SC-900 Practice Question: Describe the capabilities of Microsoft compliance solutions
Your organization uses Microsoft Purview eDiscovery to manage a legal case. You need to place a hold on emails for specific users, but you want to allow the system to apply the hold automatically. Which eDiscovery solution should you use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse eDiscovery (Standard) with eDiscovery (Premium), assuming both can handle automatic holds, but only Premium supports policy-driven, automated hold placement.
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 eDiscovery (Premium)
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium) is the correct choice because it provides advanced legal hold capabilities, including the ability to apply holds automatically based on specified criteria such as user mailboxes or SharePoint sites. Unlike the Standard version, Premium supports policy-based holds that can be set to trigger automatically without manual intervention, which is essential for managing legal cases efficiently.
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 eDiscovery (Standard)
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Standard) provides essential capabilities for identifying, preserving, collecting, and reviewing electronically stored information (ESI). While it supports placing legal holds, these holds are primarily manual, requiring administrators to individually identify and apply preservation policies to specific mailboxes, sites, or users. This manual process lacks the automation and advanced custodian management features necessary for automatically applying holds across dynamic data sources or large numbers of custodians, making it less suitable for organizations requiring automated preservation.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium)
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Audit (Premium) is designed to provide enhanced logging and forensic investigation capabilities across Microsoft 365 services, offering deeper insights into user and admin activities. Its primary function is to help organizations conduct security investigations, respond to regulatory obligations by reviewing audit logs, and monitor for suspicious activities. However, Audit (Premium) does not include any functionality for placing or managing legal holds on content; its role is solely to record and report on actions taken, not to preserve data.
- ✗
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is a solution focused on helping organizations detect, capture, and act on inappropriate messages within their internal and external communications. It uses machine learning to identify policy violations, such as harassment, sensitive information sharing, or regulatory compliance risks, and facilitates their review and remediation. This service is specifically designed for monitoring and managing communication content based on policies, but it does not provide any mechanisms for placing or managing legal holds on data for eDiscovery purposes.
- ✓
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium)
Why this is correct
Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium) is the advanced solution specifically engineered to manage complex eDiscovery workflows, including the crucial capability of automatic legal holds. It enables organizations to identify custodians, automatically place legal holds on their associated data sources (e.g., Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, Teams chats), and manage these holds centrally. This automation ensures that relevant data is preserved efficiently and consistently across the organization, significantly reducing manual effort and the risk of data spoliation during litigation or investigations.
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Microsoft Entra ID
Key term
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A user is any person, system, or device that interacts with an IT service, resource, or identity system, typically authenticated through credentials and authorized to perform specific actions.
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An Organization is a top-level container in Google Cloud that represents your company or entities and serves as the root node for all your cloud resources, policies, and access control.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SC-900 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 SC-900 exam.