Governance, Security and Compliance22% of the exam
Retention, legal holds, exports and Discovery API
Which tool keeps or produces a person's message history: workspace, org and per-conversation retention, legal holds with custodians, export types by plan, and the Discovery API for archiving and eDiscovery partners.
Given a scenario, assess how to meet compliance standards for an individual's message history.
~7 min read · 11 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Pick the message and file retention options that meet a requirement, including keeping edit and deletion history and deleted files.
- Explain why a Workspace Owner in an Enterprise org cannot change retention, and how per-conversation overrides and Slack Connect retention behave.
- Preserve one person's history with a legal hold: who creates it, what it covers and excludes, what can be edited, and the custodian limit.
- Choose the export type a plan allows (public channels, all channels and conversations, scheduled, custom by member and date) and its format.
- Decide when the Discovery API and a partner app are the answer, and what the API may be used for.
Key terms:
- Retention: how long Slack keeps messages, files, canvases and lists before deleting them automatically.
- Legal hold: an Enterprise preservation order on chosen members (custodians) that overrides retention, edits and deletions.
- All channels and conversations export: the applied-for export of public and private channels and DMs in JSON.
- Discovery API: the Enterprise API that approved eDiscovery, archiving and DLP partner apps use to export or act on messages and files.
- Enterprise org: an Enterprise organization (Enterprise Grid or Enterprise+ plan); its policies sit above workspace settings.
Key facts
Default retention, paid plans
- Detail
- Lifetime of the workspace
Keep edit and deletion history
- Detail
- Never delete messages — save edits
Org-level retention set
- Detail
- Workspace Owners can't adjust by default; Org Owner asks Support
Slack Connect retention
- Detail
- Each org's settings cover only its own members' content
Legal hold creator
- Detail
- Legal Holds Admin system role, Enterprise plans
Custodian limit
- Detail
- 1,000 per hold; create another hold for the rest
Legal hold exclusions
- Detail
- Slack Connect conversations, deleted channels
Business+ private export
- Detail
- Apply; Workspace Primary Owner approves; then schedule weekly or monthly
Files in exports
- Detail
- Links only, except a single user's TXT export
Discovery API use
- Detail
- Security and compliance only; Enterprise; requested by Org Owners
Sources for this section (6)
- Customize data retentionslack.com (opens in a new tab)
- Slack Connect data managementslack.com (opens in a new tab)
- Legal holdsslack.com (opens in a new tab)
- Export your workspace dataslack.com (opens in a new tab)
- Import and export toolsslack.com (opens in a new tab)
- Discovery APIsslack.com (opens in a new tab)
- Why can't a Workspace Owner in an Enterprise org change the workspace's retention?
- When does Keep all files including deleted files matter?
- Which legal hold details can be edited after creation?
- Why does a Business+ owner's private-channel export application take time?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
Keep reading with the Slack Administrator pack
- Core concepts
- Exam traps
- Worked scenario
The pack includes:
- All 32 lessons of the Slack Administrator guide, with reading progress
- Interactive decision walks and step-by-step sequence steppers
- Inline practice questions and one-click topic practice (11 questions for this lesson)
- An official source cited for every claim
- An AI tutor that answers from the guide
- Unlimited timed practice exams