Learn more about eDiscovery Administrators

Applies to: Office 365

An eDiscovery Administrator can view and manage all eDiscovery cases in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center for your organization. Specifically, eDiscovery Administrators can:

• View all cases that are listed on the eDiscovery page.

• Manage any eDiscovery case in the organization after they add themself as a member of the case.

• Perform administrative tasks in Advanced eDiscovery (which requires an Office 365 E5 subscription), such as setting up users, creating cases, and importing data. This is because a person who is an eDiscovery Administrator in the Security & Compliance Center is automatically added as an administrator in Advanced eDiscovery.

Why create an eDiscovery Administrator? The ability to access all eDiscovery cases in your organization has two important purposes:

• If a person who is the only member of an eDiscovery case leaves your organization, no one (including members of the Organization Management role group or another member of the eDiscovery Manager role group) can access that eDiscovery case because they aren't a member of a case. In this situation, there would be no way to access the data in the case. But because an eDiscovery Administrator can access all eDiscovery cases in the organization, they can view the case in the Security & Compliance Center and add themselves or another eDiscovery manager as a member of the case.

• Because an eDiscovery Administrator can view and access all eDiscovery cases, they can audit and oversee all cases and associated Content Searches. This can help to prevent any misuse of Content Searches or eDiscovery cases. Because eDiscovery Administrators can access potentially sensitive information in the results of a Content Search, you should limit the number of people in your organization who are eDiscovery Administrators.

For information about how to assign eDiscovery Administrator permissions, see Manage eDiscovery cases in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center.