"We are about to implement a system of saving/storin
Anna Warde wrote:

"We are about to implement a system of saving/storing all agency e-mails.  Any suggestions on how to train the field workers about the new email protocol (ie: everything you now send/receive will be automatically saved) without overly alarming them?"


The first thing I would suggest is to train them NOT to use e-mail for anything but "official" business.  That would at least help manage the "sent" mail.  Unfortunately, that won't help with incoming mail from outside sources.  

Saving ALL e-mails, however, is not a good idea, in my opinion, based on numerous articles I have read in the past few years.  Say that an employee sends and receives 10 messages a day, which may be a low number.  Now multiply that by 250 working days and by the number of employees in your system.  Every year you could be archiving several hundred thousand e-mails, from junk mail and spam to "let's do lunch" to actual official records.  First of all, you will have to continually increase your storage capacity.  Second, how long will they be stored?  You can't put a generic retention on all e-mail.  Saving it all "forever" (like a vendor offered my former employer) is short-sighted.  Then, if a lawsuit does come up, look at the volume of e-mails SOMEONE is going to have to search for relevance.  Even with sophisiticated equipment, it will still take a lot of man-hours to go through it.  

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to retention of e-mail.  You have my sympathy.  

Tim Barnard 


      

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]