On 11/17/06, Laura Boldt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I work for a consulting engineering firm in the US that has 17
> offices. We have a very limited retention schedule at this point that
> mainly covers project records which are 90% to 95% of the documents that are
> created. It's very simplistic, project files are kept for 17 years after
> the close of the project.
A note of caution here. If you plan to do the same with your existing
compilation of e-mail, you're going to potentially be keeping a lot of
"stuff" that is going to be VERY difficult to sort through and find anything
in. While it may be okay for your administrative and other records to lump
them into this one category and take a chance on retaining all of them for
17 years (don't know HOW you decided on THIS number!), you more than likely
won't want to apply this same rule to ALL Of your e-mail.
Information should be categorized/classified based on the content into
records series, which are then assigned retention periods in an
organizational retention schedule.
Retention schedules should be developed based on a set of criteria,
typically they are based on:
- legal, statutory, or regulatory requirements for retention, PLUS
- any business needs that may exceed those, PLUS
- any potential historic, intrinsic or enduring value to the organization
the records may have
E-mail IS NOT A RECORD SERIES. E-mail is the conveyance the information
arrives or is sent by, and the retention period should be based on the
content of the e-mail itself.
We are currently using Groupwise for our e-mail software. Currently, we
> have no policies or procedures in place for archiving e-mail. We are
> shortly moving to Outlook for e-mail software and Symantic Enterprise Vault
> for archiving. I don't know yet what add-ons for the Vault software we will
> be using. The plan at this point is to move all the e-mail on individual
> hard drives and the e-mail server to the Enterprise Vault.
Whatever "system" you elect to use, it's most important to develop a policy
for how users classify their e-mail and process to attempt to automate that
to the extent the "system" is capable of. You can use some rules or role
based criteria to make some high-level stabs at classification (a person has
a certain function or position, so their work is related to "x" project or
process, and the e-mail they send or receive is part of "y" record series)
and then do some evaluation of a portion of that e-mail to see how accurate
it is and then tweak the system somewhat to recalibrate the decisions it's
making.
You can also work at the user level and use a "big bucket concept", asking
them to make some decisions as to the value of the e-mail based on it's
content
- non-record, destroy as soon as practical
- transitory record, retain for up to two years
- record, determine the record series it should belong to and then assign a
specific retention period to it
Or, you can do some combination of the two.
(IS has asked employees to clean up their e-mail archives before the move.)
>
Yeah, well, this sounds like a bit of a prescription for disaster.
"Cleanup" is one of those words that lands a lot of people in court when it
comes to e-mail and records in general. And IS isn't willing to be the
ones wearing the orange jumpsuits for the balance of the employees, so you
might want to suggest they retract this advice.
IS, Finance, which I'm a part of, and Risk Management are starting to panic
> because they/we have no idea what how to handle the terabytes of e-mail that
> will be placed in the Vault.
This is why you write a policy first, and then take action based on the
policy. And a big part of this process is RISK MANAGEMENT. The way you
avoid having terabytes of e-mail information in a repository is by
eliminating that which is non-record material first, then concentrating on
retaining only records and only retaining those as long as you're required
to. Keeping everything is NOT A COMPLIANCE strategy.
Also, the move to Otulook is an excellent opportunity to get policies and
> procedures in place for future e-mail. I feel very lucky, I have an
> excellent working relationship with our IS department. They realize that I
> bring skills and knowledge to the table that they don't possess. Also, they
> understand that some issues are records management issues, not IS issues,
> such as electronic archiving.
One benefit to using Outlook is there are a lot of 3rd party tools available
to assist you in achieving your goal... one detriment is the way Outlook
manages e-mail in it's native form. One of the ways people try to use it is
to convert the e-mail into PST files... don't let someone select this as an
option of choice until you've had a chance to read the archives and do some
research on this. You lose a lot of functionality with a PST Archive, and
it does weird stuff to attachments.
The IS Steering Group has been tasked with formulating an e-mail policy.
BAD choice. IS is responsibel for providing the tools...
My boss told me yesterday that I will be involved in this process.
GOOD choice. =) RIM is responsible for establishing the rules... (with some
help from Legal and Risk)
This is my opportunity to shine and have a positive impact on how we
> operate. I need to be a wealth of e-mail/records management information and
> provide handouts for non-records managers for these meetings. I'm not
> totally ignorant on technical, e-mail or records retention issues but they
> aren't my areas of expertise.
Plenty of horror and success stories out there, do your research and you can
become smart REAL FAST.
What I'm looking for is;v Information that I can use for eye-catching
> handouts on records management issues pertaining to e-mail and why it is
> necessary to have a policyv Personal experience using Symantic
> Enterprise Vault v Personal experience implementing e-mail policies and
> procedures for the first time in a company that is resistant to change Any
> information provided will be appreciated.
Take what white papers you find from vendors, especially storage vendors,
with a grain of salt. Ask them for contacts from clients who have
implemented systems they offer before you believe ANYTHING they tell you.
It's the tool users you need to get to, not the tool sales people.
PS I haven't looked at the list serve archives yet but I'm going to.
Great resource, and a great place to find end users to contact for help.
Larry
--
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
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