I want to address a problem i have come across in the business arena.

Email has now become, simply put, a medium of delivery. This means that sharing of corporate documents, transaction correspondences etc. are now done electronically.

The problem is that there is no standard for record keeping and for storing these messages automatically.

I am lookng for comments and suggestions on how to approach the problem and if you need further clarification please dont hesitate to post.

What i am interested in doing is finding some way of forcing users to enter certain pieces of data that can assist in the electronic filing of these messages. I dont care where they are stored physically. Whether its a folder or directory on a server or a database its just the concept that matters.

What i am proposing to do is:

1. Force the user to enter whether the message is business or personal.

2. If business then other fields must be filled out eg. if it belongs to corporate / HR etc. and project number or some other specific data about the correspondence.

3. The mail server would read these pieces of information and route a copy of the message to the bin wherever it is being stored.

Now it must be pointed out that emails are written on a variety of platforms and software applications and message bodies can sometimes be encrypted (although this consideration can be ignored so that a working model can be developed). So i think it should be independent of these considerations.

I am not sure if using headers can support this or whether it would be better to include text at the beginning of the message. Also i have no clue how the user can be forced to enter the information and unless it is entered the mail will be withheld.

Then comes the problem of incoming messages and how this can fit in to a working model.

I am VERY open to suggestions.

Please comment and trash out your ideas.

Thanks.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Filing Emails
by cacharbe (Curate) on Sep 27, 2001 at 07:58 UTC
    Meta data, meta data, meta data. *sigh* The biggest war that we, as Information Technology workers fight every day. How can we make all of that data floating around out there on our networks MEAN something? How can we get metrics based on Author, Title, Subject, Related Topics. How can we relate disparate objects like Word processor documents, spreadsheets, email etc. in a meaningful and searchable way.

    In response to these questions, there are many, many ways to go about it. Actually, it is usually a combination of various methods enforced by the TOP level of management that usually gets things accomplished.

    At our shop, I showed some of the suits the usefulness of saving emails to specific folders in exchange to allow a powerful crawler to crawl through them and categorize and catalogue them, and to allow for searching against not just the content of the emails, but the meta-data attached to them. Author, Author's department, Title, MEANINGFUL subject lines, and attachments whose author's filled out those pesky "About the Author" tabs in Microsoft Products.

    Use meta tags, XML documents, good search engines (like verity, not site server...), File servers with well thought out taxonomies, well structured databases, and applications and application developers that are dedicated to keeping data meaningful and structured.

    Just like security, there is obviously no one product that will solve this problem, but a process, intelligently designed and patiently implmented, will set us down the road to success.

    Good luck.

    C-.

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Re: Filing Emails
by kjherron (Pilgrim) on Sep 27, 2001 at 07:49 UTC
    Oh, gosh, where to start? Requiring custom mail headers is probably a non-starter. There are too many mail clients with too much variety in their featuresets to presume that this will be easy for the mail senders to do. The obvious remaining possibilities are:

    1) Set up a series of different mailing addresses for different purposes. Mail is categorized depending on the address it's sent to.

    2) Look for keywords in the subject header.

    3) Look for a block of text in the message body which contains the information you need.

    My inclination would be to do as much as possible with #1 and #2, and only resort to special text in the message body as a last resort.

[reply]
      Ok lets say i use suggestion #3

      how can i force the user (who is using whatever email application) to put in these headers?

[reply]
        You can't. You have to show them how it would be useful for them to do so. Each user group is going to have a different "Spoonful of Sugar" to keep them coming back for more (or in this case, doing what you need them to do). Whether it's a folder of documents searchable by what manufacturer they discuss, or an application that sorts news clippings from the various wire services by date, author, publication, etc. You need to give them a reason to do something, and the reason has to have some kind of value to their process.

        One of the ways I used to create this value was to include the various user groups in the creation of their folder taxonomy, and asked them to brainstorm ideas about useful meta data, etc. This gave them a kind of "Pride of Ownership". This also motivated them to use the structures that they put in place, rather than fight against change that came from without.

        This topic is a painful paradigm shift for any company that has an ingrained way of doing anything.

        It takes time and patience, and someone to back you up that is higher on the food chain than the groups you are asking to change....

        C-.

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Re (tilly) 1: Filing Emails
by tilly (Archbishop) on Sep 27, 2001 at 19:55 UTC
    If you attempt to force procedures down users throats without having made their lives easier (and no, vague promises of it being better for someone later doesn't count) then they will rightly see you as a roadblock to route around.

    The result?

    A bunch of pissed off users who will find the quickest way through the roadblock. If that is to say that all mail is personal, they will do that. If that is to create a single "project" that they file everything under, they will do that instead. If you don't have your users on your side, you will get garbage in.

    Therefore my suggestion is that you do what you can to make it as easy as possible to voluntarily comply. You also make sure there is an obvious user value, and let everyone know the benefit. And finally prepare an internal reporting tool to monitor who is using the system and target your requests appropriately. (Also solicit feedback.)

    This may seem like a lot more work than forcing people to live within your dictates. But unlike forcing peope to live within your dictates, it has a chance of working, and a chance of getting through without leaving everyone hating you as public enemy number 1. And if you do force people like this, well don't do as some people do and go complaining about "lusers" because you will have only yourself to blame.

    To summarize, forcing people to jump hoops is a guaranteed failure that will leave people reminded of a bad Dilbert episode. Therefore if you cannot find a way to get active and voluntary user cooperation, this project is a lost cause and it is a waste of time to go farther down this path.

    (Sorry to sound so harsh.)

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Re: Filing Emails
by spudzeppelin (Pilgrim) on Sep 27, 2001 at 20:51 UTC

    The problem is that there is no standard for record keeping and for storing these messages automatically.

    That's because what the industry considers "best practices" is not to store them at all. In fact, "best practices" suggests that unless you're a government entity with some kind of archiving requirements, emails shouldn't even be backed up! Put policies in place encouraging/demanding that users delete old emails, and configure your backups to ignore email folders.

    Why? It's a lesson Microsoft learned during its antitrust trial. If it exists, it can be subpoenaed and introduced as evidence; potentially damaging evidence used against your own organization in legal matters years later and not even foreseen at the time the mail was written. The solution is that emails need to be rendered as transitory as telephone conversations in order to make them as transitory as telephone conversations -- and that means making sure that no copy exists to subpoena, whether it be in a folder on somebody's secretary's computer, or sitting in an old rotation backup tape in a Pierce Leahy or Iron Mountain offsite-storage facility.

    Spud Zeppelin * spud@spudzeppelin.com

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Re: Filing Emails
by Brovnik (Hermit) on Sep 28, 2001 at 02:09 UTC
    I agree with some of the other comments already expressed. In particular, trying to force people doesn't work.

    You need to show them that using the new "system" will same them time and effort.

    One thing often missed out is that you need to train people to use it, particularly new people joing the company.

    As to finding a suitable "system", I have never found a suitable one that works for manual filing. Sometimes I want to search for emails by one or some of :

    • Who sent it
    • Who it was sent to
    • Title
    • Date
    • Text in the message
    • Project
    A simple hierarchical system (e.g. Outlook) can't manage a simple search for all of these. You really need a natural language package that will take a copy of the email, categorise it and stick it into a Database with a suitable search tool on the front.

    There are of course companies that will sell you a very expensive package to do this for you...
    --
    Brovnik

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Re: Filing Emails
by toma (Vicar) on Sep 28, 2001 at 11:31 UTC
    In large companies there is an ongoing effort to prevent the storage of emails for the reasons mentioned by spudzeppilin. Since you are in a position to dictate how users create email, you have a great opportunity. My suggestion would be to simply forbid attachment of enclosures. This is simple to enforce, just configure your mail delivery system to remove them. This will solve a large number of problems relating to viruses and file size. It will enable you to easily store years of traffic in reasonably sized text files.

    If users really have a need to communicate with large files, just have them send a URL which links the information. This elimates duplication of large files and results in the creation of a truly collaborative work environment.

    Plain text is easy to search. If you need fast search capability then you can create a concordance of the text files and a web interface for easy access. This would allow you to search everyone's email for any words in a very quick user interface.

    Typically, only a few email addresses need to have these resrictions. Rather than burdening all the users with all these rules, it is easier to just enforce the rules at a special email address such as 'archive@dept.company.com'. Email sent to this address is archived and indexed. This also solves the business/personal problem, since only business mail will be sent to the archive address.

    If users really want graphics, see if figlet can meet their needs.

    It should work perfectly the first time! - toma

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