What is Email Management?

Why are we sending so much email?
It is easy
It is nearly instantaneous
It is asynchronous
It is convenient
It is platform-neutral
There is a written record of communication
© AIIM | All rights reserved

What is email management?
As the de facto standard for business communication, removing emails from the server and saving them to a repository is not enough. Email must be classified, stored, and destroyed consistent with business standards-just as with any other document or record.

Email management is NOT:
Saving all email messages forever
Saving all email messages in the messaging application
Setting arbitrary time limits for all messages
Setting arbitrary mailbox sizes for all users
Declaring “email” as a record series
Doing nothing

Business drivers
Email incorporated into business processes
Volume of email overwhelms manual management processes
Changes to U.S. FRCP
Changes to privacy regulations
Compliance, collaboration, cost, and continuity

Why email management?
Email is different from other information types
Volume
Informality
Ease of creation
and forwarding
Attachments
Metadata
Email requires different tactics

Email Management – An Oxymoron?
Survey of 1,043 end users
18% spent 50%+ of their
time on email
35% have not yet begun
to address core email
management issues
41%: “Much remains to be done”

Email Management – An Oxymoron?
44% have a strategy for email retention
73% believe retention of email will be important
72% want email archival integrated into enterprise content management (ECM), electronic records management (ERM), or enterprise information management (EIM) platforms

Cost of capturing everything
Capturing everything is expensive
Cost of storage
Cost to manage storage and backups
Cost to productivity
Cost to restore messages
Cost of discovery
Risk of inadvertent disclosure

Email management principles
Email must be managed according to content and value to the organization
Email should be stored appropriately
Email is not a records series
unto itself
Email can be more than
“ correspondence”

Email management principles
Email belongs to the organization, not the individual
Not always true – particularly
outside U.S.
Email is a business tool
90+% use email for business
Email should be used
appropriately

Manual email management
Relies on users to manage their own email
Focused on policy and procedure development, training, and auditing
Users determine which messages to keep
Users move messages manually into other storage locations
Folders on their PC, folders on network shares, other repositories

Automatic email management
Typically done at the messaging application
System retains certain messages automatically
All messages sent/received/internal
All messages from some users
All messages that meet certain content or metadata rules

Outsourcing email mgmt
Use a hosted service to provide email management services
Archival and storage
Security
Or outsource email entirely
e.g. Microsoft Exchange online or Google Apps Premium Edition

Selecting the right strategy
Do a risk assessment
Do a cost-benefit analysis
Cost of hardware and software
Operating costs
Consider the corporate culture
Will it tolerate the perception of privacy issues for outsourcing?
Automate to the extent possible

What is email governance?
Accountability for organization’s information assets – here, email messages and attachments
Good governance:
Ensures compliance with regulations and legislation
Enables productivity improvements
Enables organization to respond to change and new opportunities
Helps information exchange with customers, partners and providers
Sustains good information management practices
© AIIM | All rights reserved Looking after Information properly

Email policy
Broad statements that reflect organization’s goals and culture
Many organizations use them to address acceptable usage
May include a number of other elements
Should be included in broader communications or information management policy

Email policy elements
Every organization’s email policy will be different
Public vs. private sector
Regulatory requirements, both horizontal and vertical
There are some common areas that should be addressed

Acceptable usage
Most common element of email policies today
Typically addresses things NOT to do:
Obscene language or sexual content
Jokes, chain letters, or business solicitations
Racial, ethnic, religious, or other slurs
May address signature blocks
Standardization, URLs, and pictures

Effective usage
Provides guidance on drafting messages
Wording and punctuation
Spell and grammar check
Effective subject lines
Provides guidance on email
etiquette
May also provide guidance
on addressees

Personal usage
Outlines whether personal usage is allowed at all
May outline limitations to personal usage
Which would certainly include the acceptable usage notes listed previously
Separation of personal and business usage within individual messages

External email account access
Describes whether users may access external email accounts from within the organization
Identifies any high-level limitations associated with that access
May also address whether users
can access organizations
accounts remotely

Ownership and stewardship
Outlines whether email is considered to be owned by the organization
Common in the U.S., but not as common in other countries
Outlines responsibility for stewardship of messages, both sent and received

Privacy
Outlines whether there is any expectation of privacy or not with organizational email
Significant differences within the U.S. vs. outside the U.S.
Outlines whether email will be monitored
Identifies who may have
access to an individual’s
email

Retention and disposition
Identifies that messages should be managed according to value
Identifies that messages should be retained according to records program, and dispositioned at the end of the lifecycle
Addresses management of messages
that are not records

Legal issues
Outlines that email is subject to discovery
Assigns responsibility for communicating legal holds
Describes whether or not
disclaimers will be used
May outline privilege issues

Encryption and digital signatures
Outlines whether encryption is allowed at all
If allowed, outlines what approaches available for encryption
Addresses whether to use digital signatures and what approaches to use

Mobile email
Most often found as part of general policies for mobile workers
Addresses security and technical requirements for mobile devices
Addresses requirements for anti-virus and anti-spam protection, encryption, and/or VPN
Addresses synchronization

Archival
Addresses whether/how email will be archived
Addresses whether personal archives will be allowed and how
they will be managed
May address backups

Security
Attachment limitations
Whether they can be sent at all
Size limitations
Format or content type limitations
Non-business-related attachments
Attachments vs. links
Content filtering
Encryption and DRM

Email processes and procedures
More detailed information for how to follow the policy guidance outlined above
Specific to different departments, processes, roles, and applications
These processes form the core of the Practitioner course

A common approach to policy development
HR drafts the policy
Legal and business unit leaders review (maybe)
HR publishes the policy
Managers or HR send out an email blast announcing the policy
HR enforces the policy
What’s wrong with this picture?

A better approach
Policy and procedures drafted in a vacuum will not reflect business reality
All key stakeholders should be involved in the drafting and/or review – including users
It requires communication and training
More than a single email blast
All of these steps apply to procedures as well

Email management technologies - 1
Email archiving
Email compliance
Email discovery
Email encryption and
digital signatures

Email management technologies - 2
Email security
Personal archive file management
Policy management
ECM/ERM/EIM
Email-enabled
applications

Email Practitioner course outline © AIIM | All rights reserved 9. Archival 1. Introduction 10. Email and ECM 8. Technologies 7. Security 6. Governance 5. Classification 4. The capture process 3. Architecture 2. Inside the inbox

www.aiim.org/training

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What is Email Management?

by Atle Skjekkeland on Feb 12, 2009

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What is Email Management? — Presentation Transcript