This document provides guidance on effectively managing email for government employees. It outlines responsibilities for distinguishing between official records and transitory emails, and explains that official records, including emails, must be saved. It provides examples of email content that are considered official records or transitory messages. The document instructs employees to save entire email threads and attachments for official records, and to delete transitory emails once their purpose is served. Basic security and privacy practices for email are also reviewed.

1. Managing Email Effectively

2. Managing email effectively
is your responsibility

3. AT THE END OF THIS MODULE YOU WILL:
• Know your responsibilities with respect to the
management of email.
• Understand that email messages can be official
records.
• Distinguish between emails that are official records
and emails that are transitory records.
• Recognize when you must save an email.
• Understand what you need to save.
• Have an awareness of the security side of email.
• Be familiar with some IM email best practices.

4. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
• As a GoC employee you are expected to:
– Distinguish between emails that are official records of
business and emails that are “transitory” in nature.
– Regularly delete all “transitory” emails.
– If available, systematically transfer email records to an
official central repository such as RDIMS to ensure
accessibility, appropriate classification and
preservation.
– Understand the basic security and privacy requirements
of email.

5. ARE EMAILS RECORDS?
Yes
Just as paper and electronic documents may be
official records, so may email messages and
their attachments.

6. OFFICIAL RECORDS MUST BE SAVED
Official records document or provide
evidence of a department’s business
activities.
You must save all of your official records.
This means email too

7. EXAMPLES OF OFFICIAL EMAIL RECORDS
• the position of the
department
• business transactions
• approval or evolution of
a document
• information from outside
sources
• briefing notes, directives,
policies
An official email record may contain or demonstrate:
• agendas and meeting
minutes
• work plans, schedules,
assignments and
performance results
• decisions
• final reports and
recommendations
• external deliverables

8. TRANSITORY RECORDS SHOULD BE DELETED
• Transitory records are records that are only required
for a limited period of time in order to complete a
routine action or to prepare a subsequent record.
• You should dispose of or
delete transitory records once
they have served their purpose,
including email messages and
attachments

9. EXAMPLES OF TRANSITORY EMAILS
• duplicate copies of
official records
• draft documents where
all critical content
changes have been
incorporated into a
subsequent document
• casual communications
and personal messages
A transitory email would be a message like one of the following:
• information received as
part of a distribution list
• miscellaneous, “FYI”
notices or memoranda
on meetings, holidays,
charitable campaigns,
boardroom reservations,
etc.

10. But –
if you are ever in doubt about a record’s
status….
Save it!

11. EMAIL AND ATIP
“It is unlawful to delete any email or
document, once a formal Access to
Information or Privacy (ATIP) request is
received or anticipated by the
department, relating to the subject.”

12. EMAIL AND ATIP
• All email is subject to Access to Information or Privacy
(ATIP) legislation
– official and transitory
• It is illegal to delete transitory records that are required
for an active, or anticipated, ATIP request, litigation or
official investigation.
• Also note that personal comments in emails cannot be
removed when providing an email record upon an
ATIP request.

13. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SAVING AN
OFFICIAL EMAIL RECORD?
You are

14. YOU SAVE IT WHEN:
• You are the originator
– the person who created and sent the email message.
• You are replying to an email message, thus creating a new
record.
– You must save it as a complete email message (including all
of the original text, your additions and any attachments you
may add).
• You receive an email message from outside the department, and
the following conditions apply:
1. It forms part of a departmental record; and
2. You are the first person from your department named on:
• the “To” field of the email.
• the “CC” field of the email.

15. WHAT EXACTLY MUST YOU SAVE?
The whole enchilada!
Your Goal:
To preserve the integrity of the original
message in content, structure and context

16. TO MEET YOUR GOAL
• Save the entire email with all header/footer information
and all previous messages in the thread.
• Save all associated attachments (unless they are
completely irrelevant to the message).
• Apply your organization’s file naming conventions (if
available) or use meaningful file names when saving
email.
• If available, save your email messages to a central
repository such as RDIMS.

17. BASIC EMAIL SECURITY AND PRIVACY
CONSIDERATIONS
• Information with a designation higher than Protected B should not be
sent via email, saved on network shared drives or in RDIMS.
• The security level of your email is based on the content within the
email and/or the content within the attachment - whichever is higher.
• Do not overlook the physical security requirements of hardcopy emails.
• Be conscious of whether your email contains personal information
about someone and protect that person’s right to privacy.

18. IM BEST PRACTICES IN EMAIL
• Try to keep to one main topic per official email record
to ensure accuracy in filing/classifying the message.
• Use meaningful subject lines that reflect the content of
the email message.
• Use meaningful and descriptive titles on email
attachments.
• Be careful with personal comments and opinions –
they will become part of the record.

19. IM BEST PRACTICES IN EMAIL
• Use signature files for all outgoing email messages
containing official GoC business.
– Signature files should contain:
• Sender’s name;
• Sender’s title (optional but advisable)
• Institution;
• Telephone and fax numbers;
• Postal address; and
• Email address.
– Signature files must be in both official languages.

20. SAMPLE EMAIL SIGNATURE FILE
Look forward to seeing you in November.
Yours Sincerely
Jane Doe
Jane Doe
Project Manager/Gestionnaire de projet
613-123-4567 | facsimile / télécopieur 613-123 4567 |
TTY/ATS 613-123-4567 613-123-4567
doe.jane@hc-sc.gc.ca
Health Canada | 123 Green St Ottawa ON K2P1B2
Santé Canada | 123 rue Green Ottawa ON K2P1B2
Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada

21. CONGRATULATIONS!
• You have just completed Managing Email Effectively – an IM self-
study module.
• You may now:
– Test your knowledge with the following quiz.
– Review other IM self-study modules in this series:
• Information Management 101
• Information Security
• Records Management and You!
• IM and the Departing Employee
• Privacy and Personal Information – What Canadians Expect
• Understanding IM Within the Federal Government