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Email, today, has become one of the most pivotal forces across the globe for essential business communication. There is a massive growth in email usage and this not only causes inconvenience in sorting and archiving, but also creates storage issues. With emails electronically substituting legal business documentation, the information being passed on through this electronic correspondence constitutes a record. Such correspondence needs to be maintained for a minimum period of time, often established by the law. Email archiving has become an essential part of maintaining business records.
It is not only important to deploy strong archiving measures but also to learn ways to strengthen the existing ones. There are some key elements that a strong archiving infrastructure should comprise of.
- Archiving for email, files and calendars
An effective archiving mechanism must be able to archive various entries such as emails, calendars, faxes etc. It should facilitate sharing and also ensure safe storage of these files.
- Secure archiving for compliance
It is important to minimize legal risk. The archiving solution or archiver must ensure that the files and mails are stored in their original form and must not be dabbled with. This helps in compliance, e-discovery and internal investigations.
- Protect sensitive company data
Regular reports should be able to identify emails containing sensitive information, including social security numbers, credit cards and other sensitive information that could put you at legal or financial risk. The archiver should also be able to show who the employees, or groups of employees, are communicating with on a regular basis. This information can help the management identify which users are most productive and show communication networks as they build within the company. So if an employee leaves the company suddenly, their replacement can pick up right where they left off.
- Email responsiveness
Lack of responsiveness or late replies can be damaging in terms of business opportunities. An effective email archiver must be able to identify the employees that are usually late in responding to emails in comparison to the ones who are quick.
- Corporate emails
More often than not corporate email IDs end up being used by employees for their personal work as well, which defeats the entire purpose of corporate emails. The archiver must be able to provide such data on the number of emails being sent predominately for work purposes. The archiver should generate reports on the number of emails being directed to free web-based email providers.
- Lower email storage costs
As the storage cost for emails is going down, the average file size sent through email is growing. The archiver must be able to retain files according to the type and sizes, and also show who is storing what in the archive.
- Prevent security breaches
Dormant email accounts present a security threat to the system because of needless entry points into the network that they furnish. Accounts that are not being used also lead to a huge amount of storage space that can be allocated to active users. An effective archiver must be able to detect such accounts
- Keep emails clean
Inappropriate emails can cause serious hassles for an organization causing unwanted lawsuits. It is therefore essential for the archiver to identify and manage the constant wrongdoers by tracking the vocabulary used in the mails.
- Find and stop internal “spammers”
Although there may be a need to connect with a huge audience through emails, an effective archiver must be able to identify the employees that mark other people in their mails, even when there is no need to. This would help in saving time and resources.
- Employee satisfaction
The archiver should be able to fancy the mood of the employees. It must be capable to identify who is emailing recruiters and receiving alerts from job search sites, so the HR issues can be addressed directly before it’s too late.
- Email flow control
A fundamental function that an archiver must possess is the ability to control the email flow. The archiver must not only be able to identify the sender and the receiver of the emails but also their source. This would help organizations in studying the flow of their emails and also facilitate decision making based on the real data in email trends.
