Aware - Retention Frequently Asked Questions

This article provides information on how Aware Retention handles content deletion, retention policies, data hold, user removal, and Workplace by Meta-specific functionalities, including posts, edits, comments, and Multi-Company Group Chat.

Aware Retention

Q	What time does Aware Retention begin the daily purge?
A	Retention will run every day at 5:00 am UTC.
Q	What is the duration of the first retention purge?
A	The initial retention purge can take up to 5 days to complete, depending on the amount of data that requires processing.
Q	What content cannot be purged via Aware Retention?
A	This applies to Meta customers only. Aware Retention will not purge Meta Timeline content, Meta-generated messages, and the Multi-Company Group Chat for the company that does not have Aware integrated. Multi-Company Group Chat: Meta generates individual replicas of a group chat, one for each participant involved. The Aware Retention function is designed to delete all instances of Meta Chat and your versions of Multi-Company Group Chat. However, it does not have the capability to erase the versions of Multi-Company Group Chat that are held by the other company. Group Cover Photos: In the Meta platform, whenever a user uploads a cover image, it automatically triggers the creation of a corresponding post within the same group. If this post is later deleted by either the original author, a Meta administrator, or through the Aware Retention mechanism, the associated cover photo is also removed. This is a built-in feature of Meta's operational design and functionality.
Q	What is the experience in each Aware Application once content is deleted via Aware Retention?
A	Active Retention Policies only remove specific content like messages or files, from your Aware Intelligent Data Fabric and any linked content platforms. However, they don't delete metadata linked to features like Signal Events or Analytics, which are kept for future reference and historical reports. Spotlight Dashboard: Not impacted by retention. Platforms: Not impacted by retention. Groups: Not impacted by retention except in the case of a Group Detail Page > Public Sentiment Anomaly "Message Viewer" where content/context would be gone if it was past a retention period. Spotlight Topic Reports Users will be unable to perform any searches or produce reports on data that has exceeded the designated retention period. If data has surpassed its retention period from past searches, it will no longer be visible in the "Message Viewer" of the Public Sentiment Anomaly. Despite this, the topic report and the data itself will continue to exist. Signal   Policies: Not impacted by retention. Rules: Not impacted by retention. Policy > Overview Tab: Not impacted by retention. Policy > Event List Tab: Not impacted by retention (we are working on removing any Event content "snippets" that are past a retention period). Policy > Rules Tab: Not impacted by retention. Policy > Event Detail: The event detail "metadata" will remain; however, users will not be able to view content/context of Event data that exceeds the designated retention period. If users selected "Preserve event content from removal in the Aware platform" while setting up the Rule Scope, they will be able to access the "triggered message" and "contextual messages" as expected in the Event Detail. Search and Discover Users will not be able to run any searches to find content on the data that has gone past the retention period. Users will not be able to view or export content/context of data that has exceeded the designated retention period. Data Hold If a Data Hold is placed on a selected user, Aware will retain the content and context and override any Retention Policy until the Data Hold is "released." User Data Removal In the event that an "Aware Only" policy is activated and the customer subsequently decides to execute a User-Defined Route (UDR) across both platforms, Aware's capabilities are somewhat limited. Specifically, Aware can only eliminate content from the collaboration platform that is already present within the Intelligent Data Fabric. Therefore, if Aware isn't aware of certain data on the collaboration platform, it cannot delete it.

Workplace by Meta

Q	Does Aware only act on Create Date, or does it take into consideration Edit Dates?
A	Aware only removes posts from the Platform UI based on their creation date. Any edits to the posts do not affect this retention policy. When a post is updated, the revised version will continue to be available in the Aware Archive until the date it was edited aligns with a specific retention policy. The original posts, on the other hand, will be removed from the Aware Archive based on when they were created. This implies that once the retention period reaches the date of creation, you will no longer have the option to view the original message. Instead, only the edited version will be visible.
Q	Does Aware take comments into consideration? i.e., if someone comments on a post a day before it's due to be deleted?
A	The retention of a post is not affected by its comments. When a post is removed due to retention policies, all associated comments, regardless of when they were created, are also deleted. We do not leave comments without their associated post. Despite this, comments can still be located in the Aware Archive based on the date they were created or edited.