HR wants me to implement retention and naming rules for [personnel records] and I’m nervous about choosing the wrong r…
Sign in to the Adobe Admin Console with your administrator account.
Navigate to the Acrobat Sign product settings for your organization.
Select the section for data governance or retention policies.
Choose the option to create or edit retention rules.
For each document type or category, define a new retention rule by specifying the document type, category, or business need.
Set the custom retention period (in days, months, or years) for each rule according to your organization's requirements.
CautionRetention periods are enforced automatically; expired documents will be deleted and cannot be recovered.
Save each retention rule and ensure it is enabled.
Review all active retention rules to confirm correct application to the intended document types.
Best practiceFor complex organizations, consider grouping similar document types under a single rule to simplify ongoing management.
Retention rules can be managed in the Admin Console under Acrobat Sign settings, allowing you to set different durations for each document category.
The Acrobat Sign REST API supports retention policy management via the /agreements and /retention endpoints for automated rule configuration.
A reusable policy set is a group of security rules, like retention times or password protection, that you create once and can then apply to many different documents. This matters because it saves time and ensures all documents follow the same rules, making it easier to meet compliance standards without setting rules for each file separately.
If your company needs to follow HIPAA, Acrobat's retention policies help by letting you set how long patient documents must be kept, up to 15 years. You can also add password or certificate protection to these policies. This ensures that sensitive health information is stored securely for the required time and is only accessed by authorized people, helping you meet HIPAA's data security and retention requirements.
| Feature | Acrobat Security Policies | Acrobat Sign Data Governance |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Sets retention for general PDF documents. | Sets retention for signed documents and transaction data. |
| Admin Access | Account/group-level admin in Acrobat desktop. | Admin config in Acrobat Sign portal. |
| Scope | Applies to PDFs in their terminal state. | Applies to agreements, audit trails, and related data. |
It is important for administrators to define retention policies because these rules ensure that documents are kept for the correct amount of time, meeting legal and industry compliance standards like PCI DSS or ISO 27001. This also helps manage storage space and protects sensitive information by setting clear rules for when documents should be archived or deleted, preventing accidental loss or unauthorized access.