Retention Policy Templates

Retention policy templates are saved retention configurations held in CIPP rather than in a tenant, so a policy you have settled on can be deployed to any number of customers without rebuilding it each time. Templates get here in three ways: capture one from a live policy with Create template based on policy on the Purview Retention Policies page, author one from JSON in the deploy drawer, or import one from a community repository.

Action Buttons

Deploy Retention Policy

Opens a drawer that creates a retention policy in one or more tenants from a template or from parameters you supply yourself.

Field	Description
Select Tenants	The tenants to create the policy in. At least one is required, and you can pick several to deploy the same policy across a group of customers in one go.
Select a template (optional)	Picks a saved retention policy template. Choosing one fills Parameters (JSON) with that template's stored settings, which you can then edit before deploying.
Parameters (JSON)	The policy settings as JSON. Required. A worked example is shown in the field until you type into it, covering the policy name, workload locations and a nested RuleParams block holding the retention duration and action.

Browse Catalog

Opens a drawer listing the retention policy templates published in the community repositories you have configured, so you can bring one into CIPP.

Field	Description
Search Templates	Narrows the list by template name, category or repository.
Repository	Restricts the list to chosen repositories. Shown once you have more than one repository configured.
Category	Restricts the list to chosen categories. Shown once the available templates span more than one category.
Card and list view	Switches between template cards and a compact list.
All, Not Imported, Imported, Updates	Filters by import state. Updates narrows to templates you already imported that have since changed upstream.
Select all	Selects every template currently listed, for importing in one go.
Force re-import	Imports a template again even when CIPP already holds it, overwriting the copy you have.
Import Selected	Imports everything you have ticked.

Each template also carries its own Preview and Import buttons, and is chipped Imported or Update Available so you can see its state at a glance.

Be sure to check out Catalog for more on setting up repositories.

Table Details

Column	Description
Name	The template name, taken from the policy it was captured from or the name in the JSON it was authored with.
Comments	The description saved with the template.
Enabled	Whether the policy will be created switched on.
Restrictive Retention	Whether the policy will be created with Preservation Lock set.
GUID	CIPP's identifier for the template. Quote it when raising a support request about a specific template.

A template with Restrictive Retention set applies Preservation Lock to every tenant you deploy it to, and the lock cannot be undone. Once it is set, nobody, including a Global Administrator, can disable or delete that policy, remove locations from it, or shorten its retention period.

Microsoft does not offer this setting in the Purview portal at all, specifically to guard against it being applied by accident, and deploying from here does not ask you to confirm. Check this column before deploying a template, and before saving one captured from a policy that already has the lock. See Preservation Lock for Microsoft's guidance.

Table Actions

Action	Description	Bulk Action Available
Save to GitHub	Publishes the selected template to a repository you have write access to, prompting for the repository and a commit message. Greyed out unless the GitHub integration is enabled.
Delete Template	Removes the selected template from CIPP. Policies already deployed from it are unaffected.
More Info	Opens the Extended Info flyout with the full details for the selected row.

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Feature Requests / Ideas

We value your feedback and ideas. Please raise any feature requests on GitHub.