This service change announcement was emailed to all UW students, faculty, staff and UW Medicine employees on April 2, 2024.
Greetings,
Starting May 1, 2024, Microsoft Teams chat messages will expire after 30 days.
This applies to all existing and new chat messages, including chat messages sent during meetings held in Teams. This change applies to anyone who signs into MS Teams with a @uw.edu account, including all students, faculty, staff and affiliates at UW and UW Medicine.
There are no exceptions. Chat messages are transitory electronic communications only for brainstorming and collaboration and are not suitable for long-term storage.
This does not apply to channel posts (in an MS Teams “team”) which must be used for communications in MS Teams that require action; are used as the basis for or to document a decision or action; or are evidence of a business transaction. It is your responsibility to demonstrate proper care and management of University records.
As this process goes into effect on May 1, 2024, you may initially see that some chat message history remains longer than 30 days. Over time, you will have access only to a rolling 30 days’ worth of chat messages.
Questions?
- Visit IT Connect for more implementation details and an FAQ that includes screenshots showing the difference between chat messages and channel posts.
- Visit the UW Records Management Services web page covering transitory communications.
You also can contact the UW-IT Service Center at help@uw.edu.
Thank you,
UW Information Technology