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How to use Enterprise Data Retention Tool

This feature requires an Enterprise account.

For Enterprise Accounts with Workspaces: This feature is managed at the Organization level by Organization Owners and Admins. For more information, visit How to edit my Organization's settings.

You can use the Data Retention tool to set schedules to delete content according to the policies you create. This article discusses how to create new policies and apply them to your folders and groups. 

In this article

Data Retention tool overview

To access the data retention tool, Enterprise Account owners and admins should navigate to the Settings tab within your team management page.

A screenshot of the data rention page. At the top right, there is a button labeled 'Create Policy'. Selecting this will let you create a new Data Retention policy. Below, there are four headers: Policy Name, Duration, Created On, and Status. Each row shows the name of the policy, the duration of the policy, the date the policy was created, a toggle for the status of the policy (whether active or not), a button labeled 'Details' to learn about the policy, and an 'Edit' button to edit the policy. The default policy is also labeled as 'Default Policy' in yellow.

On the data retention policy page, you can see a list of all the retention policies created in the account. The following information is included in this list:

  • The duration of the retention policy schedule (days, months, years)
  • The date the policy was created on
  • The status (if the policy is enabled or disabled). Here, you can toggle this on or off
  • The default policy is specified (Note: you can only set one policy as your default)

Select “Details” to see the title, description, and folders/groups to which the policy has been applied. You can now create a new policy or edit an existing one.

How to create a Data Retention policy

A screenshot of the Data Retention Policy creation page. This shows the first step - Create policy. There a fields to fill out for naming the policy, an option description of your policy, a duration with a dropdown menu of days, months, or years, and an option checkbox to set whether or not the policy is an account-wide default.

  1. Click on Create policy to open the data retention wizard.
  2. Enter your policy details. This includes the policy name, description (optional), and schedule duration (months, days, or years).
    💡Tip: The duration is the number of days, months, or years after the video has been uploaded on Vimeo when you would like it to be deleted.
  3. You also have the option to specify if the policy is an account-wide default.If the default is selected, this will apply to all content uploaded into the account unless it is overridden by another data retention policy applied to a certain folder or group.
  4. Click Next.

⚠️Note: If you are creating a default policy, both existing and new content will be affected (i.e. videos older than X years will be automatically deleted). If you would like to retain older content, you can set different policies for the folders and/or groups that it belongs to.

Applying policies to folders and groups overview

A screenshot of the 'Data retention' creation page. This shows the second step - 'Choose location'. This is where you can apply the policy you created. There are two panels shown to the right of the page - Team folders and Groups with a checkbox next to each folder or group. Select the checkboxes to apply the folder or group. You can select 'Sort' at the top of each panel to sort the list. There is a message stating that only 1,000 totalg groups and folders may be selected per policy. Under the panels, on the right of the page, are two buttons: Back (to return to the Create Policy page) and Next (to advance to the Finish and Save screen).

  • If the policy is not the default, you will continue to a page where you can select the team folders and user groups to which the policy will apply.

⚠️Note: You can select top-level parent folders only. All videos and subfolders contained within this parent folder will have the policy applied to them.

  • If you select a group, the policy will apply to all the Private To Me folders of team members in that group.
    • These are the SSO groups that can be synced to Vimeo via SAML/SCIM or created using the custom groups feature. 
    • If you have a user that is in multiple groups with different retention policies, the retention policy that has a longer duration will win and be applied to that user’s "Private to me" folder.
  • You will not be able to select folders or groups that already have data retention policies applied to them.

If the policy is the default, you can skip selecting folders and groups and move ahead to the summary. 

Making the most out of applying a policy

  • Retention policies can be applied to folders or groups’ Private to me folders. Therefore, assigning a policy to a group does not mean that all uploads by users in that group have the policy applied. It will only be used for videos in those users’ Private to me folders.
  • When setting up a policy, you can only select top-level parent folders. All subfolders within the parent folder will have that retention policy applied to them.
  • Retention policies can be created for a minimum of 7 days or more.

About overlapping Data Retention policies

There may be several cases where data retention policies overlap. Here’s how those are handled: 

  • If you have a default data retention policy, any additional policies you’ve applied to folders or groups will override the default (regardless of duration).
    • If a user is in multiple groups with different retention policies, the policy with the longer retention period will win. Hence, the videos will be deleted at the schedule of the longer retention policy applied to the group the user is a part of.

How to review the policy summary

A screenshot of the 'Data retention' creation page. This shows the third step - 'Finish and save'. This page shows you a summary of your policy: The name, the option details, the duration, and the groups and policy it is applied to. Below the panel that shows the details of your policy are two buttons: Back (to go back to selecting where the policy should be applied) or Finish and Save to save and apply your policy.

  1. Ensure your policy has the correct duration and is applied to the correct folders and groups.
  2. Feel free to go back to edit the policy or locations.
  3. Click “Finish & save” to enable your policy and be redirected back to the data retention page.

How to edit a Data Retention policy

A screenshot of the Data retention page.

 

A screenshot of the Edit an Existing policy page. The first step is identical to the Create Policy page. Here, you can edit the name, optional description, and duration of your policy. You can also select whether or not the policy is the account-wide default. There are two buttons: Back (to return to the policy list) or Next (to move to the next step in the workflow where you can select the folders and groups the policy should be applied to).

  1. On the data retention page, click “Edit” next to a policy you wish to edit.
  2. Navigate through the wizard to change the title, description, duration, or location of the policy.
  3. Review your new policy summary and click “Finish & save” to update your policy.
  4. After saving, new retention schedules will be calculated for the folders & groups to which this policy applies.

Recovering a video and Viewing History overview

  • You will receive a notification 7 days before a video is deleted due to data retention policies.
  • You can view the history of your videos that have been deleted by your data retention policies.
  • The videos that have been deleted in the last 30 days can be recovered to a new Recovered folder.

⚠️Note: The videos that have been deleted longer than 30 days ago will be permanently deleted.

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