Place legal holds on Hangouts Chat messages
In addition to setting retention policies, you can now place legal holds on your employees’ Hangouts Chat conversations, whether they take place via direct message or in rooms.

Doing so will preserve room conversations in which a held user is a participant (i.e. they’ve sent a message) and direct messages in which a held user is a member (i.e. they’ve sent or received a message), regardless of whether that user deletes those messages. If a user on hold deletes a message, it will appear deleted to them—but it will be available in Vault until the hold is removed. Remember that holds always take precedence over retention rules.

Search, preview and export chat content
Finally, you can now search, preview, and export your employees’ Hangouts Chat messages. This enables you to apply the same eDiscovery programs you use for other G Suite services (like Gmail and Drive) to content stored in Hangouts Chat direct messages and rooms.

To learn more about how Vault’s support for Hangouts Chat can help your organization meet its legal obligations and archiving needs, check out the Vault Help Center.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education editions only

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Google Vault
Help Center: Supported data types
The Keyword: New ways to help teams work faster and smarter with G Suite
The Keyword: Move projects forward from one place—Hangouts Chat now available
G Suite Updates: Hangouts Chat now generally available

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