EMAIL MANAGEMENT FOR O365 (AND BEYOND)Or, “How I learned to stop worrying and delete most of my email”

THE EMAIL UNIVERSE

Non-RecordTransitoryRoutineOther RecordHistorical

Some caveats:

• Proportions are not exact

• Your specific proportions may differ

• If you need an email for reference, keep it

NON-RECORDS

• SPAM, E-Lists, Emails you’re CCed on, Personal

• May be useful as reference material

• NO OBLIGATION to keep under records law

Non-

Record~70%

ACTION: Delete or Export on receipt

TRANSITORY EMAIL

• Appointments, quick replies (incl. IMs), “memo-level” emails

• Rarely useful beyond initial context (or date mentioned, etc.)

• Minimal retention requirements

Transitor

y~15%

ACTION: Delete when no longer needed

ROUTINE EMAIL

• Ongoing conversations, transactions with customers

• Paper analog: Chrono Files

• Continuing use, but rarely after transaction is completed

• Limited retention requirements

Routine~8%

ACTION: Delete 6 months after end of project/transaction

OTHER RECORDS

• Correspondence with students, financial records, grant info

• Paper analog: “regular” files

• Ongoing active/inactive use

• Retention according to schedule

Other Record~5%

ACTION: Retain for length of associated RRDA, then destroy

HISTORICAL EMAIL

• Sets policy/precedent, decision-making, historical events

• Ongoing value to the history of your office/institution

• Unless you are the head of a department/division, you likely don’t have *any* of this

Historical~2%

ACTION: Export and send to Archives

SO HOW DO I SORT THROUGH THIS?

Filters to move lots of emails at once

Find the common thread!

Folders with dates in title A reminder to destroy on time

“Touch Once” method

Be merciless! If you overdelete, you can get

emails back for 30 days

“BUT I STILL NEED MY EMAILS…”

6 months since last referral: Time for an export!

Few different export methods NOT RECOMMENDED: Native via

PantherLink

RECOMMENDED: Through an IMAP client (Outlook)

If you have historical email, do this before sending it to archives!

SETTING UP AN IMAP CLIENT

Download your client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mailbird, etc.)

“Add Account” (usually in File Menu)

Settings instructions for UWM at http://tinyurl.com/lkhrnmw

Have your PantherID and Password ready

ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Don’t try to do it all at once! You WILL get overwhelmed.

Take 5-10 minutes each day to move/delete/export

Clean Inbox: easier to migrate AND quicker to find what you need!

THANK YOUBrad Houston, university records officer

Archives Dept., UWM Libraries

houstobn@uwm.edu

Web: http://records.uwm.edu