There has been a lot of good advice about documenting and auditing  your policies, practices and procedures as you implement this system.  I don't have anything to add there.
 
OTOH, when you say moving your emails from Outlook, you really mean moving your email off of MS Exchange or out of an Exchange dB.  Since both .PST and .MSG are legitimate means of taking Exchange dB data and moving it into the file system, whether you keep the "records" in PST or MSG format is arguably equal (as is HTML.)  Moreover, what you are really doing is moving data from an Exchange dB to your DMS dB (server synchronization.)  A review of the documentation on Ken Wither's site (www.kenwithers.com) has lead me to the conclusion that, at least for civil litigation, the standard is "substantially similar" format.  Again, for Exchange, PST and MSG are arguably substantially similar.
 
As to your policies and procedures, the real threat or risk assessment issue is what will you do with the data in the Exchange dB after you make the move?  Will all or part of the data live on in Exchange dB format as disaster recovery backups (tape or digital storage?)  If so the problem is no different than the "print and file" records declaration systems of the past.  The problem comes when the "record" was not "declared" or systemically retained by the act of print and file (or in your case, conversion to MSG) but was actually retained in the disaster recovery system.  Such email is at a minimum very costly to recover and if not preserved, acquired and timely produced, the subject of all of the discovery wrangling that leads to fines, sanctions and the like.
 
But the biggest question for me is why you are going to a DMS, which is designed to manage active content instead of an RMS which is designed to manage archival data.  Will your DMS be configured to insure immutability?  How are you protecting the content and metadata of the original email in the DMS since the primary function of the DMS is to allow you to find, draft, edit or otherwise re-use content?
 
Finally, since most metadata is subject to the control of the business, and under the Sedona Conference rules, not required to be produced unless substantively material, it is important to both define retained or created metadata in the Exchange environment and in the DMS environment to insure you both create or capture just what you need and move what you keep into the records system.
 
William Kellermann, Esq.
Director, Corporate Legal Systems
CT Summation
www.ctsummation.com
 

________________________________

From: Records Management Program on behalf of Taylor, Scott
Sent: Thu 2/23/2006 11:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Recreated .MSG file - A Legal Record?



We are exploring moving emails from Outlook and into our DM system (and
ultimately into LegalKey as a record).  Our hope is to make it a move,
where the original email is deleted from Outlook and profiled into DM as
a 'document.'  The resultant DMS document is in fact a .MSG file that
opens up in Outlook as an email, complete with attachments, when you
pull it up inside our DMS.

    The method suggested by both our DMS vendor and a third party vendor
with a competing "Outlook to DMS" import utility is that message
attachments are profiled as separate DMS documents, stripped from the
message body and logically linked to the resultant DMS document..  The
email 'body' is identical to the original message but the attachments
(Word docs, spreadsheets, etc.) are replaced with DMS pointers which
link to and open those attachment files.

    Functionally this works.  In our DMS you can find/open/access the
email 'documents.'  You can see the attachments and you can open those
attachments via the links.  Our concern is a legal/Records worry.  We
plan to ultimately declare these documents in our DMS as email
'documents' into LegalKey.  Is the recreated .MSG file, with its
associated attachment pointers and attachment files, a legitimate, legal
version of the record?  Or does the original Outlook message with
embedded attachments have to be preserved and somehow ultimately copied
into LegalKey?


Thanks for your help, Scott




J. Scott Taylor
Records Manager
Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP
Promenade II, Suite 3100
1230 Peachtree St., N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia  30309-3592
Phone: (404) 815-3521
Fax:     (404) 685-6821
[log in to unmask]


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