WHITE PAPER Email Archiving and Sharing with Doclook Reach Extension to Microsoft Outlook
WHITE PAPER Email Archiving And Sharing with Doclook Reach Extension to Microsoft Outlook Introduction Companies today are becoming more reliant on email as a medium for communicating and conducting their business. With the volume of information sent through email increasing, there is an added responsibility on companies to manage, protect and preserve this information. The importance of managing emails in a business is clear to see, as not only will it improve compliance, it will save costs when retrieving emails (e-discovery), reduce redundant data on servers, free up space on Exchange Servers and also Outlook Mailboxes (PST), improve back up time and support business with instant sharing of emails in a workgroup, project management team or when employees leave an organisation. Implementing an Email Management Solution is critical to a business, as it will help that organisation to comply with regulations, respond to e-discovery requests and preserve emails without having to leave Microsoft Outlook. The key benefits of Email Management with DocLook Reach Let us look closely at the key benefits DocLook Reach can deliver to email management, and also to see the significant upsides it will bring to a business, predominantly with preservation, sharing, searching (e-discovery), storage management, compliance and most importantly lowering business costs. The key benefits of DocLook Reach: Preservation all company emails are archived securely, meeting regulatory requirements Sharing emails amongst workgroups or project management teams without ever leaving Outlook Fast Search of emails (e-discovery) instantly from inside Outlook from across any archive or through the Administration Search on the server Frees up space in user s Inbox, reduces the size of the PST and Exchange Server Ingestion old PST files can be added to the Automated Archive Eliminates redundant emails on Exchange Server and Local machines Familiar user experience makes accessing archived emails quicker and easier Supports greater Compliancy Archive Automation copy or move archive (incremental Back-up) Highly Configurable - Easily Deployed I have been working as an IT consultant for major organisations for over 10 years, specialising in Exchange 2003-2010 design and implementation, and I can see a real benefit that your software brings with its features Gareth McGuinness MCG Tech Ltd 2
Preserving Business Emails One of the key requirements of any Email Management system is the ability to archive company emails securely, where they are preserved until required. Companies with no defined structure in place to secure and preserve emails are most at risk. This can be a worry for most companies especially when valuable information is stored inside these emails. Failure to retrieve important relevant emails can be detrimental to an organisation, in cases of litigation for example. With the global growth of E-Commerce, companies are generating large volumes of information through email, and the ability to preserve this information is critical. DocLook Reach uses familiar folder structures as a means of archiving emails. We will examine the various reasons why archiving is best served by a folder structure throughout this paper. Crucially, the automated archive is completely secure; every email archived can only be accessed by the archive administrator. All emails that are sent and received from email accounts that match the organisation s domain are archived automatically. Calendar appointments are also archived. All emails are displayed in the archive by sender, recipient date, subject and size making it easily searchable in explorer and provide greater compliancy for businesses. The DocLook Reach administration panel has a powerful search function (See Figure 1.0). Emails can be retrieved instantly by searching for the name, email address, subject or date. Emails can be searched between a set of dates. Uniquely, search results can be copied to a client s archive where they can be viewed instantly inside the client s own Outlook. For example, a client can request from their Administrator all their emails from January 2009. The Administrator simply accesses the archive from the server and copies the results from the main archive to the client s archive, which can then be viewed inside Outlook. The client can then apply their own search to find a specific email (see section on Searching for your Business Emails). Figure 1.0 3
Emails that are sent, received or even deleted while not connected to the company network or if the client is using email via a Smartphone (e.g. Blackberry/iPhone), are archived the next time Outlook is opened up on the client s computer. The IT manager s task of managing the Archive is straight forward, freeing up the Archive by further archiving off the emails as required to another location on the Server, the Cloud, a SAN, NAS or an external Hard Drive. DocLook Reach removes the need of having a data base in place, which can be very costly and runs the risk of corruption if not managed properly. Small to medium sized businesses may not have an IT manager on site and so a folder structure rather than a database would be more beneficial to their business model. Companies can now feel secure knowing that every email sent and received has been copied to the Archive and can be easily managed by an I genuinely believe that the product has a number of unique features and its user friendly simplicity is welcomed by our customers David Inglis Dunedin IT IT manager or in the case of a small business by any computer literate person. The preservation of these emails keeps companies compliant. Sharing Emails Email sharing is an enormous problem for most businesses. Emails stored in Outlook are held inside a PST file which only supports the storage of personal emails. The problem occurs when businesses require sharing of emails amongst workgroups, project management teams or even when employees leave the organisation. All their emails are locked away in their PST file which prevents continuity in the organisation. DocLook Reach addresses this problem by providing a seamless, unified experience, bringing an instant flow to required information, ensuring an efficient, productive and cost effective way of accessing emails. Users simply drag, copy or move their emails directly to the archive contained inside Outlook (see figure 1.1). These emails are now moved to the archive which is stored on the server and available to those to whom your IT administrator has shared the folders with. To view the emails the user simply clicks on the folder they have stored the email in. The user will be familiar with the concept of saving emails to different folders, and DocLook Reach is no Figure 1.1 different, except the emails are stored on the server. The user experience however, is no different. The emails are streamed from the server to the folders and appear inside Outlook as a standard email. Any attachments are kept with the email. (See figure 1.2) DocLook Reach also creates another folder (DocLook Merged Mails) that merges all Inbox and Sent Items emails into one place so the user can drag and archive mails by subject, sender and date, saving them time searching through their sent items to find corresponding emails to archive. Emails viewed within DocLook Reach from the archive are secure so users cannot delete or move emails between folders in the archive. 4
Because the emails are only copied across from the server, the original always remains on the server. The copied emails also allow shared users to view emails simultaneously. This greatly benefits users in a workgroup that need to share emails. When a member of a workgroup is unavailable or leaves the organisation, their replacement or colleagues will still have access to all the emails allowing for continuity and efficiency across an organisation. As an Engineering company, sharing emails amongst the project management team was a difficult process that lacked structure. Doclook Reach delivers a comprehensive solution that allows us to share and search for emails relating to past and current projects instantly. James Brophy Winthrop Engineering Figure 1.2 Searching for your business emails (e-discovery) One of the biggest issues facing businesses today is their inability to find emails that can be locked away in a user s PST file or hidden from an IT manager through unstructured procedures. The facts are alarming; businesses need to be able to retrieve all emails in a timely manner that may be relevant to a case of litigation, or an audit. There are numerous cases listed where businesses were heavily fined for failing to produce emails in a timely manner or were unable to locate an email that may have defended their case. In the United States a jury awarded $800 million in punitive damages when Morgan Stanley repeatedly failed to produce emails in a timely manner. The judge stated that efforts to hide its emails were evidence of guilt (Coleman Holdings v. Morgan Stanley) Retrieving emails may not just apply to your regulatory requirements, the ability to simply locate an email in day to day work can prove difficult, time consuming and annoying. DocLook Reach has fast search capabilities which will significantly improve your ability to retrieve emails quickly. The Administration search, which resides on the server and searches the entire Automated Archive, is described in the section on Preserving Business Emails. The Client Search can be accessed from the archive inside Outlook, users can search the Archive by right clicking the archive or individual folders and apply a search by Subject, Date and Sender. The results are copied into the viewer where users can narrow the search results by key words using Microsoft s Search Results. (See figure 1.3) DocLook Reach works with VPN so emails can be accessed from the archive from locations outside of the office. 5
DocLook Reach takes the pain out of searching for emails, speeds up operations, improves efficiencies, reduces time consuming searches for historical mails going back years. More importantly it meets all the regulatory requirements surrounding e-discovery. (Figure 1.3) Storage space, Redundant data and Back Ups Storage space cost money; businesses that implement DocLook Reach will significantly reduce the size of their Exchange Server, user s mailbox, PST files and eliminate redundant emails on the Exchange Server and local machines. PSTs and Exchange have size limits and can run the risk of corrupting and falling over if they reach their size limit. Another problem businesses face is the need for their IT Managers to manage the size of users PST files. If DocLook Reach is implemented, and used properly, emails archived to DocLook Reach are removed from users PST and Exchange server thus removing the problem surrounding mailboxes reaching size limits. Additionally, many email archiving approaches use databases for storing emails, increasing the storage requirements. In fact two databases are now performing similar functions. Although they address the same issues in compliancy and regulatory requirements, the point remains that increased database storage space is required. For the small business this requires further IT assistance as databases are limited by size. Also, backups are an issue. Large archives prove difficult to back up as databases require a full backup which can take considerable amount of time and resources depending on its size. With DocLook Reach, folders provide for incremental backups, which save a lot of time, and reduce costs. DocLook Reach operates an automated backup that allows the administrator to either move or copy the archive to a location such as a NAS, SAN, the Cloud or another server. The overall impact of DocLook Reach on your business storage space is significant, in terms of cost, backup times, redundant emails, security and Email Management. 6
Archive Automation equips businesses with the ability to copy or move the archive to another location Emails can be copied or moved to a backup location such as a NAS, SAN, another Server or the Cloud. The frequency of this occurrence can be set by the administrator from within the console or it can be set by size limits placed on the archive. When applying a search, the search engine will search across both locations. DocLook Reach is not dependent on the location of the Exchange Server; therefore DocLook Reach can work in a centralised or decentralised environment supporting businesses with regional offices. The local administrator can administer the archive locally while the main administrator can oversee the entire archive centrally. This flexibility delivers enormous value to businesses that have many regional offices, in addition to all the other features and benefits of DocLook Reach that are passed down to each regional office. For peace of mind the centralised archive can also be incrementally backed up daily to a secured location such as a Vault in the Cloud. Doclook Reach has given me the ability to free up space in my client s mailboxes and reduce the size of both PST files and the Exchange Server, solving a business problem that hitherto was never seriously addressed. As an IT manager this takes away a lot of headaches for me. Eamonn Tyrell Office Technology, Canon Premium Partner Familiar User Experience Many email archiving approaches introduce an environment that is unfamiliar to both the user and the IT administrators. For example, users need to leave the familiarity of Microsoft Outlook to manage and view their archived emails. Furthermore, migrating to new approaches need to be considered carefully, besides users and IT administrators having to learn new skills, dependency on the new approach must be considered if it can no longer be supported. DocLook Reach fits seamlessly inside Outlook so the user experience is familiar. Because the archive is a folder structure, the user feels completely at ease as they drag and move emails as before. To view emails users simply click on the folder, emails are available in the viewer as normal. If the user needs access to a historical archive, they select the DocLook tab in the toolbar, and add the archive inside Outlook. The emails are there to view with no need to call on IT support. When emails are archived, DocLook Reach holds the name of each email by sender, date and subject. This means all emails can be viewed from Windows Explorer by name, subject and date, which supports compliance. Managing folders reduces the time and complexities associated with managing a database. It supports familiarity for the user inside Outlook, sharing of emails is simplified, access to historical archives is seamless, reduces the size of the PST and Exchange Server, eliminates redundancy emails, supports the use of VPN, improves back up times and greatly reduces operating and IT infrastructural costs. For the small to medium business (SME) this can provide a huge cost saving with the added peace of mind knowing emails are secure. Familiarity means no added cost; no new skills are required. Users who have an understanding of Outlook can now archive emails simply. It promotes continuity in any business when employees leave. More importantly it promotes a healthy image for a company towards its clients, as the organisation becomes more efficient and productive with its information. 7
Retention Policies Managed from the Administrator s Console Retention policies can be set by the administrator from within the console to any number of days. Once set an automated email is sent to all users advising them that the retention policies have been set and all emails older than the said number of days will be removed from their Inbox and sub folders. This will be enacted when you close Outlook on the next working day giving users the time to save emails using DocLook Reach. Please note all emails that are removed are captured by the automated archive if not archived previously. The retention policies offer the administrator greater flexibility in reducing the user s PST Files size and the Exchange Server size with the assurance that all emails are captured securely in the Automated Archive. Ingestion Older PST files can now be filled in the Automated Archive DocLook Reach will provide businesses with the ability to archive old PST files automatically under individual profiles on your server, NAS, SAN or a secured vault in the Cloud. The automated process administers a structure for individual profiles within the archive. All emails from each profile, past or present, can now exist under that same profile and are instantly searchable across the entire company archive or by profile. The unique technology on which the product was founded provides a solution to email archiving like no other product we have previously used or are aware of. This approach offers seamless integration, intuitive interface, and flexible, scalable, ease of management and conforms to email compliancy. The product is a powerful addition to the range of products we resell to both new and existing clients Liam Fennelly Dynamic Business Systems Retrieving emails through backup tapes or when an employee leaves an organisation is time consuming. Not alone will DocLook Reach give you instant access to the archived emails but it also gives your business peace of mind knowing all historical emails as well as current emails are secure and searchable quickly. It also promotes compliancy and regulatory requirements. 8
Compliance and Regulatory Requirements DocLook Reach can help businesses meet compliance requirements for emails. Compliance can be very detailed and it is important that companies seek independent legal and auditing support to ensure they are compliant. Suffice to say most compliance is based upon basic data management requirements. These requirements typically include the following: Please Note: DocLook Reach is an extension to Microsoft Outlook, it is important to be aware of how Microsoft addresses compliance in relation to email. (Figure 1.4) Highly Configurable Easily Deployed DocLook Reach is flexible and can be deployed in various ways that will add greater productivity to any business. No added hardware or software is required. Users can have access to their own individual archive inside Outlook with full security and permissions applied by the administrator, meaning users can locate lost or missing emails without having to call on the administrator, with the added benefit of fast search capabilities, reduced PST file size and security. DocLook Reach fits many different business models and can be adapted to help create a structure to emails in the business. I believe it is a product that many of our customers will be interested in purchasing as it will be a huge asset to their company. We at ITCS have been waiting for a product like this to sell to our clients. I also believe it will enable us to secure new clients in the future Dominic O Brien IT Computer Services Compared to our current email archiving solution, which is one of the more popular solutions on the market today, I find DocLook Reach easy to implement, administer and most importantly it is user friendly. It lets the user work with the file based system they are already so familiar with while the Network Administrator maintains full control to ensure regulatory compliance. This user friendly approach will certainly reduce the number of helpdesk calls and also increase user productivity, proving in my opinion an excellent return in investment Pat Doyle IT Manager KN Networks 9
Overview of DocLook Reach Email Filing & Retrieval Attached below are three graphs that illustrate how DocLook Reach files and retrieves emails. Automated Archive Automated archiving, all emails sent and received are automatically stored in the Archive created by DocLook Reach Administration. The Archive is secure and managed by the Manager or Administrator. DLR Archive Automated Process (Figure 1.5) 10
Archive DocLook Reach for the client provides for the I.T administrator to set up the archive around the company s business structure and hierarchy. (See figure 1.6 & 1.7) Folders and Network Drives are given security and permission rights based upon any business requirements. Sharing of folders can be built around workgroups, project management teams or even between management. DocLook Reach Email Filing Overview DocLook Reach Email Filing Overview Private Folder Alice Alice Bob LAN, VPN & Cloud Storage Private Folder Folder Alice & Bob Alice, Bob & Peter Folder 1 Folder 2 Peter Folder 3 1 Alice archives to private folder on server (Alice) 4 Bob archives to private folder on server (Alice & Bob) 2 Alice archives to private folder on server (Alice & Bob) 5 Bob archives to shared folder on server (Alice & Bob & Peter) 3 Alice archives to shared folder on server (Alice & Bob & Peter) 6 Peter archives to shared folder on server (Alice & Bob & Peter) Figure 1.6 DocLook Reach Email Retrieval Overview DocLook Reach Email Retrieval Overview Email Private Folder Alice Alice Private Folder Alice & Bob Bob Email LAN, VPN & Cloud Storage Folder Alice, Bob & Peter Folder 1 Email Folder 2 Peter Folder 3 Step 1 Inside Outlook Alice streams from private folder (Alice) by clicking on folder Results are streamed into Alices Outlook viewer Step 2 Step 3 Inside Outlook Bob requests from private folder (Alice & Bob) by clicking and searching folder by Name, Date & Sender Results are available inside Bob s Outlook viewer Inside Outlook Peter streams from shared folder (Alice, Bob & Peter) Results are streamed into Peter s Outlook viewer Figure 1.7 11
The Administrator creates the structure of the archive on the network. A suggested archive layout is presented below. Archive File Structure Overview Archive File Structure Overview HR Group A Group B Group C A1 A2 A3 Storage Server Network Sales Group D Group E Group F D1 D2 D3 Other Departments Finance Group G Group H Group I G1 G2 G3 Figure 1.8 12
Conclusion DocLook Reach provides many benefits for businesses to address email management. Bringing a structure to emails in an organisation, safeguarding critical information locked inside emails, providing a platform to share emails amongst workgroups and project teams, fast search capabilities, reduced size of mailboxes, PST files and Exchange Server and improved back up times should motivate any business focussed on lowering costs, remaining compliant, improving their efficiencies and productivity. No matter what the size of an organisation, DocLook Reach will help businesses become more structured around email management. System Requirements System Requirements for DocLook Reach Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows Vista Microsoft Windows 7 Service Pack 3 Service Pack 2 -.Net Framework 3.5 SP1.Net Framework 3.5 SP1.Net Framework 3.5 SP1 Microsoft Outlook 2007 SP2, 2010 Microsoft Outlook 2007 SP2, 2010 Microsoft Outlook 2007 SP2, 2010 Microsoft Updates (Not Windows update) All available recommended updates Microsoft Updates (Not Windows update) All available recommended updates Microsoft Updates (Not Windows update) All available recommended updates Windows Desktop Search - - 13
Feature Comparison Features GFI Metalogix- PAM Msg Save Mailstore MailMeter DocLook Reach Email Archiving Archive access from Microsoft Outlook End User/ Advance full text search capabilities Automated sent/received emails archived Single Instance Storage Email Sharing VPN/OWA support Archive file management and discovery Retention management Reduce email storage and legal cost Disaster Recovery Options Access to Archive during Exchange downtime Reduce PST Exchange Server Size Merged Inbox & Sent Items folder for easier filing MS Outlook familiar User Experience Easy Storage/ Access location includes; External server harddrive, CD/DVD, USB key or another computer. Incremental backup 14 All Rights Reserved, including all rights concerning reproduction, copying or any other use or transmission of this document and its contents or parts of it. No part of this publication may, no matter in what form, be reproduced without written permission by Recuerdo Global, passed on to third parties, edited, copied, distributed or used for public presentations. Recuerdo Global reserves the right to change and update the content at any time. All data shown on screenshots is solely for demonstration purposes of the software. Recuerdo Global holds no responsibility for the content.
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