Why Finding Long-lost Email Could Save Your Skin

Over the lifetime of a project, you send and receive hundreds of emails.
What happens when a client disputes something that was agreed 3 years ago? Can you prove it?

Hi Client, I recall sending this information to you during the project.

Okay, when exactly did you send that? I don’t recall receiving anything.

*Silence*

You may well have sent that email, the message may have been lost in what seems to be an endless stream of correspondence.  The client may have deleted it, likewise you yourself may have deleted the email.

How will you resolve this issue?

• You need that original email. So you start searching for it.
• Let’s review what processes you currently have in place:
  – Do you have a folder of archived emails which you’ve sent and received?
  – Are you manually processing and filing emails into folders?
• If so, what is your criteria for which emails are filed and which can be deleted?
  – Are you just leaving all of your emails in your Outlook mailbox?
  – Worse, do you have a setting that deletes Sent Mail after a certain time period?

If you have answered yes to any of these, don’t stress!

What you’re doing is inefficient and a nightmare from a QA standpoint. But you’re not alone:  it’s the way that so many people are going about their business.

Losing emails can cost you thousands.

Take a moment to consider these two scenarios and how your current processes would address them.

1. A client calls and you need to find an email sent by a colleague, but they’re on holiday. How long will it take you to find that email?
2. You’re facing a court case regarding a project 3 years ago.  How can your business find all of its correspondence from all staff related to the project?  Have you had any staff leave the business in the past 3 years?  How will you gather any of their information?

Unmanaged emails, and the almost nonchalant abandon with which emails are exchanged, can create a lot of problems.

• Productivity plummets as you waste hours searching and retrieving emails.
• Regulatory non-compliance if you’re required to keep track of all correspondence.
• Email integrity compromised through deletion, manipulation, if you can’t find the original copy.
• Collaboration hits roadblocks if project intelligence, embedded in emails, gets lost.

Ultimately, an email is a business document.  Email evidence can be deemed the equivalent of paper-based documents in litigation.

• Email could save your skin. You don’t want to lose it, and lose that chance.  The good news is that there are some great options available, that essentially do the work for you.

The 12d Synergy Email Management Solution

12d Synergy allows for emails to be stamped and automatically filed with the appropriate job number or other project-related attribute.  Emails are filed into pre-constructed folders within the project folder directory.  Once filed within 12d Synergy, users can reap the rewards of an efficient email index and search engine to retrieve any email correspondence they require.

Once the email has been filed within 12d Synergy they can then be deleted from the user’s outlook mailbox.  The emails are encrypted and kept secured within the company’s network.  Emails will only be filed once, so if there are multiple recipients or staff who are copied into the email, 12d Synergy will recognise this and will not duplicate the filing.

Attachments can be saved separately, 12d Synergy will automatically track the association between the attachments and the corresponding email.  Authorised users can then search and retrieve all emails and related file attachments will always carry the association to the email for quality assurance purposes.