[Closed] managing emails when the IT muppets stop you using folders

well, if you're business-core and they aren't, ...

I'd start by asking WHY??????

Newer versions of outlook let you group emails into "saved searches" that look like folders but aren't. These have replaced my "mail from [name]" folders. Not so good at subject groups though.

Return to IT with the question how should I organise my emails now you have removed folders.

Can you add flags split into different categories?

why organise them. just leave everything in the inbox and use search for finding stuff - metadata and all that malarky

What darrell says. Miscellaneous chronological filing is what I call it. Then search by name, title, date etc.

Can you explain what you mean by "folders"?

Do you mean Personal Folders aka .pst files?

What was the business case for changing the system?
What might be logical to them, to probably make their life easier, will no doubt make it slightly more difficult for most users. Most people operate within a comfort zone and any change is bad for them. But if you add up all the time it takes users to adapt to the new system them it probably negates any efficiency savings for the IT dept.

Maybe they don't want you to use the email system as a document store - there are lots of good reasons why this may be the case. BUT the business side needs to define and explain the requirements, and not let the IT monkeys dictate how the business operates. Don't ask IT why or how, speak to the relevant senior manager / director.

I bet they wanted to stop you storing 600mb of emails on the server 🙂

Can't you just drag/save the emails out to a folder in My Docs or on a network drive? Thats what I do, folder for the customer, job details in the folder, email correspondence in the folder, all in one place and my pitiful inbox size limit is happy.

Search and sort, what else do you need? Even with folders that's probably what you'd do anyway.

You can have the folder stored locally as well - only problem then is that they don't necessarily get backed up.

An ex-Boss (ie the COO) had a problem with their emails, basically it was full. We constantly gave her extra storage.

Once though when I was away she'd had a problem and the IT Managers' "Boy" had been sent to help.

First thing he did was clear out some space, by removing all the Deleted emails. Turns out that this was a part of her filing system...

6gb of emails

Ftfy

You can have the folder stored locally as well - only problem then is that they don't necessarily get backed up.

Without knowing the details I [i]suspect[/i] what they have done is remove the ability to file email into local "Personal Folders" on your own PC - which is quite sensible because these don't get backed up.

But it sounds like no one has bothered to show the staff how to create folders on the Exchange server instead.

Can't you just drag/save the emails out to a folder in My Docs or on a network drive? Thats what I do, folder for the customer, job details in the folder, email correspondence in the folder, all in one place

... with no backup for when your PC dies? 😕

I bet they wanted to stop you storing 600mb of emails on the server

Never understood this mentality. It's a server. Isn't storing and serving files pretty much what it is for?

Surely you have somewhere to upload (MOSS?) essential emails. Outlook etc is not for storage.

Never understood this mentality. It's a server. Isn't storing and serving files pretty much what it is for?

and not let the IT monkeys dictate how the business operates

This. I've always thought of the 'IT monkeys' as jumped up modern day versions of the filing clerk and the bloke with the key to the stationary cupboard, who occasionally need to be reminded of their place in the food chain. It was a happy happy day when our previous head of IT was shown the door (officially he resigned with no job to go to) and a new guy arrived who takes the time to discuss with department heads what their needs are and removed a thousand irrational blocks to organisational productivity devised by a paranoid mind afraid of the modern world. Suddenly we have happy cheery network managers and help deskers keen to help and actually suggest ways to help improve the working environment. It's brilliant.

If I think about email and our users too much it makes me sad worst example would be one with 30 plus network connected .pst each between 1-2gbs (one for every letter of alphabet plus some yearly ones for emails sent) it's a hangover from when we had tiny quota's. User then complains outlook runs slow... We've had 4gb including online archive for the past 3 years and EV added and finally implemented last year (held up by members of department not wanting to rock the boat). New starter use EV fine but old one are far too resistant to change tried explaining benefits but it's like banging head against a brick wall.

Given the nature of mail servers, a mailbox is a comparatively expensive way to store emails that you haven't looked at in 5 years.

True, but a decent archiving policy sorts that out.

Preventing users from creating folders doesn't solve it. It just means they end up with a massive Inbox containing all those same emails.

Danny, stop thinking like a monkey.

True, but a decent archiving policy sorts that out

Monkey you say...

True I can't claim to be a code monkey bar some powershell scripting.

big_n_daft, you still work for us, yes? email me on samur2@hotmail.com and I'll explain what's going on and how to do what you want, although it's nothing to do with me.

Assuming you do still work for us....for everyone else (and big_n_daft a little), sorry to burst your IT hate bubble but strategic decisions like this start at the board table and pass through about 6 or 7 layers of assurance, approval, interrogation and analysis. It's not IT idiots or IT monkeys doing stuff because they feel like it, it's an ingrained vision driven by a massively restrictive and demanding series of legislative and regulatory controls that mandate we keep full control of our data.
People storing data locally in pst files (bearing in mind email is not a document storage solution) means we lose control. We are talking about lawsuits that can (and have) incurred fines of tens and hundreds of millions.

You know, just in case you fancy giving the IT guys a bit more of a kicking.

Back to big_n_daft, did you get some advice for commuting to work? I come a very quiet route which covers most of the route you could take, it avoids all the dangerous places and there's an offroad and onroad version. I can help you with this as well.

Samurai, "Ee. Ee. Ooh. Ooh. Ah. Ah. Ah." is all I am hearing.

Would you like a banana?

First thing he did was clear out some space, by removing all the Deleted emails. Turns out that this was a part of her filing system...

A few years ago, to reclaim lost space I ran a utility against our Exchange server to purge everyone's "Deleted Items" folder. You would not believe the volume of calls I had the next day going "where's all my email gone?" People had directory structures in there and everything. Madness.

Samurai, "Ee. Ee. Ooh. Ooh. Ah. Ah. Ah." is all I am hearing.

Well, run some cold in there then.

Email isnt a record management store, and as others have said is costly and has other risks. If the email is important you should be able to save it to your doc mgmt or record mgmt system.

I use the one big inbox, search approach to emails, and save important ones to our records system

You would not believe the volume of calls I had the next day going "where's all my email gone?" People had directory structures in there and everything. Madness.

Ee. Ee. Ooh. Ooh. Ah. Ah. Ah

I have 3 emails in my inbox and 10000 in my recycle bin - just in case I need to refer to them.

If the recycle bin was emptied I wouldn't really care.

A decent archiving policy will prevent the use of Personal Folders. Sorry.

Common sense prevents the use of Personal Folders (i.e. locally stored pst files)

But I don't see any reason to prevent users creating folders within their Exchange account (i.e. actually on the server where they are backed up properly).

That's how my email works anyway. Inbox is really just a holding area. I have folders for each project and emails that I think I might need to refer to later get squirrelled away there.

We also have a system where any important/official project emails always get CCed to a special project code email address which automatically files them away into a shared archive for future reference.

Since all the folders are on the server (and not on my PC) I see the same thing if I log in via Outlook, or the web, or via the mail app on my phone.

Email isnt a record management store, and as others have said is costly and has other risks. If the email is important you should be able to save it to your doc mgmt or record mgmt system.

If one of the other developers sends me a personal email casually explaining details of some procedure or other then that is something I might want to refer to again in the future.

It already has all the information in it I need to find it again pretty easily, especially if I file it away in a project-specific mail folder.

So why would I want to waste time copying and pasting that information into a formal version-controlled document and then adding suitable meta-data so it can be found again in the document management system?

That takes time and gains me nothing.

Love it when this stuff comes around and us IT bods are the target for disgruntled employees. Use your computer correctly and there is no issue!!!

As someone who has seen .pst files that are 10gb+, it saddens me that people working with a computer on a daily basis are 'allowed' to continue to do so without prooving aptitude towards how to correctly use one in a business environment.

Saying this, I do however blame companies for their lack of system training. I mean you wouldn't let the new employee loose on your all singing, all dancing 4D milling machine without comprehensive training.

Yet computers have become a machine that everyone uses mostly without formal training, let alone comprehensive training to company policy.

This situation is the equivalent in the guy who goes into the bike shop to get his bike fixed and when the shop explains what they need to do get told they're wrong and that the person knows better without really understanding.

Tbh, it sounds like the change wasn't well communicated to the users but it's almost certainly for sound reasons as samuri explained. Or, the OP has ignored multiple emails and other communications explaining what was going to happen and how to deal with it as often happens...

What Samurai said.

It sounds to me more like you are using folders to Not Manage email.

I am constantly amazed at the amount of effort people put into making sure every line they ever wrote is kept. Usually it is in inverse proportion to how important they really are (sorry). The really proper big cheeses I have dealt with keep as little as they can get away with.

Be brave - hit the delete key. Hit it some more.

One of the best mail migration projects I worked on had properly costed everything. Mailbox sizes were limited to 250MB, PSTs were ingested into a vault with a clear retention policy. Basically, if there was no regulatory requirement to keep an email, they didn't want it.

The nice thing about this is when a captain of industry phoned up some poor kid on the helpdesk to shout about how important they were, and how big a mailbox they needed, they were simply referred back to the process for requesting a larger mailbox. This had the dollar costs clearly described, which would be referred to their management for approval and would be billed to their line of business accordingly.

Turned out quite a lot of people weren't as important as they thought.

Edit: And on a personal note (I try not to get personal about technologies I have been involved with over the years, sometimes you just have to play the hand you are dealt), .pst files are shit. Always have been shit. Microsoft even thinks they are shit. Getting rid of them is doing everyone a favour.

Love it when this stuff comes around and us IT bods are the target for disgruntled employees. Use your computer correctly and there is no issue!!!

This attitude is brilliant - "I'm right, and if you don't do things my way, you're wrong" 😀 . I don't think anyone would have a problem if things were explained (e.g. what the alternative is to using folders to organise mail), but if you're supporting a system you can't just shout down users for "doing it wrong".

IT is a business support function - you are supplying a service to the company workforce. Just because you have a monopoly on that service, doesn't mean you are immune to listening to your customers' needs / requirements.

but if you're supporting a system you can't just shout down users for "doing it wrong"

Tbh, it sounds like the change wasn't well communicated to the users but it's almost certainly for sound reasons as samuri explained. Or, the OP has ignored multiple emails and other communications explaining what was going to happen and how to deal with it as often happens...

This... now where DID I leave those bananas?

Wow.. Lot of tension boiling over here.. Good thread 🙂

*popcorn eating gif*

You need the banana eating gif.

[img] [/img]

But I don't see any reason to prevent users creating folders within their Exchange account (i.e. actually on the server where they are backed up properly).

I would really be surprised if this is the case. I don't even know if this is possible (assuming Outlook and Exchange). Personal Folders/Public Folders sure, but within your mailbox proper? Hopefully the OP will enlighten us.

Love it when this stuff comes around and us IT bods are the target for disgruntled employees. Use your computer correctly and there is no issue!!!
[\quote]

And yet IT seem to never provide any specific training on this matter for new starters, or when something changes, or when users find issues.

 

Saving an email (or setting up rules like the cc example above) should actually be [i]quicker[/i] than you finding the right folder and dragging and dropping the email you are never likely to ever need again GrahamS.

Embrace change, move with the times 😉

I've heard of companies which do no email days. You know so you actually have to talk to each other. Wish mine did.

Btw, when I was a junior pm I used to save almost every email to well organised project folders. Probably used to take an hour a day. realised what a waste of effort and time it really was compared to the times I actually really needed to access it. Like I said before if it is important, like instructions for some thing or other save it to your document system (this should be one click....)

whats EV?

Symantec Enterprise Vault.

Basically it puts all the stuff that no-one looks at on cheaper storage.

What's a document system, is that an area on your network drive where e-mails go to die?

I've heard of companies which do no email days. You know so you actually have to talk to each other.

Might work for you IT bods who actually sit next to each other, not so great for places where people actually go out to clients and attend meetings and stuff.

Might work for you IT bods who actually sit next to each other, not so great for places where people actually go out to clients and attend meetings and stuff.

Get with the programme grandad

[img] [/img]

Saving an email (or setting up rules like the cc example above) should actually be quicker than you finding the right folder and dragging and dropping the email you are never likely to ever need again GrahamS.

Maybe our IT isn't up to much (we are a software company after all - our own IT lags behind!) but you'll have to explain to me how saving the content of an email to a new file/document/entry in "your doc mgmt or record mgmt system" is ever quicker than me going [i]click-drag-drop[/i] in Outlook (or indeed doing nothing and leaving it in my Inbox for later).

I think there is some interesting sociology at play here too by the way:

Most internet-aware people these days are getting very used to "instant search based knowledge" where powerful search engines take care of the grunt work.

Instead of memorising facts they often just remember how/where to find them quickly.

For example if someone mentioned this thread in two months time then chances are you wouldn't have it bookmarked and filed away with appropriate keywords - you'd likely just use the site search (or Google) to find it.

And that philosophy seems to be spilling over into email: Why would anyone want to fire up a separate document management system to look for those carefully filed notes that Terry wrote about restarting the blue widget on ProjectX when instead they can just select the "ProjectX" folder in Outlook and search for "terry blue widget"?

but you'll have to explain to me how saving the content of an email to a new file/document/entry in "your doc mgmt or record mgmt system" is ever quicker than me going click-drag-drop in Outlook

This is my Out of Office message on holidays:

"I am currently out of the office on holiday and will return on (date). All emails to this account will be automatically deleted. If you require a response before my return, please contact Minion One. Otherwise, get in touch with me on my return."

It makes the first day back from holiday very relaxing. I refuse to be bullied by the tyranny of emails from the beyond.

You call it "instant search based knowledge" I call it "instant search based heaving file of irrelevant dross that costs to store, back up, and we have to produce if required to by a court". You say tomato, I say tomato, etc.

IT is a business support function - you are supplying a service to the company workforce. Just because you have a monopoly on that service, doesn't mean you are immune to listening to your customers' needs / requirements.

Imagine an employee who insisted on keeping every piece of paper that passed their desks, from the morning newspaper, every bit of supplier junk mail, every printed report they needed to read. Their desk is overflowing with bits of paper. Their cabinets are full, they keep filling up archive boxes and leaving them everywhere, encroaching on space for other desks.

Any time they're challenged on this, they say they need every single thing and it's very important that they have it all accessible in the future.

The business would (rightly) have a problem with this. They can either spend a lot of money on providing space for this person, either in the building or some sort of off-site archive in a warehouse somewhere - or they can tell them to shred/recycle it like everyone else.

The customer is always right, unless they're wanting something too expensive (in resources or exposure to litigation) to be worthwhile.

if our it bods did that, my boss would have a meltdown.

We have a central email box where all our incoming requests for pricing come in to, a team of 12 people work from that box, sending out pricing. here is where is gets ridiculous.

within that box, every email that is sent or recieved is stored in a customers own pst folder. We have 1200 customers. We send around 200 quotes a day. So, keen maths students will note that that is at least 400 emails A DAY, stored in pst files. In reality there are much more, what with followup questions and responses. these are then archived after 6 months.

The reason for all this nonsense? Boss is worried that she wont be able to get access to someones emails if they are off sick, or 'win gthe lottery tomorrow'.

🙄

Your boss should pay for a CRM system, and not be running their business on a wing and a prayer.

Thats the hilarious thing. we do have (a very good) CRM system, she just likes us to use her way. (i use the CRM but am constantly getting bollockings for not saving my emails 'where she looks for them'

Also, if it is important enough to save, often it is important to more than one person and needs to be shared or accessed by multiple people. Therefore should be saved in your record system. Because guess what the other 30 people on the email have also saved the email.....

Most record systmes have the ability to have personal space too for private stuff and access control if you want to share with a subset (like a project team)

The idea of saving emails in your own folder structure in outlook is pretty dated....there are plenty of really cool tools out there which if you give them a chance will be much much better for you and your companies budget. ( no I don't sell any of them)

That's the even MORE hilarious thing.

We are an IT distributor.

Drag and drop into your record system?

What is this "record system" though??
I don't think we have one of those. Give me an example: what do you use?

And does it really store and index emails in a significantly better way than Exchange (which primarily exists to store and index emails)?

do you have to paste content of word files into it or just add the file? emails are files too.

Word documents, PDFs, diagrams, schematics etc etc from customers all go in the document storage area for the respective project. (i.e. we have network drives with a folder for every active project with appropriate sub-folders for the various documents and files related to the project)

The Word documents that we create for a project are stored in the same way, but are version controlled via our in-house plug-in for Word that handles versioning, review etc.

I see this sort of thing a lot at my place. The company decide on something based on cost/retention policies/some other reason, it is then up to the IT guys to implement it. Therefore the "IT genius'" are the bad guys when they are just doing as the moaners bosses have told them to do...

And as has been said above, the people who do the most moaning are always pretty low down the pecking order.

Therefore the "IT genius'" are the bad guys when they are just doing as the moaners bosses have told them to do...

[i]Some[/i] it monkeys revel in this power though - usually the ones low down the food chain.

I seem to have 19gb of data in my Mail folder - perhaps it's time for a clearout!

Therefore the "IT genius'" are the bad guys when they are just doing as the moaners bosses have told them to do...

It is my experience that the low level IT 'hurdles' are imagined up as policy by the IT guys which seek approval for them at director level from folk who are IT illiterate so have little clue either away and go along with the expert. When the mid level riff raff like myself then moan the stock response is 'well, we're just messengers carrying out what is director approved policy'. If you go back to the top and explain in layman's terms the causal effect of their approved policies reversals often happen (once you get through the bluster - no one likes to have been shown up to be a clueless arse).

You could of course make a case for that being the director level types fault for being clueless arses. As I said in my earlier post though a new head monkey ( 😉 ) can make all the difference - in our case it took a vote of no confidence from the minion middle manager types and a folder of evidence to the governor board to get shot of the plonker.

Have to say though, I'm not sure this case sounds quite like that - I'd love someone to come into our place and introduce and demonstrate a better way of managing emails. Managing mine and determining what to ditch/keep/action in a time efficient manner and what to do with the inevitable trail that leaves behind would take more time than I have so the email mountain continues to grow.

ooo oo oo (and ee), can we do a photo storage rant now? How to persuade communications folks that 1TB of photos is actually a hindrance rather than a resource

The really proper big cheeses I have dealt with keep as little as they can get away with.

ooo oo oo (and ee), can we do a photo storage rant now? How to persuade communications folks that 1TB of photos is actually a hindrance rather than a resource

Well, properly arranged in albums/projects/date/whateve

It is my experience that the low level IT 'hurdles' are imagined up as policy by the IT guys which seek approval for them at director level from folk who are IT illiterate so have little clue either away and go along with the expert. When the mid level riff raff like myself then moan the stock response is 'well, we're just messengers carrying out what is director approved policy'. If you go back to the top and explain in layman's terms the causal effect of their approved policies reversals often happen (once you get through the bluster - no one likes to have been shown up to be a clueless arse).

You could of course make a case for that being the director level types fault for being clueless arses. As I said in my earlier post though a new head monkey ( ) can make all the difference - in our case it took a vote of no confidence from the minion middle manager types and a folder of evidence to the governor board to get shot of the plonker.

Have to say though, I'm not sure this case sounds quite like that - I'd love someone to come into our place and introduce and demonstrate a better way of managing emails. Managing mine and determining what to ditch/keep/action in a time efficient manner and what to do with the inevitable trail that leaves behind would take more time than I have so the email mountain continues to grow.

I guess it depends on the sector, I work in the pharma sector so retention policies (and a lot of other things) are tightly controlled. No amount of IT pressure can change that.