Email Management Opinion Article - By Jon Halestrap, Director of Sales & Marketing, Invu.

Annoyance, frustration, despair: three emotions the majority of people have experienced when trying to locate a vital email that for some reason has disappeared into the mysterious inbox black hole.

From the business perspective, the problem can cause more than just irritation. Increasingly, important business information is stored in emailed memos and attachments received by individuals rather than on paper or shared filing systems. When this information is lost - or takes a small search party valuable time to find - the impact on customer service, efficiency and ultimately the bottom-line can be immense.

Legal requirements
Things can, however, get even more serious. The modern world has also thrown up a raft of new issues to deal with associated with increasing legal and regulatory compliance requirements. These range from the Basel II accord for the financial services sector to Sarbannes Oxley to the Freedom of Information Act for the UK public sector. Many organisations do not yet appreciate the role of information management in collating and managing tangible information, but this will become more important because of the growing need for statutory and regulatory compliance.

In a recent court case, a leading investment bank was ordered to pay 1.45 billion US Dollars in damages as a result of not being able to produce emails and other documents which had been requested by a client. Part of the bankís unsuccessful defence had been that it had no facility to automatically search emailed attachments which were stored in its electronic archives.

Where would we be without it?
Electronic mail has revolutionised communication, while computerisation in general has defined a new era in the management of information. With billions of emails sent each year, traditional corporate communication methods such as postal services, couriers, faxes, and even telephones have sometimes been overtaken in terms of importance for day-to-day business operations. ìEmail overloadî, however, is causing new problems for businesses that once upon a time only had to contend with a mountain of paper filing to store and retrieve. In many cases they are now trying to manage paper and electronic filing systems. The lack of a centralised system to manage emails alongside traditional communications can compromise their overall effectiveness.

As a result, a multitude of software systems have been developed for email management. For many businesses the solution is proving to be electronic document management (EDM) ñ in simple terms an overarching electronic system that can collect, index and store information in all forms, including email, which is easily searchable and auditable by all staff members.

In order to understand why EDM is proving popular, and how it can help with the email management, letís take a look back in time to see what has changed.

Why not just buy email management software?
While it is true that there are many products on the market which can help manage email systems, an overarching system has a number of logical advantages.

Consider this familiar scenario. An invoice arrives by post and is filed. Simultaneously, a confirmation email comes in referring to the fact the invoice has been sent. The accounts department respond to this to acknowledge receipt, but crucially this is not linked to the details of the invoice.

When a query arises an email management system will be able to retrieve the email, but the invoice will take a little more work. Over a number of weeks or months this means that significant time and therefore money is still being unnecessarily wasted on searching for related information stored in a number of formats.

An overarching document management system solves this problem and brings everything to your fingertips from one simple search. You can bring up all the records on a customer or in reference to a specific search term, in seconds ñ correspondence, faxes, reports, invoices and email. It can even highlight the search terms so you can go straight to the information you want.

How can EDM help?
An efficient, integrated electronic document management (EDM) system is a way of making sure that the business is storing and protecting critical information and knowledge, often kept on email, that make up the intangible assets of the company. It also helps a company meet its legal requirements with regard to storing and retrieving information that must legally be kept for many years in some cases.

A single unified system which targets all critical data ñ not just email messages but also electronic and paper documents and faxes, diary records, reports, plans and in some cases, audio and video tapes is strongly advisable. After all, why set up a system which only looks after one particular type of document? An important point about EDM systems is they allow you to store files in their original format (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook or other specialised software program), so they are editable and modifiable ñ but within an overarching system. It commonly occurs that departments within a business wish to use their own front-end application program which defines the way in which they conduct their daily business while accessing this information. But where the information is shared, the EDM system is common to each and must be managed as such.

Who is allowed access to records is another issue where each company needs to develop a set of guidelines, with the specific circumstances that allow access laid down. An audit trail is crucial, enabling the system to track down the record wherever it is at any given moment.

Another key issue is storage and handling. Organisations must have the right processes and conditions in place to protect records from unauthorised access, loss or destruction and from theft and disaster. Records should be stored on media that ensure their usability, reliability, authenticity and preservation for as long as they are needed. Issues relating to the maintenance, handling and storage of records arise throughout their existence, not only when they become inactive. Clearly paper record keeping will no longer suffice as paper degrades over time and is susceptible to disasters such as fire or flooding. Records must be kept for as long as required to meet current and future business needs and to reasonably meet the needs (current and future) of internal and external stakeholders. The system would ideally have a full audit trail and version control of key documents.

How do EDM systems work?
Once the preserve of the FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, this technology is now available to the mass market at affordable prices. They work by scanning documents into a system where they are automatically indexed and filed electronically, so documents can then be instantly recalled by searching on key words. The systems can work alongside existing software packages such as accountancy software and clients databases, so that output from several different systems may be electronically filed within the one overarching system. The system should integrate seamlessly with existing software packages, so it can be installed and be up and running quickly without the need for extra programming to create an interface. Users should be able to view all documents scanned onto the system through the applications they use every day, thereby considerably increasing the speed and efficiency of document retrieval and cross-referencing.

How to choose an electronic document management system
There are a few things you should consider before investing in document management software. One of the first things to look for is a system that is very easy to use. It should be simple to install, and be up and running in a few days. A well designed system with a good user interface means that staff will require almost no training to use the system, and staff should be able to find and retrieve emails and documents easily and quickly and remotely when necessary, a useful attribute for those on the move ñ the mobile workforce.

An EDM system should:
Automatically index and file documents
Have version control capability
Have audit trails
Integrate seamlessly with existing software
Be scalable to suit small to large businesses
Be easy to use

And the benefits?
An EDM system can restore and protect ëcorporate memoryí because resources are once more held centrally and filed in a logical way. Crucially, important information is available to all people within the company (within varying levels of pre-set permissions) so corporate information is freely shared, creating a huge time and cost saving for staff at all levels.

Retrieval times are almost instantaneous and ìlong lost emailsî from ìthe tempís PC in the cornerî, are now fully accessible, thanks to intelligent keyword searching. Robust computer back up systems ensure that all information can be copied and secured off-site, thus ensuring that fire, flood, theft, and any acts of God will never again jeopardise your business.

Another immediate benefit is a reduction in costs. Archive storage costs disappear, and office space per square metre becomes more profitable as the space is used by staff working on the business, rather than in storing documents in filing cabinets. In many cases this enables expansion without relocation. The day-to-day costs in paper and other storage consumables are also dramatically reduced.

Also in todayís customer focused environment, when everything is needed yesterday, a hassle free method of storing and retrieving vital documentation ñ paper and electronic, including email - is increasingly attractive. EDM ensures that you have all the details available as and when itís needed. It means never having to say youíre sorry but youíll have to call your customer back.

A call to action
Organisations need to act quickly to protect the information they rely on. With information dispersed around individual email accounts and PCs, the potential for a crisis is real. Any staff member leaving means the loss of potentially crucial information, and therefore the potential loss of a businesses critical competitive edge.

With the mounting legislative burden faced, not just by the heavily regulated legal and accounting businesses, but also increasingly by all businesses in the UK, companies really need to think about how secure and accessible their information is.

Information is the lifeblood of business and email is a main artery. Electronic document management restores that vital flow and provides a way of managing all the new electronic forms of information in one central repository.