MS-700 Manage Teams, Channels, Chats, and Apps Practice Question
Your organization wants to ensure that all internal team chats are retained for seven years and cannot be deleted by users. Which configuration should you implement in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal?
⚠ Common exam trap
MS-700 often tests the difference between retention policies and eDiscovery holds — candidates pick eDiscovery holds because they sound more 'legal,' but retention policies are the correct org-wide mechanism for systematic retention requirements.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Create a retention policy with the 'Retain' action and a seven-year duration.
A retention policy with the 'Retain' action and a seven-year duration is correct because it ensures Teams chat and channel messages are preserved for the specified period and prevents users from permanently deleting them during that window. Retention policies in Microsoft Purview apply at the workload level and override user deletion attempts, satisfying both the retention and immutability requirements.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Configure an eDiscovery hold for every individual user mailbox.
Why it's wrong here
eDiscovery holds are designed for specific legal cases rather than general compliance retention. Managing individual holds is operationally unsustainable at scale and does not provide the automated, policy-driven lifecycle management required for a broad seven-year data retention mandate across the entire organizational user base.
- ✗
Enable 'Delete items' in the Messaging policy for all users.
Why it's wrong here
Messaging policies control user interface features, such as the ability to delete sent messages. Enabling this would allow users to remove their chat history, which directly conflicts with the requirement to prevent deletion. This setting is insufficient for long-term data governance or regulatory compliance.
- ✓
Create a retention policy with the 'Retain' action and a seven-year duration.
Why this is correct
Retention policies at the tenant level are the authoritative method for controlling how long data persists. By setting a seven-year retention period and applying it to Teams chats, the system preserves all conversation data, even if users attempt to delete messages from their own client interface.
- ✗
Modify the Teams global org-wide settings to disable chat history.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling chat history prevents data from being stored or synchronized, effectively losing the information entirely. This contradicts the requirement to retain data for seven years, as it would result in the loss of all communications rather than their secure preservation for future compliance review.
About these practice questions
One of 211 original MS-700 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Microsoft exam blueprint
This MS-700 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the MS-700 exam.