The rapid move to remote working accelerated many organisations’ adoption of Microsoft 365. While collaboration improved dramatically, records management was often left behind. Years later, many organisations are now grappling with difficulty finding information, inconsistent retention practices, and increased compliance risk.

Today, SharePoint records management looks very different to how it did even a few years ago. Microsoft Purview has become the central place for managing retention, records, and compliance across Microsoft 365, including SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Exchange.

Rather than relying on traditional Records Centers, modern records management focuses on retention labels, in-place governance, and automation. Below are three contemporary approaches organisations can take.

Option 1: In-place records management with retention labels

In-place records management is now the recommended approach for most organisations. Instead of moving content to a separate archive, records are managed where they are created and used within SharePoint sites, Teams, and OneDrive.

Using Microsoft Purview, retention labels can be created to retain content for a defined period, delete content after a set time, or declare items as records or regulatory records. Once applied, these labels enforce retention and protection regardless of where the content is moved within Microsoft 365.

Option 2: Automated classification and retention with Microsoft Purview

For organisations with large volumes of content, relying on users to manually apply retention labels isn’t scalable. Microsoft Purview supports auto-apply retention labels, allowing records to be classified automatically based on metadata, content type, or conditions.

Option 3: Hybrid archival using retention and disposition review

While Microsoft no longer recommends Records Centers as the primary approach, a hybrid model can still be useful in certain scenarios, particularly where long-term archival or regulatory review is required.

Final thoughts

Modern records management in SharePoint is no longer about moving documents into archives – it’s about managing information intelligently where work happens. With Microsoft Purview and retention labels, organisations can protect information, meet compliance obligations, and still enable collaboration.