What happens when retention criteria are met in CLM?

• A. Contracts are immediately deleted.
• B. Contracts are moved to a special vault.
• C. Contracts are flagged for review.
• D. Automatically archive or purge contracts when criteria are met.

Answer: (D)

Retention criteria in CLM drive automated management of contracts when they reach the end of their defined lifecycle. When these criteria are met, the system carries out the retention action specified in the policy, typically automatically archiving the contract for long-term storage or purging it from the system. Archiving preserves the record for compliance and future reference, while purging removes it according to data retention rules. This automatic handling avoids manual intervention and aligns with how organizations enforce retention schedules. The idea of immediately deleting or simply flagging for review doesn’t reflect how retention policies are usually defined: archival or purge are the standard automated outcomes, and flagging is a workflow action, not the retention action.