The owner of a Microsoft Team is responsible for:
In Teams, "chat" messages are managed and retained a little differently than "channel" messages. "Chats" are things like direct/private messages between two users, the messages sent during a meeting, or the ad-hoc 2-or-more user messaging groups you can create as needed using the "Chat" page in Teams. These messages are treated as something called "transitory records": generally unimportant, short-term data that is informal in nature.
Because Teams chats are assumed to be transitory, UW only keeps those messages around as long as absolutely necessary: 30 days[1], at which time they're automatically deleted. This is both in line with best practice and with regulations / greater UW data policy.
Some UW users may read that and think of messages in their recent chats that they don't want to have deleted because they're important or have useful information. That's a good sign that the data in your chat may not be transitory in nature; if that sounds like you, copy that important data into an email, SharePoint document, or some other long-term form of storage!
If you'd like more info on transitory data at UW, please click here.
A "channel" is kind of like a sub-forum (if you remember those from way back when) - you can use Channels to create spaces within a Team to communicate about different topics, and each channel can have many messages or message threads within it. Channels can be "Private" or "Shared", which determines who in UW gets access to the channel's content, and each channel is intended to for longer-term communications.
Because of this, messages and threads within channels do not automatically delete themselves regardless of their age. In other words, they have no default retention. That's because channel messages could be about any topic, and the content of the conversation is ultimately what determines the retention. If you're unsure if you should delete (or save) channel messages, check with the Records Office's retention schedules.
Live Meetings (that aren't started from a 1:1 chat) can create all sorts of different data depending on your meeting's settings and its participants: in addition to regular chat messages, you could also create recorded content like Meeting Recordings (video and audio), meeting transcripts (either manual or via Teams Premium / Copilot), or even Intelligent Recap content.
This kind of 'recorded' content is handled slightly differently than other Teams content. By default, this content is tagged with a 120-day retention period. 120 days after its creation date, it will be automatically deleted. This auto-deletion only happens for content created after August 2026; content created before that time is tagged with the "Teams Meeting Artifacts" label and won't auto-delete. That content should be reviewed every 120 days in case it should be deleted in accordance with Records Office policy.
Some recorded content should be retained longer than 120 days based on its content, and it's up to the content owner to review it and tag it with an optional 3-year label if it meets those content guidelines. Examples include content that has a documented business, institutional, compliance, legal, audit, research, governance, or operational value. Again, if you have questions, reach out to the Records Office for more info.
[1] In practice, this ends up being a range of time because the timer restarts when edits are made to a message.
A Microsoft Team may be deleted by UW-IT when the last UW employee or Shared UW NetID is removed as Team owner. The owner of a Microsoft Team can delete the Team by following these directions.
UW Students may use Microsoft Teams to join and interact in a Microsoft team(s). However, UW Students are prohibited from creating and/or owning a Microsoft team as students cannot be responsible for maintaining state or educational records. For students who need a Microsoft team, a recommended course of action is to contact a department staff or faculty member and have them request a Microsoft team on the student's behalf. Even if a department staff or faculty members is not participating in the Microsoft team, we recommend they use a Shared UW NetID provisioned for UW Office 365 as one of the owners of the Microsoft team so content can be removed when it is no longer needed or appropriate to hold.