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Email Management Guidelines

3. Institutions must organize business-related email in accordance with a classification system relevant to each organization's business requirements.

Management of email requires the establishment of a co-ordinated and comprehensive approach to describing the institution's information. To prevent an unwieldy accumulation, all email messages and attachments that are to be retained for a prescribed period should be appropriately classified, on a timely basis, in an up-to-date and comprehensive classification structure or structures, including metadata. Individual mailboxes, shared mailboxes and public mailboxes should be managed in a consistent and effective manner. Subject lines of email messages are often used as search tools, so they should provide a helpful reflection of the contents of the record. The filing system for email messages should facilitate organized and efficient indexing, storage and retrieval of messages. The filing system should also preserve any linkages or threads between messages in a series, to provide a contextual backdrop to any single message in the sequence.

Expected Outcome

In any given federal government institution, the following benchmarks will have been achieved:

• There will be a comprehensive description of the institution's information holdings.
• There will be a thorough and up-to date classification structure or structures, which will include metadata.
• Users will know where to classify (file) their email records, or be assisted and /or restricted by automated systems, when choosing the appropriate repository for a record.
• Users will know and practice simple techniques to facilitate search and retrieval.

3.1. Maintain and use an organized and efficient filing system for email

Email messages, other than non-records or transitory messages, should be moved from the email system to a separate filing system where they should be organized as specified in the classification structure approved by the institution. Messages should be indexed and kept for institution use until their scheduled disposal or until their transfer to archival storage. Archival storage should also be organized and indexed for efficient retrieval.

3.2. Establish where to store the "copy of record"

A classification structure and repository should be established to store incoming or outgoing messages that are considered government records or government information.

3.3. Preserve metadata related to email

Metadata associated with email should be recorded as specified in TBITS 39: Treasury Board Information Management Standard

• Part 1: Government On-Line Metadata Standard
  (Source: www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/its-nit/standards/tbits39/crit391_e.asp)
• Part 2: Controlled Vocabulary Standard
  (Source: www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/cio-dpi/pols_e.asp#IT)

The TBITS 39 -Government On-Line Metadata Standard adopts the Dublin Core as specified at www.dublincore.org/ as the core metadata standard for resource discovery. Metadata is necessary to support navigation, searching, information sharing and interoperability goals of Government On-Line.

3.4. Classify (file) email messages systematically and frequently

Email messages should be classified (filed) systematically and regularly, at intervals that are appropriate to the nature of the institution's business (i.e. daily), and in a manner consistent with the classification system adopted by the institution. Email messages should then be moved to a repository designated by the institution.

3.5. Manage temporary on-line storage of email messages

An email system should be capable of handling incoming and outgoing messages, metadata and attachments, and storing them, temporarily, on-line (within the system itself), until they are manually deleted or moved. At an appropriate interval, files should be moved to a longer-term storage area by a user or system administrator, or by some automated means.

3.6. Use shared mailboxes, public mailboxes and folders for a single purpose

A shared mailbox should be created to serve just one purpose and should have one owner who should set well-defined rules for others who have access.

Messages that do not serve the purpose of the mailbox should not be stored there. It may be necessary to assign different levels of access to users of the shared mailbox or folder, depending on their role or work assignment.

Public mailboxes should be used for a single or limited purpose and should be managed by one owner who sets well-defined rules

Individual mailboxes may also be shared, to a limited extent, with a small number of others in the user's work group.

3.7. Limit the content of email messages to one topic

Users should limit the content of email messages to one topic.

3.8. Describe the subject of the message in meaningful terms

Users should describe the subject of email messages in meaningful terms, using keywords that could be used in an electronic search.

3.9. Provide for indexing of email messages

Institutions should provide for (word) indexing of email messages.

3.10. Provide for threading of email messages

Institutions should provide for threading of email messages. Threading is the process whereby an information management system tracks relationships between messages in a series along with related metadata and attachments.

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