SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the capabilities of Microsoft compliance solutions
A company uses Microsoft 365 and wants to automatically apply a 3-year retention label to any document that contains a patent number in the format PAT-XXXXXX. The label should be applied at the time the document is created or modified. Which Microsoft Purview solution should the administrator configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse Data Loss Prevention (DLP) with Data Lifecycle Management, assuming DLP can apply retention labels, but DLP only detects and protects data in transit or at rest without managing retention schedules.
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
✓
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management (formerly known as Microsoft 365 Retention) allows administrators to create auto-apply retention labels based on sensitive information types, such as a custom regex for patent numbers. When configured with a 'created or modified' condition, the label is automatically applied at the time the document is saved or edited, ensuring compliance with the 3-year retention requirement.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management
Why this is correct
Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management is the correct solution because it provides robust auto-labeling policies specifically designed for applying retention labels. These policies leverage sensitive information types, keywords, or trainable classifiers to automatically detect and apply appropriate retention labels to content across Microsoft 365 services like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange. This ensures that data is retained or deleted according to organizational policies without requiring manual intervention, streamlining compliance efforts.
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Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is designed to help organizations detect, investigate, and act on inappropriate messages within their Microsoft 365 environment. It supervises user communications for policy violations, such as harassment, insider trading, or regulatory compliance breaches, using predefined or custom policies. However, its primary function is to identify and flag problematic content for review, not to automatically apply retention labels for data lifecycle management.
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Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies are designed to identify, monitor, and protect sensitive information across Microsoft 365 services and endpoints. DLP prevents the accidental or intentional sharing of sensitive data, such as credit card numbers or social security numbers, outside of authorized boundaries by blocking or auditing actions. While it can detect sensitive information, its core function is to enforce sharing restrictions and prevent data exfiltration, not to automatically apply retention labels for content disposition.
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Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium)
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium) offers enhanced auditing capabilities, providing deeper insights into user and admin activities across Microsoft 365 services. It includes longer retention periods for audit logs, access to intelligent insights, and high-bandwidth API access for security information and event management (SIEM) integration. While crucial for forensic investigations and compliance reporting, Audit (Premium) is purely a logging and reporting service and does not possess the functionality to automatically apply retention labels to content.
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Learn chapter
Compliance Concepts
Key term
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based cloud service from Microsoft that combines productivity tools like Office apps with security, device management, and online storage.
Key term
General Data Protection Regulation
A European Union law that gives individuals control over their personal data and sets strict rules for how organizations collect, store, and process that data.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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