Sharepoint online Custom Expiration

Question

I was wondering if someone could assist, I am currently trialling office 365 and would like to use sharepoint online.

One of the main reasons I need sharepoint online would be for Document management.

What I hope to achieve is the ability to upload a document to sharepoint online and set an expiration date.

I then would like to be emailed when the document reaches the expiration date.

What would be the best/easiest way to do this?

Answer 1

1. Go to Site Settings
2. Go to Site Columns (creating as a site column makes it easy for reuse, there are other best practices such as creating content type, and using the content syndication hub, but I cant go into detail regarding that in a short time)
3. Click Create a. Enter ExpirationDate as the name (Will update name later, this is a best practice) b. Select Date and Time Field c. Set Require to Yes d. Click Ok
4. Click on the column you just created and update the name with the space so that it reads Expiration Date
5. Go to your library
6. Go to the library settings
7. Click Add from existing site columns
8. Select Expiration Date
9. Open up the site in SharePoint Designer 2010
10. Select New List Workflow and the corresponding Document Library
11. Give it a name and description
12. Select Action from toolbar and choose “send an email” a. Select the users to email (you can select created by so that the email goes to the user who added the file) b. Enter a subject c. Enter a description (There are capabilities to link back to the item via lookups) d. Save the Workflow e. Publish the workflow
13. Go back to the document library settings
14. Click on Information Management Policies
15. Click on Document
16. Select Enable Retention
17. Click Add a retention stage a. Select Expiration Date + 1 Days b. Select Start a workflow c. Select your workflow d. Click Ok e. You could add another retention stage to delete the document as well. The scenario could be use the workflow to alert that the item has expired and then delete the following day or week or year.

Answer 2

Are you using the E3 trial. I ask because the lower plans and Professional plans do not have some of the same capabilities.

A follow up question would be do you want to manually set the dates or automatically determine them

With SharePoint online you can enable a disposition workflow OOTB. The description of this workflow is as follows "Manages document expiration and retention by allowing participants to decide whether to retain or delete expired documents."

You can use this workflow in combination with an Information Management Policy. You can set up a retention stage that is based off of Created, Modified, or a custom date field that will automatically calculate the amount of days, weeks, or years to hold the item before processing the Disposition workflow.