License editions: To understand the applicable license editions, see Plans & Pricing.

Why Legal Hold?

With Legal Hold, you can preserve user backup data and avoid data deletion. When you keep a user on Legal Hold, the backup data for that user is excluded from compaction. inSync does not delete the data that the user backs up from any user device. Administrators can analyze user data by using eDiscovery tools.

When you put a user on Legal Hold, the user data from endpoints such as laptops and mobile, and from cloud applications is preserved.

The following tables list the audience and impact of Legal Hold.

Audience	Impact
For the organization	Administrators cannot delete users who are on Legal Hold. Administrators cannot delete user devices for users that are on Legal Hold. Administrators cannot delete backup data from the user's devices. The storage compaction process excludes the user's data and inSync retains only those deleted snapshots that are a part of the rollback configured window. However, all data (belonging to soft-deleted and hard-deleted snapshots) will be preserved on Webdav. The user can continue to backup and restore data.
For inSync administrators	Simplified administration. Easily create and manage Legal Hold policies. Easily capture administrator activities by using Admin audit trail. Easily distinguish users that are on Legal Hold. Can use eDiscovery tools to access stored data. Use Federated Search to search for files and emails.
For legal administrators	Separate login to the Legal Administrator portal. Consolidated view of Legal Hold. Easily create and manage Legal Hold policies. Can use eDiscovery tools to access stored data. Use Federated Search to search for files and emails associated with Legal Holds and custodians (users) on Legal Hold.
For users who are on Legal Hold	Can continue to backup and restore data. However, backup data is excluded from compaction. Users who are placed on Legal Hold will continue to be on Legal Hold, if the Data Governance license expires. To remove users from Legal Hold after the Data Governance license expires, contact support . Users who are placed on Legal Hold will continue to be on Legal Hold, if they are disabled from the inSync Management Console. To remove the users from Legal Hold after they are disabled from inSync, contact support.

Administrator roles and responsibilities

Category: Legal Hold Management rights

The following table lists the roles and responsibilities of the legal administrator.

❗ Important

Cloud administrator, by default, has access to all the roles and rights.

Activity	Create and manage legal holds only	View legal holds only	Delete legal holds only	View legal hold settings only	Manage legal hold settings only
Add a legal administrator to inSync Master	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Create, edit, and delete Legal Hold type	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔
Assign a new type to Legal Hold	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Create a Legal Hold policy	✔	❌	❌	❌	❌
Access Legal Hold data using WebDAV	✔	✔ (Selective)	✔(Selective)	✔(Selective)	✔(Selective)
View Legal Hold	✔	✔(Selective)	✔(Selective)	✔(Selective)	✔(Selective)
Manage Legal Hold policy	✔	❌	❌	❌	❌
Manage your Legal administrator account	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Assign Legal Hold policies to Legal administrators	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Add/Edit custodians to a Legal Hold policy	✔	❌	❌	❌	❌
Delete Legal Hold policies	❌	❌	✔	❌	❌
Use Federated Search	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔

📝 Note

While creating a legal administrator with View Legal Hold right or Delete Legal Hold right, the cloud admin has the option of providing access only to selective Legal Hold types. Hence, the access of such legal administrators will be limited to the selective Legal Hold types.
If Manage legal hold settings are enabled for a Legal Administrator, View legal hold settings are also enabled by default.

The following table lists the activities that the legal administrator with the eDiscovery Download client rights can perform.

Category: Legal Hold Management rights

Activity	eDiscovery Download Client rights assigned to the Legal Administrator	eDiscovery Download Clients rights assigned to the Legal Administrator	eDiscovery Download Client rights assigned to the Legal Administrator
Activity	View legal hold clients only	Manage legal hold clients only	Delete legal hold clients only
View the existing clients	✔	✔	✔
Edit the existing clients	❌	✔ 📝Note The View legal hold Clients right is also enabled with this right.	❌
Create eDiscovery Download Client	❌	✔	❌
Edit Default Download Location	❌	✔	❌
Generate New Password	❌	✔ 📝Note The View legal hold clients right is also enabled with this right.	❌
Delete Client	❌	❌	✔ 📝Note The View Legal Hold Clients right is also enabled with this right.

The following rights will be enabled by default for the legal administrator under the User Management, Backup and Restore Management, and Data Governance categories. You can update these rights as per your organization's requirements.

Category	Rights
User Management	Download Debug Logs: With this right, you can download debug logs from Legal Hold > Collection Stream tab > Collection Details.
Backup and Restore Management	Download Data: With this right, you can perform the following activities for Legal Hold: Download Data Direct Download CSV Access to WebDav Data Access URL
Data Governance	Access Federated Search

For more information, see Predefined roles and rights.

About the Legal Hold workflow

The following table lists the Legal Hold workflow.

Step	Activity	Description
1	Create roles for a Legal administrator	The inSync Cloud administrator can create different roles for legal administrators to restrict their actions and their access to Legal Holds.
2	Create a Legal administrator	The inSync Cloud administrator creates a Legal administrator and assigns the desired Legal Hold types. The Legal administrator receives an email containing login credentials and portal details for the Legal Administrator portal.
3	Access Legal Hold	The inSync Cloud administrator can access Legal Holds from the inSync Management Console. The Legal administrator can access Legal Hold from the Legal Administrator portal.
4	Create a Legal Hold policy	In the Legal Hold policy: Add the users whom you want to put on Legal Hold. Add a type to the Legal Hold policy.
5	Access Legal Hold data using WebDAV	inSync supports the following methods: Web Browser (Internet Explorer (IE), Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox) A mapped network drive WebDAV client
6	Download Legal Hold data using eDiscovery Download Client	Use our eDiscovery Download Client to seamlessly download custodian data from inSync Cloud.
7	Manage a Legal Hold policy	Actions that you can perform on an existing Legal Hold policy: Add users. Remove users. Add or update the Legal Hold type of the policy. Update Legal Hold data access preference. Update Legal Hold policy name. Delete a Legal Hold policy.
8 (Optional)	Manage your legal administrator account	Actions that you can perform: Update your display name. Reset your password.

For more information about the Legal Hold user interface, see Legal Hold page.

📝 Note

Legal administrators can access user data irrespective of the user's privacy settings.
If users are not removed from Legal Hold before the expiration of your Data Governance license, those users continue to remain on Legal Hold.

Governance and Legal Hold for Exchange Online data

Governance and Legal Hold for OneDrive data

Create a legal hold policy

Manage a legal hold policy

View legal hold report