Capturing Email for Retention
Best practices in email management include transferring or preserving the email on a government-designated storage location in accordance with the Records Retention Schedule. OnBase is the preferred repository for managing electronic content as it has the retention functionality built in. OnBase can be integrated with Outlook.
Unmanaged email represents a significant risk to any organization. Some simple common-sense measures used in concert with the techniques for email management can help reduce the expense involved in searching emails for discovery or open records requests.
- Dispose of purely transitory emails as soon as they have served their purpose.
- Limit the number of recipients to as few as possible and avoid replying to “All Recipients” unless needs require it.
- Include specific identifying information such as Right of Way (ROW) Parcel Number, County CSJ Number, Purchase Order Number, etc. in the subject line.
- It is essential to save email messages as the individual conversation string is completed during workflow.
In a situation of a legal hold or open records request emails and other electronically stored information must be preserved electronically in the same medium and application in which the information was created, received, or otherwise exists, without alteration or destruction of any related information, such as required metadata.
An open records request or litigation hold notice requires retention of all metadata associated with email. (Contact Office of General Counsel for the
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