Effective Email Management: Moving Beyond Compliance

By Jeff Moroski, Software Architect, Optical Image Technology, Inc.

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It comes as no surprise to learn that email has become the preferred means of business communication. Consequently, email message volumes have exploded exponentially over the past several years, and numbers continue to increase. The technology’s popularity has led to the inclusion of email messages as part of organizations’ corporate records. In response, businesses are looking for ways to filter and reduce unwanted email in order to simplify storage and management.

As email becomes more intertwined with business practices, and compliance measures dictate the necessity to retain email messages for years, email management tools struggle to keep pace with the sheer volume of electronic correspondence. Retention, premature deletion, and the ability to locate specific email messages are of great concern to all companies—especially those that face a potential risk of litigation.

The threat of court proceedings, investigations, and audits serves as a principal motivator for organizations to enact email records retrieval measures. Retrieval sounds simple enough, but the sheer volume of email and associated data can be prohibitive. Costs for manual restoration of email messages from backup tapes can range typically from hundreds of thousands of dollars to in excess of one million dollars in cases where litigation is involved. In addition to these costs, considerable time can be lost or wasted in the process.

Email is a medium that has the capability to be easily altered and/or duplicated. Business managers often worry about the inability to locate specific messages, as well as the potential for accidental deletion. It is no wonder that organizations “are confident that they will be asked to produce email messages, but they are not as confident that they will be able to do so when the time comes. They are almost as certain that some records have been deleted prematurely as they are that they will be asked to produce them.” (Source: Ferris Research. Email Records Management Survey: Guidelines, Technologies, and Trends, September 2004.)

Proactive (not reactive) email management

Organizations are challenged by email management as it applies to potential legal compliance measures. Most businesses view email governance as a separate entity that is unrelated to their existing records management polices. This mindset can be detrimental, as it can lead to a decrease in a company’s overall efficiency. Organizations that store email messages separately from their electronic document management system (EDMS) are unable to incorporate emails into their business processes.

For many organizations, this separation can result in increased processing time. Consider the following scenario: If a company wants to initiate action on these documents and launch email messages and/or their attachments into automated workflows, it might have to first print its email messages and later submit them to a batch to be scanned and indexed. Depending on the contents of the email messages, they would then have to be sent to the appropriate users in order to be processed using workflow. A process that could take minutes with a system that incorporates email into its EDMS instead takes hours or days.

As the above example illustrates, email management is as much about thinking proactively as it is about thinking reactively. It is equally important to have a strategy that outlines ways in which email management can improve your business processes as it is to consider the impact of email management on potential litigation. In the previous example, the ability to leverage realtime processing of email requests eliminates the need for daily batches of printed emails, resulting in significant decreases in turnaround time and a considerable decrease in paper and toner consumption. The company in that example could further save material costs by implementing fax server software that sends faxes to an email box instead of printing them on a fax machine. Email messages (and in this case, faxed messages) could then be indexed and stored in the same way that documents are indexed and stored within an EDMS.

Managing email messages by treating them like documents

An EDMS with robust email management capabilities will be able to filter and capture email messages, attachments, and headers, providing the best of both worlds in terms of BPM enhancement and legal compliance. When emails are treated like documents, they can be monitored by BPM dashboard tools, and can even trigger workflows. The email messages can then be governed by hierarchical storage management tools. These tools can manage retention and destruction schedules automatically, and provide related alerts and reports.

When email messages are treated like documents, business processes are enhanced and improved, and retrieval capabilities are ensured to assist in compliance. An EDMS has the capacity to locate specific messages and attachments using a combination of search tools, including keyword searches, metadata searches, and intelligent classification tools. This allows organizations to streamline their search criteria dramatically. Often, organizations are concerned not only with files, but with the collaboration surrounding their files and document revisions. Email management tools help businesses keep track of correspondence regarding changes to those files, and enable extensive reporting and clear audit trails.

Using email messages to trigger workflow processes

By integrating email processes into your EDMS, you can provide a simple means to incorporate external documents into your system. Customers and staff do not require programming skills in order to submit information that would benefit from timely processing. If they can send an email, they can add information to the storage reservoir. This dramatically simplifies the ability to import information into the central repository where your documents are stored, and at the same time provides the option of launching submitted material into an automated workflow for immediate processing.

One of the greatest advantages of managing your email messages through your EDMS is that you can use email messages to trigger workflows. In the insurance industry, an agent or policyholder can submit a First Notice of Loss electronically to trigger a claims workflow. In higher education, college admissions offices can receive incoming materials and supporting documentation for applications as email attachments and route them automatically, eliminating the need to wait for a complete file for processing. Regardless of your industry, you can increase efficiency by incorporating email-enabled workflow. Email processes that trigger workflow capabilities are proactive management measures that significantly reduce processing time.

If your organization is striving to implement a paperless mailroom, you can increase your processing efficiency by integrating email with the documents received in your mailroom. After the documents are captured electronically, a robust workflow tool can email important jobs to individuals and groups to be processed. Not only will this lessen the amount of paper within your organization; it will also provide a searchable trail that may be of use during audits or in preparation for litigation.

Summary

Email is a collaborative tool that has literally transformed the way that we do business. Its status as part of the corporate record reflects its increasing popularity. In our effort to keep pace with both technology and compliance, we have limited the scope of email management to the point where—in most cases—our administrative efforts are geared only toward retention. By expanding our interpretation of email management to encompass the ability of email to accelerate business processing, we realize enhanced processes as well as the ability to address legal compliance measures. Proactive email management enables businesses to receive the best of both worlds: efficient retrieval that meets regulatory requirements and improved processing abilities that give any business a leading edge.

To review customer case studies, or to learn more about incorporating email management into your EDMS to optimize efficiency, improve customer services, and ease compliance efforts, please contact Optical Image Technology (http://www.docfinity.com) at 814.238.0038 or email info@docfinity.com.

 

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