For Compliance Administrators and Compliance Officers.
For a full explanation of how the eComms permissions model works, see How the eComms permissions model works.
Overview
Every message processed by eComms is stored in the Archive for the duration of the account's configured retention period. Unlike alerts — which are generated only when a detection policy flags a breach — every captured message is stored regardless of whether it triggered an alert. Access to stored messages is determined by the User Groups tagged on each message.
The Archive is available in both eComms Review and eComms Keep. The retention period is configured by the Compliance Administrator in Account Defaults and applies to all messages and alerts.
How messages are tagged
When a message is processed, the system identifies all User Groups that each participant belongs to, based on the Groups field on each user's profile. The message is tagged with every group associated with any of its participants.
A message involving participants from three different groups will carry all three group tags. This differs from alerts, which carry exactly one tag per alert. A single message can therefore be simultaneously visible to Supervisors of multiple different groups.
If no participants belong to any User Group, the message carries no group tag and is considered ungrouped.
Who can see a message
Message scope | Who can see it |
Tagged with one or more User Groups | Admins; Supervisors assigned to any of the tagged groups; Supervisors designated for users not in a group (if any participant has no group assignment) |
Ungrouped (no group tag) | Admins; Supervisors designated for users not in a group |
A Supervisor assigned to Group A can see any message where Group A is among the tags, even if the message is also tagged with Group B or Group C. They cannot see messages tagged only with groups they are not assigned to.
Example: Jane is in Group1. John is in Group1 and Group2. Sarah has no group assignment. A message involving all three participants is tagged with Group1, Group2, and no-group. Supervisors of Group1 can see it. Supervisors of Group2 can see it. Supervisors designated for users not in a group can see it — because Sarah has no group. Admins can see it.
Ungrouped messages
Messages with no group tag arise in two situations:
No User Groups are configured for the account
All participants on the message are users with no group assignment
In either case, access to ungrouped messages is limited to Admins and any Supervisors designated under the Supervisors for Users not in a Group setting in Account Defaults. If no Supervisors are designated under this setting, only Admins can access ungrouped messages.
For more information on how participants are identified and mapped to known users in the system, see What is communications mapping?
Retention
The retention period determines how long messages and alerts are preserved before being permanently deleted. It is configured in Account Defaults and applies account-wide. The default is 7 years, but Compliance Administrators can adjust it to meet the firm's regulatory and policy requirements.
Note: Changes to the retention period apply only to messages and alerts processed after the change is saved. To apply a different retention period to existing content, contact support.