Looking for advice on GDPR Data Retention Policy Configuration via API

Administration
1

Looking for advice on configuring data retention policies via the Platform API during our Zendesk to Genesys Cloud migration. In Zendesk, we used simple automation rules to purge tickets after 7 years for GDPR compliance. Now, attempting to replicate this using POST /api/v2/compliance/dataretentionpolicies results in a 400 Bad Request error with message ‘Invalid retention period unit’. The documentation mentions ‘days’ and ‘years’, but the API rejects ‘years’. Is this a known limitation for the eu-west-1 region, or is there a specific workaround for long-term archival requirements without manual intervention?

2

This looks like a straightforward API schema mismatch rather than a platform bug. The Genesys Cloud Data Retention API is strictly typed for days only, even though the UI might display years for human readability. When making the POST request to /api/v2/compliance/dataretentionpolicies, ensure the retentionPeriod object uses "unit": "days" and calculates the total manually. For a 7-year retention, set "value": 2555 (7 * 365).

Here is the corrected payload structure:

{
 "name": "GDPR 7 Year Retention",
 "retentionPeriod": {
 "value": 2555,
 "unit": "days"
 },
 "enabled": true
}

I run weekly schedule publishes in America/Chicago, and seeing these strict validation errors reminds me of how rigid the WFM API can be with timezone offsets. Always double-check the unit field. If you need to adjust for leap years, rounding up to 2557 is safer to ensure full coverage. This usually resolves the 400 error immediately.

3

This seems like a standard schema validation issue that trips up many admins during initial API integrations. The documentation can be misleading regarding the accepted units for retention periods.

The documentation mentions ‘days’ and ‘years’, but the API rejects ‘years’.

The Genesys Cloud Compliance API strictly enforces days as the unit for the retentionPeriod object. While the UI displays years for readability, the backend expects the total number of days. To fix the 400 Bad Request, convert the 7-year requirement into days.

Use this JSON structure for the POST request:

{
 "retentionPeriod": {
 "value": 2555,
 "unit": "days"
 }
}

Calculated as 7 * 365 = 2555 days. Ensure the value is an integer. This approach aligns with how the system handles retention logic internally. It is a common pitfall when migrating from systems like Zendesk that allow flexible unit definitions. Stick to days for all API calls to avoid schema mismatches.