Setting SharePoint announcements to auto delete after expiration

Setting announcements to auto delete after expiration

One thing that always bugged me was the expiration date attached to an Announcement list that does nothing out of the box. Sure, you could always add a filter and change the default view but as soon as you add an Announcements web part to a page the view is UNFILTERED even if a filtered view is the only one to choose from.  You or I could change the default view, but we can’t trust all users to do so.

A workflow would be fine to delete the item – simply pause until the expire date then delete the current item.  The workflow would stick with the template if you saved your list off as a template and then still work when you created a new list from that template.  That’s good, but still relies on the user creating the right Announcement list.

The better answer was to change the Announcements default content type.  If anyone asks, tell them it’s called Governance, Sparky. The first step was to go to site settings and Site content types.

Click the Announcements and the first thing you want to do is click Expires and set it to be Required.  You don’t have to, but if you don’t, this whole system is bypassed by laziness.  I also added some text to the description saying, “Expired items may be purged without notice.” They can’t say you didn’t warn them.

Next, click “Information management policy settings”.

Check the box for Enable Retention which enables you to add a retention stage.

And that’s it… Day old announcements are in the recycle bin where they belong!