SMS Holdings Email Retention Policy: Overview January 2, 2013 1
Disclaimer: The Email Retention Policy applies to all employees of SMS Holdings and its subsidiaries who have been issued an SMS Holdings email account. This document is intended to help mailbox owners understand the Email Retention Policy. It is not intended to be an exhaustive review of the Policy. Reviewing this Overview Document does not replace the requirement to read and understand the Email Retention Policy document in its entirety. SMS Holdings email accounts are to be used for the sole purpose of conducting business for SMS Holdings and its subsidiaries. 2
Summary Emails should be deleted after their business use is complete. Emails may not be kept longer than 6 months unless protected in Appendix A of the Policy. Email information cannot be saved to detachable storage devices such as zip drives and back-up drives. 3
Summary (continued) Employees should not use any other email account for Company business unless it is an account on a customer s system and the customer has explicitly directed that the SMS employee use this alternative account. Email account owners should not be storing the only copy of important Customer or Corporate information in an email account. 4
Definition of an Email: An email is a message with a sender, recipient(s), date and message or information. The storage format can be in any electronic format. For example:.msg.pdf.docx etc. An email printed to paper must be in compliance with the Policy. It doesn t matter where the email is or what format it is in. If it still exists, it needs to be in compliance with the Policy 5
Examples of Email Topics Protected in Appendix A Authorizations for customer bill rates, employee compensation or purchasing goods or services. Published Policies and Procedures or clarifications of policies and procedures. Authorizations for providing service outside of the normal levels of service. 6
Sample of Appendix A 7
The appropriate storage place for emails older than six months is the Long Term Retention folder found in each mailbox. (as of Jan. 14, 2013) 8
Long Term Retention Folder The Long Term Retention folder is the Safe Harbor folder for emails. All emails in this folder must be manually managed by the mailbox owner. There will be no automatic deletion of emails in this folder. All emails in this folder must comply with retention periods detailed in the Policy. 9
Long Term Retention Folder (continued) The Long Term Retention folder can have sub-folders to assist with organization. If Division Management directs a certain structure of subfolders for the Long Term Retention Folder, then it is the responsibility of the employee to use the Division structure. In the absence of a Division structure for the Long Term Retention folder, the employee is welcome to create a structure that supports her/his job responsibilities. Emails not in the Long Term Retention folder will be automatically deleted after 6 months. 10
Non compliant emails: Some e-mails contain back and forth communications on a single or various topics within one email file. Only that part(s) of the email that is protected in Appendix A can be retained longer than 6 months. See the next slide for an example of an email with a mixture of compliant and non-compliant messages. 11
Example of non-compliant part of an email From: John Smith Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 4:33 PM To: Mary Welling Subject: RE: Information I will be taking my vacation the week of March 5 th. Thanks John -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Welling Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 4:03 PM To: John Smith Subject: Information John, how is your sister doing? Also, when is your vacation scheduled? 12
Alternatives to keeping an email: You can keep emails that aren t covered in the Appendix A for up to 6 months but you should delete them after their usefulness expires. Pieces of information that may be helpful to keep beyond 6 months, but are not compliant with the Policy, may be kept in another form as long as it is not stored as an email format. 13
Questions? Questions about the Policy or the daily compliance with the Policy should be directed to your immediate supervisor. The IT Department at SMS Corporate cannot address issues associated with the administration of the Policy. 14