Storage and Retrieval - Systematic Indexing in Document Pool
E-mail has become a core communication medium in the business world and is well on its way to replacing letters and faxes. No wonder then, that finding the ultimate professional and systematic filing method for handling electronic correspondence has become so important.

Description

E-mail: Blessing or Curse?
In the last few years, e-mail has helped the world become a smaller place. Increasingly, contracts, proposals, letters, etc., are arriving within seconds on a recipient´s desk - a desk that might be located thousands of miles away from the sender. Large groups of recipients can all be supplied with information simultaneously, markedly helping communication to flow within a company and between business partners.

But what are we all supposed to do with so many electronic messages? Less than 20% of companies have tackled the issue of properly storing e-mail. Even fewer have implemented their own e-mail policies. Yet the need to organize e-mail, to store them and file them in a logical and efficient way, is becoming more and more important.

Problem Zone: Storage Capacity
The growing flood of e-mail and their attachments are overflowing employee mailboxes. On average, an employee currently uses 1 to 1 ½ hours per day to read, sort and process incoming e-mail. So what happens when a mailbox and e-mail server have reached their limits? Or this e-mail volume can no longer be secured by the administrator?

A limit of mailbox size set by the administrator forces the user indirectly to delete e-mail. This carries the innate risk of losing important, businessrelevant information forever. Even storing e-mail and attachments locally on a PC, or on a dedicated network drive, only provides a short-term solution and comes with big disadvantages such as the inability to share information, or offer automatic storage, and takes up too much room on back-up resources in the network. The last resort seems to be print-outs of e-mail, which are then kept in binders - totally nullifying the advantages offered by electronic communication.

Regardless of how you try to manage the problem of securing data and creating enough storage capacity, one thing is for sure: e-mail systems are simply not designed for long-term storage.

Compliance Requirements
Electronic information is becoming increasingly viewed as being on a par legally with paper-based information.

This means, for example, that contracts are being signed via e-mail or that e-mail is being used as evidence in court. This equalization process of electronic data is being driven by a series of laws, regulations, and requirements. In the USA, the most widely publicized regulation is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX or SOA), which was devised to enhance the transparency, legality and accountability of financial data provided by publicly traded companies.

Worldwide there are many other regulatory standards including HIPAA, AO, GDPdU and Basel II just to name a few. All of these laws and requirements have had a direct impact on how e-mail needs to be managed. For example, depending on the country, if an e-mail includes an electronic signature that meets signature law requirements, then it must be viewed as a legally binding original document that must be centrally administered and stored for long-term access. Information sent by e-mail that may be relevant for tax purposes must (according to the GDPdU) be stored in a digital format that provides immediate as well as long-term access to a tax agency (usually 6 to 10 years).

No company or organization will be able to avoid meeting these compliance issues, so finding the correct solution is imperative.

Benefits of DocuWare
By using DocuWare for tamper-free archiving of e-mail, you are able to ensure compliance with various regulations and requirements as well as now having the ability to share information for improved working conditions within your organization.

Eliminating Information Islands
E-mail and the information transported within them - is simply too important for a company to allow being stored in just any kind of personal folder, directory or mailbox. Today, in most cases, e-mail is viewed as the private property of the individual employee and falls within the privacy sphere of personal mail if no company-wide e-mail guidelines exist. What happens if an employee is on vacation and you need access to his mailbox, or if they have deleted them? By not properly managing this important source of information, the company's ability to provide quality service is very limited and significantly increases its legal exposure. The solution needed is simple: a consistent approach to archiving all business information, and this includes electronic mail.

Benefits of DocuWare
By storing everything in DocuWare's central document pool, all e-mail is organized in conjunction with documents from other sources. This means, for example, that a salesperson can see all of the information pertaining to a certain customer - no matter if it is within letters, faxes or e-mail.

Even e-mail attachments, which often contain the most critical data, are now available when needed. The enormous reduction in time needed to store and retrieve documents not only reduces internal costs, it also improves customer service by significantly decreasing response time.

The Processes

When introducing e-mail filing to your organization, the question immediately arises: who stores which e-mail and when? There are basically two different approaches:
Decentralized filing conducted by individual employees at their workstations or central filing done right at the server. DocuWare can do both.

Decentralized Filing - At Workstation
This approach is similar to the way paper documents are usually handled. Each employee decides which e-mail needs to be stored and when.

DocuWare can enhance the indexing process by integrating information from an address book or other database, which can add important index information such as company or contact name. Of course the subject, sender name, recipient name and date are automatically incorporated.

Here's how it works: DocuWare monitors a folder that is set up in Outlook (or any MAPI compliant e-mail solution); as soon as a user drags an e-mail into this folder, it will be filed. Attachments can be automatically stored together with the e-mail text or separately (in the file cabinet) and added to a fulltext index for later searches. If desired, the e-mail can then be deleted in Outlook. They can be stored in their original format or be converted by DocuWare into other formats.

The configuration of DocuWare's ACTIVE IMPORT module needed for this monitoring is completed in a few minutes. Step-by-step directions take you through the process.

Central Filing - At Server
Central filing at the server may become necessary due to liability reasons or for publicly traded companies (SOX). The configuration is set up on the Exchange Server together with ACTIVE IMPORT. This approach guarantees that 100% of e-mail is archived.

Real World - TECHNO COLOR

Every day, approximately a thousand records are automatically stored in the central document pool of this automobile parts supplier. An integrated workflow system has also meant more transparency for their business processes, speeding everything up. TECHNO COLOR's most recent addition: the electronic filing of all of their e-mail.

Since the middle of 2004, multiple departments of TECHNO COLOR have been successfully working with document management and integrated workflow, including the company's executive team, accounting, HR, purchasing, order processing, sales, quality control, project management, R&D, production, logistics and IT.

TECHNO COLOR provides special surfaces for high-end automotive parts - a very detail-oriented business.

Together with an ERP system called B2 from the company Bäurer, they manage outgoing records like delivery slips, order forms, invoices, manufacturing documents and test reports from the lab, even data from a mass data capturing program. and all stored automatically in their central archive.

All incoming records - whether it's delivery slips or invoices - are labeled with a barcode (to enable automatic filing) and then scanned.

Since e-mail is comparable to other paper correspondence, they must also be stored to meet current legal requirements.

With DocuWare, TECHNO COLOR has been automatically storing e-mail for some time now. Users must store every e-mail before being able to delete them. But they can also add organizational indexing criteria to make it easier for later retrieval, which certainly helps when considering the incredible numbers of e-mail coming into the business every day.

Challenge:
To access a central document pool from all workstations, enhance workflow, store all e-mail and save time and space

Solution:
DocuWare, ACTIVE IMPORT, AUTOINDEX, COLD/READ, CONTENT-FOLDER, RECOGNITION

Benefits:
Transparent work processes that work well between departments, employees save time - fewer copies, phone calls and searches, improved customer service

If you would like to find out further information, please contact us.