is approved, and approved items go through a buffer zone first, so a mistake can be corrected before destruction.
• Paper. Each box and file has a record with its location and a disposal date calculated from your rules. Barcode labels make boxes easy to find, and the certificate of destruction is attached to the request.