Email Management Best Practices I. Introduction: The School Board Network Infrastructure that we use daily is a huge investment involving workstations, servers, storage, software and backup equipment. It is estimated that of all the data stored on the average network, only about 5% is needed. The other 95% is duplicate, obsolete or non business related data. But to support and protect that 5% you have to support and protect the other 95% as well. The procedures in this document will help us to minimize the amount of unnecessary data on our network, reduce the overall network infrastructure requirement and provide a systematic approach for Email archival. There are two basic goals of archiving: 1. Saving mail to adhere to legal requirements to maintain public records. 2. Moving unnecessary items off network resources. The following procedures will accomplish both. The detailed steps are in section II, the basic steps are: 1. Organize your inbox the way you want things for easy retrieval, some only have the inbox, others like to create separate folders for specific types of mail. 2. This step (Step2) must be done at least annually: Configure your outlook to archive to an Outlook Personal Folder (.PST). Outlook Personal Folders have a 2GB limit, so do them more often if necessary. Note: Make sure the.pst file is stored in your U: drive, this drive is protected by backups. 3. Configure your outlook to archive mail over a specific age to the Outlook Personal Folder (.PST) you created, then configure the archive process to run every week or so. Note: We Recommend 3 months as the age limit. Then if you create a new PST at the beginning of each school year your previous PST will contain all mail up to the end of the previous school year. 4. Each time the archive process runs all mail that meets the age criteria specified will be automatically moved to the PST file you created and it will retain the folder structure you created in step 1 above. 5. With this configuration your archiving is automatic. At the end of each year your archive file contains all the mail you sent or received the previous school year. 6. At the beginning of each school year create a new PST (Usually best to name them with the school year) 7. And the final step is to annually copy the.pst file to a CD or DVD thereby totally removing the old mail from network resources. (Some may choose to keep current year and 1 past year on the network). Once the files are on the CD or DVD delete them from the file server. If there was ever a need to retrieve an old email, you simply put the disk in your PC and configure outlook to connect to the file on the disk. Page 1 of 10
II. Detailed Email Archiving Procedures Important Note: All Outlook Data files (.PST) are restricted to a 2GB limit. If a PST file reaches 2GB in size it will become corrupt and nothing will be able to fix it or open it. Users should create new archive files at least once a year to prevent this from occurring. 1. Creating Archive Files (Outlook 2003 & Outlook XP) - The two versions of Outlook are very similar so these procedures will work for both versions. With Outlook open click File, New, Outlook Data File Note: If you do not see New in the File menu, then click the little double down arrows at the bottom of the File menu. Office 2003 Office XP fig. 1. A new window will open (fig. 1). In Outlook 2003 you have two options; the first option (highlighted) is not compatible with older versions of Outlook. If the user intends to open this file with an older version of Outlook, choose option 2. Click OK. Page 2 of 10
A new window will open (fig 2). Change the Save In: option to the user s U drive folder. Any subfolder of U: may also be specified here. (Recommend creating a folder on your U: Drive specifically for Email Archive) fig. 2 Change the default name of the file in the File name: option. The file name should be specific to what the file will contain: i.e. 2006-2007 Archive for an archive of mail from 2006 to 2007. Leave the Save as type: at default of Personal Folders Files (*.pst). Click OK. Page 3 of 10
A new window will open (fig. 3). The file location and name will be listed in the File: box. fig 3 Change the name that will be displayed in Outlook to the same name you gave the file (without the extension) (fig. 4) Click OK. fig 4 Page 4 of 10
All windows will close and the newly created file will appear in the folder list of the user s Outlook. (fig 5). When expanded, two folders will always be created automatically: A Deleted Items folder and a Search Folders. These folders cannot be deleted. Fig 5 Page 5 of 10
2. Setting up Auto-Archive (Default Archive Setting) NOTE: An archive file should be created before the following steps are done (see above). With Outlook open; click Tools (on the menu bar) then Options. Note: you may have to click the double-down arrows to expand the Tools selections. A new window will open (fig 6). Click the Other tab. fig 6 Click the AutoArchive button and a new window will open. See (fig 7). Page 6 of 10
Fig 7 Check the Run AutoArchive every box and select the number of days you want it to run (14 is default). It is recommended you have the other check boxes checked as in Figure 7. Set the Clean out items older than to a specified time frame. 3 months is recommended. Set the Move old items to: option to the location and file name of the archive file created. To initiate the process click the Apply these settings to all folders now button. This will create the users email file structure in the archive file and move all items older than 3 months to the file. Page 7 of 10
3. Individual Folder Archive Settings The preceding Default Auto Archive procedures are for configuring the default actions for all folders within your mailbox. Individual subfolders can be set differently if needed using the following procedures: Right click any mailbox subfolder and select Properties (I selected my Calendar) Select the AutoArchive Tab Here you have 3 choices - Do not archive items in this folder i. Folder is not archived - Archive Items in this folder using the Default Settings i. Uses settings you configured for the default - Archive this folder using these settings i. You can set settings that only apply to this folder Page 8 of 10
4. Manually Moving Email Messages Once an archive file (.pst file) has been created, the user may opt to manually move messages to their new file. This is a simple Drag-and-Drop. Select the message to be moved (single-click). Hold the left mouse button down while dragging the message to the new file. When the new file is highlighted, release the mouse button. Selecting Multiple Messages Click the first message you want to move. Hold the Shift key down and single-click on the last message you want to move. This will select every message between the first and last message. Release the Shift key then hold the left mouse button while dragging the selected messages to the new file. Hold the Ctrl key down and single-click on each message you want to move. This selects only those messages specifically. Release the Ctrl key then hold the left mouse button while dragging the selected messages to the new file. 5. Making changes to outlook data files - With Outlook Open; Click the Tools menu and Select Options - Select the Mail Setup tab - Click the Data Files Button Page 9 of 10
- This displays the Data files that are currently connected to outlook. You can remove and add new.pst (outlook data files) from here. - This is where you can connect to an old archive that you moved to a CD. Simply select Add and you will get a window to browse to the location of the.pst file. Once added it will show up in your Outlook Folders list. Page 10 of 10