Email Management

Yes, Email Can Be an Official Record

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As the State of Ohio begins its 136th General Assembly of the Ohio Legislature, the Ohio Electronic Records Committee would like to remind newly elected State Legislators of our Email Management Online Training Series. Training courses include Email As A Record; Email Clean-Up Strategies; Email Filing and Organization; and Microsoft 365 Outlook Email Management.

In these online courses, one will learn several things including, that “email itself is not a record series but should be retained based on the content of the message.” If the email serves as a record that “documents the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the office,” [ORC 149.011(G)] then it needs to be retained. Examples of records in email format can include: correspondence, personnel documentation, or project working papers. Often emails have attached documents with them. This training series helps one determine what is necessary to keep (email, email and attachment, or just the attachment) for different circumstances.

The amount of email one receives can be quite overwhelming. The Email Clean-Up and Email Filing and Organization training courses are both helpful and informative and can guide one through this difficult process in an efficient manner. Lastly, many governmental bodies, organizations, and businesses are now switching to Microsoft 365 Outlook Email. Steps for applying retention rules for Microsoft 365 Outlook emails are demonstrated using desktop and web applications in the training program, Microsoft 365 Outlook Email Management.

Please take some time to review these very informative courses. Good luck as you begin your endeavor in email management.

OhioERC Available Trainings

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Stay up to date on best practices in electronic records! The OhioERC has several trainings available for free.

  • Electronic Records Day Presentation: “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”: This presentation compares document management systems and digital preservation systems. We discuss major workflows used to future-proof permanent and long-term electronic records and their essential metadata. In addition, a Records and Archives Management case study from Greene County is shared to bring to light essential differences between document management and preservation systems.
  • Email Management Training Series: This email management training series provides information and best practices on managing email. The training series is divided into four sections: Email As A Record, Email Clean-up Strategies, Email Filing and Organization, and Microsoft 365 Outlook Email Management.
  • Social Media: The Records Management Challenge: This course provides an overview of social platforms and how government entities use those platforms; the records management aspect of social media; unique challenges associated with capturing and disposing of social media content; how to manage and respond to citizen interactions with government social media and the balancing act of being both of public employee and private citizen on social media. 

View our trainings/events page for these trainings and more!

Spring cleaning your electronic records

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As you begin to tackle your spring cleaning projects, consider adding your public email accounts to your list. Not only can maintaining a clean email account lead to greater efficiencies for you and your employer, it can also help to limit maintenance and storage costs, reduce public record response time, and decrease your public entity’s potential liability.

As a reminder, the Ohio Electronic Records Committee has created a new virtual interactive training series that is designed to provide information and best practices. As you’re cleaning up your email accounts this spring, we encourage you to review the following:

  • Examples of non-records and transient records that may be deleted immediately – Part One at 3:27 and Part Two at 11:34.
  • Questions you can use to determine whether a specific email should be retained – Part One at 5:17.
  • Tips for managing email threads and attachments – Part One at 7:52
  • Suggestions for sorting and organizing your email inbox – Part Two at 12:54 and Part Four at 0:25.
  • Best practices for setting up an efficient and effective email filing system – Part Three at 7:22.
  • Suggestions for creating automatic retention rules for emails in Microsoft Outlook – Part Four at 6:20.

It’s important to give your electronic records attention throughout the year, but sometimes we all need an extra boost to get us motivated. Spring is an excellent time to review your approach to recordkeeping and establish some new best practices to keep you on track throughout the year. We encourage you to watch the entire training series for more information. The series takes approximately one hour to complete and a Certificate of Completion is provided at the end of Part Four.