• If you intend to save chats from Teams meetings, the meeting must be created from inside a Team channel. These chats are not affected by the new retention protocol. Please refer to the knowledge base article, Creating a meeting from a Microsoft Teams Channel, to learn how to create a meeting from inside a Teams Channel. 
• One way to save ideas and action items from a Teams meeting recording is by summarizing the meeting transcript and saving it on a Teams Channel or any other preferred location. Please refer to the knowledge base article, Using U of T Protected Copilot Chat to Summarize and Publish Meeting notes, to learn how to summarize recorded meeting transcripts using U of T Protected CoPilot and save it.
• If there is no intent to preserve the meeting chat, it is not necessary to create the meeting inside a Team or record it. 

Yes, messages sent to yourself will also be subject to deletion by the retention policy.

The retention policy affects all direct chats including the messages users send to themselves. Teams treats messages sent to your own account similarly to those sent to other users in terms of storage and retentions.

A designated Teams channel refers to a specific channel within a Microsoft Teams team that is set aside for a particular purpose or topic. Channels in Microsoft Teams are dedicated sections that help organize conversations, files, and tools around various subjects, projects, or disciplines, making collaboration more structured and efficient.

Here are some key points about channels in Microsoft Teams:

• Channels sit inside of teams: They are part of the broader team and are used for conversations and sharing related to a specific topic, department, or project.
• Types of channels: There are standard channels open to all team members, private channels for confidential discussions, and shared channels for collaboration with people inside and outside your organization.
• General channel: Every team has a General channel, which is the default channel for team-wide communication and cannot be deleted.
• Organization: Channels can be organized by anything relevant to the team, such as group, project, feature, etc., and are designed to keep the team’s work focused and organized.

There are a few steps you can start taking: 

• First, review your chat history. You will need a lot of time for this! 
• Search your chat history and ensure that you copy and save those threads that are important to you before September 30, 2024. All messages older than 30 days will be affected. 
• Identify any relevant files that have been shared over one-on-one or group chats in Teams and move them from your OneDrive Teams chat folder into another relevant folder. If it’s a file that is shared and collaborated on, consider moving it into a Teams channel folder or SharePoint site. 
• Keep an eye out for future communications
• Watch recordings of our information sessions – Scroll down this webpage to watch recordings of our information sessions.
• Spread the word!