View the information management policy statement for a document

You routinely open and edit documents that are saved in document libraries on your team site. When you open a document, workbook, or presentation, you might notice that the Message Bar at the top of the document window displays information about an information management policy. What does this mean?

Organizations can define and use information management policies on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 sites to enforce compliance with corporate business processes or legal or governmental regulations for the management of information. When you open a Microsoft Office Word 2007 document, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 worksheet, or Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation that is subject to an information management policy, the Message Bar shows that a policy exists and allows you to view the policy statement.

Important: The ability to view an information management policy statement is available only in Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007, Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007, Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007, and in the stand-alone versions of Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, and Office PowerPoint 2007.

Does an information management policy statement require me to take action?

Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a way for administrators to set information management policies on items to control and monitor the actions taken on those items. Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, or Office PowerPoint 2007 help you to view the description of the information management policy, and these programs prompt you if the information management policy requires an action, such as inserting a barcode or label in the document.

An information management policy can include any of several policy features:

Expiration The Expiration policy feature helps organizations delete or remove out-of-date content from their sites in a consistent, trackable way.
Auditing The Auditing policy feature helps organizations analyze how their content management systems are used by logging events and operations that are performed on documents and list items.
Barcodes The Barcodes policy feature helps organizations to track physical copies of documents or list items that were printed from a site.
Labels The Labels policy feature also helps organizations to track physical copies of documents or list items that were printed from a site.
Custom policy features that are designed and deployed by your organization.

Typically, an organization creates a policy statement to explain what policy features apply to the content or what special handling is required for the content.

Two policy features that can require a response from you are Barcodes and Labels. If the information management policy for a document requires a barcode or label and you attempt to save or print the document without the required element, you may be prompted to insert the barcode or label. Find links to more information about barcodes and labels in the See Also section.

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View the information management policy statement

When you open an Office Word 2007 document, Office Excel 2007 spreadsheet, or Office PowerPoint 2007 presentation that is subject to an information management policy, the Message Bar appears with a button that allows you to view the policy statement. You cannot take any actions on the information management policy from this dialog box — you can only view the policy statement.

Note: A unique information management policy can be created for each content type, and a document library can contain multiple content types, so it is possible for different items in the same document library to be subject to different information management policies.

If the library is not already open, click its name on the Quick Launch.

If the name of your library does not appear on the Quick Launch, click View All Site Content, and then click the name of your library.
Click the name of the document, spreadsheet, or presentation that you want to open. The file opens in Office Word 2007, Office Excel 2007, or Office PowerPoint 2007.

Note: You do not need to check out the file.
To view the policy, do one of the following:
- On the Message Bar at the top of the document window, click Details.
  
  Tip: You can close the Message Bar by clicking Close Message Bar in the upper-right corner of the bar. To show the Message Bar again, on the View tab, in the Show/Hide group, select the Message Bar check box.
- On the status bar at the bottom of the document window, click the This document has a policy button .
  
  If you close the Message Bar, you can always view the information management policy statement by clicking the status bar indicator. Note that this indicator appears only when a document has an information management policy applied to it.