Google Vault Gets New Hangouts Meet and Drive Trash File Retention Rules, Improved Search, More

G Suite of Google has introduced several new features in the latest update to Google Vault. To recall, the Google Vault is a product that lets you retain, hold, search, and export data to support your organisation's archiving and eDiscovery needs. It supports emails, chats in classic Hangouts with history turned on and Google Talk chats that are on the record, Google Groups, files in Google Drive and Team Drives, and Conversations in Hangouts Chat. Vault is entirely Web-based and is included with the G Suite Enterprise or Business or Education edition. With the latest update, Google Vault will be equipped with new features to "allow for more granular retention and provide a more transparent search experience."

Google detailed the new Vault features in a blog post, and said, "These features can help you retain exactly the data you need and thereby reduce your liability risk, as well as improve your eDiscovery process with better search and export capabilities." The update includes improvements to email search options, ability to set retention policy in terms of Hangouts Meet recordings, files in Google Drive trash, and easier exports when it comes to Hangout Chat.

Earlier, Hangouts Meet recordings had the same retention rules as the Google Drive retention rules. With this launch, users will be able to set default and custom retention rules particularly for Hangouts Meet. This will users to set shorter retention periods for Meet recordings. This feature can come useful in certain cases, for instance, when the recording contains more sensitive content.

Users can also set retention policies for files in Drive trash. As a G Suite admin, you can set custom Drive retention rules that expunge files a particular number of days after users move them to trash. Google says that this option provides more "flexibility for organisations who wish to control the lifecycle of files deleted by users separately from those files still active in their users' My Drive and Team Drives."

With this launch, Google says that it is making the process of searching your entire domain and large OUs easier and more transparent. If a data type supports domain-wide search, you can now select "All Accounts" to search the entire domain. Also, when the Vault processes your large search request, you will get an activity indicator and the amount of time that has elapsed. An option to cancel your search or run another search in a new tab will also be available.

Other improvements in Google Vault include easier exports when it came to Hangouts Chat including a far less number of files during the export instead of one file per conversation. Earlier, only one conversation per file was available, but now you will see multiple conversations included in the same file until the file size limit is reached, says Google. The company also noted that every Chat conversation will continue to have metadata associated with it, but will contain two new fields - Type of conversation, and Conversation ownership.

The latest update to Google Vault has started for G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education editions only, as well as G Suite users with the Vault add-on. It will be a gradual rollout and may take up to 15 days.