Microsoft change notice MC291088 announced the retirement of the Core eDiscovery Search by ID List feature because “it is not functioning to an adequate level and creates significant challenges for organizations who depend on consistent and repeatable results for eDiscovery workflows.” That is a remarkably frank statement that this feature was not working consistently. The ‘Search by ID list’ feature was part of the 2017-2018 Core eDiscovery UI update to my best recollection. It always felt like a workaround for dealing with the large volume of Unindexed items reported along with content searches. Users could download a .CSV report containing the email header information, flag potentially relevant items in Excel and then then upload that list for retrieval by the individual email DocumentIDs. I vaguely recall seeing lots of caveats and warnings in the documentation during a client workflow engagement. That is usually a red flag for ‘use with caution’ in M365 features. If you have relied on it as part of your eDiscovery workflow, I would recommend discussing this with counsel to identify any active matters where it may have impacted the completeness of your collections.
My main concern with this announcement is whether feature relied on the same Graph API calls that custom PowerShell/PowerAutomate workflows may use to search for items by their IDs. Relativity confirmed that their search integration with M365 did not use the Search by ID mechanism. That covers most of my long term corporate clients. If you have already checked this without your eDiscovery platform, please let me know so that we can share the info. Remember Greg’s motto for defensible process – ‘Trust but Verify’.
Courtesy reprint of MC291088:
(Updated) Microsoft 365 Compliance Center Core eDiscovery – Search by ID list retirement
MC291088 · Published Oct 13, 2021 · Last updated Oct 13, 2021
Message Summary
Updated October 13, 2021: We have updated this message with additional details for clarity.
We will be retiring the option to Search by ID list, as it is not functioning to an adequate level and creates significant challenges for organizations who depend on consistent and repeatable results for eDiscovery workflows.
When will this happen:
We will begin making this change in mid-November and expect to complete by the end of November.
How this will affect your organization:
You are receiving this message because our reporting indicates your organization may be using Search by ID list.
Once this change is made, the option to Search by ID list will be removed. We suggest focusing on search by query, condition and/or locations rather that ID.
What you need to do to prepare:
To fix this problem you need to review your eDiscovery search process, and update the workflow to focus on search by Subjects and dates rather than Search by ID list. Upon export from Core eDiscovery you can explore options to refine to only the messages of interest.
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