Lync 2013 Archiving to Exchange 2013

For compliance reasons, I've always recommended that customers configure Lync archiving.  Unlike email, IM messaging is usually not a very large data set, and while the Lync client does have the option to save the conversation history in Outlook and Exchange, those folders are visible to end users and they can also empty and clean those folders out to cover tracks.

Ever since Exchange 2013 launched, I have been aware of the Lync archiving integration to it, but frankly have not had many customers that both had Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 deployed until fairly recently. 

While reading about these integrations, I learned that the Exchange based archiving is NOT equal to the SQL based archiving.  You must place the users into an in place or litigation hold within Exchange in order for the data to be discoverable in Exchange's eDiscovery portal.

Let me say that a different way.  Unless you place a user on hold in Exchange, no Lync archives will be written to the user's mailbox.

I had spent a lot of time reading before this became clear to me, so hopefully this saves someone else some time.

Reading material:

• Doug's blog - Archiving Options in Lync Server 2013
• Exchange 2013 - Archive Lync conversations and meeting content to Exchange states "This requires placing the user on In-Place Hold"
• Lync 2013 - Configuring Microsoft  Lync Server 2013 to use Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 archiving, in Step 3 states that the Set-CSUser object has four settings for the ExchangeArchivingPolicy attribute:
• Uninitialized. Indicates that archiving will be based on the In-Place Hold settings configured for the user's Exchange mailbox; if In-Place Hold has not been enabled on the user's mailbox then the user will have his or her messaging and Web conferencing transcripts archived in Lync Server.
• UseLyncArchivingPolicy. Indicates that the user's instant messaging and Web conferencing transcripts should be archived in Lync Server rather than in Exchange.
• NoArchiving. Indicates that the user's instant messaging and Web conferencing transcripts should not be archived at all. Note that this setting overrides any Lync Server archiving policies assigned to the user.
• ArchivingToExchange. Indicates that the user's instant messaging and Web conferencing transcripts should be archived to Exchange regardless of the In-Place Hold settings that have (or have not) been assigned to the user's mailbox.
• S4B - Planning for Archiving 

By default, all users will be Uninitialized.  The UseLyncArchivingPolicy means the user will only use SQL based archiving.  The NoArchiving is pretty self-explanatory.  The last option, ArchivingToExchange sounds like what I had thought Exchange archiving was originally, but the article also states this is an optional step only if your Exchange and Lync servers are in different forests:

"If Lync Server 2013 and Exchange 2013 are located in different forests then it is not enough to simply enable Exchange archiving in the archiving configuration settings; that will not result in instant messaging and Web conferencing transcripts being archived in Exchange. Instead, you must also configure the ExchangeArchivingPolicy property on each of the relevant Lync Server user accounts."

So, if you use Exchange 2013 archiving for Lync, and you have not been setting users to be in an in place hold, you do not have discoverable Lync data and need to add them to a hold, or rely on your SQL based logging instead!