About upgrading to an edition that includes Vault

When your organization upgrades to a Google Workspace edition that includes Google Vault licenses for all users in your organization, if you already set retention rules in Vault, then all data is immediately subject to any rules that apply. If your organization previously bought Vault licenses as add-ons and you have retention rules that purge data, users who didn't have a Vault license before might lose data.

Note: If you haven't set any retention rules in Vault, have assigned Vault add-on licenses to everyone already, or are upgrading from an edition that also includes Vault, there's no change in behavior upon upgrading. You may proceed without additional precautions.

Risk of data loss for partial Vault licensing

If not everyone in your organization has a Vault license and you upgrade to an edition that includes Vault, all users become subject to your current data retention and deletion policies.

• Your default retention rules will be applied to all users in your organization. This could result in the unexpected and permanent deletion of any user data that isn't protected by custom rules.
• Any custom retention rules applied to an organizational unit will be applied to all users in that organizational unit and its child organizational units.
• Any holds applied to the top organizational unit will be applied to all users in your organization.

Note: If you later downgrade to an edition that doesn't include Vault, you lose access to Vault and its data.

Prevent data loss for newly-licensed users

Review your current retention rules to make sure they are set appropriately for a fully-licensed Vault organization. Make any necessary modifications to your retention settings before upgrading, or else you may permanently lose content.

If you would like to upgrade before fully reviewing your retention policies, you can create custom retention rules for each Google service with an indefinite retention period and apply them to your entire organization. These rules prevent all data deletion until you remove them.

1. Sign in to vault.google.com.
2. Click RetentionCustom Rules.
3. Click Create.
4. Select the following options, as applicable:
   1. Service—Select a service you want to protect data for.
   2. Scope—Select the top organizational unit. For Groups, select All groups.
   3. Sent date—Leave this blank to apply to all available data.
   4. Terms—Leave this blank to apply to all available data.
   5. Exclude drafts—Leave this unchecked to apply to all available data.
   6. Retention period—Select Indefinitely.
5. Click Create.
6. Repeat for each service you want to protect all data for.
7. After you upgrade, review your licensing and retention rules. Learn more

After upgrading

1. Confirm that all add-on licenses are removed to avoid charges for these licenses. If not, remove any add-on Google Vault licenses. In some cases, the add-on licenses for Vault might remain assigned after your upgrade.
2. Review your retention rules to ensure they comply with your organization’s requirements. If you created indefinite retention rules as a precaution, review them and remove them as required.