Identifying Emails As Records
Given the tremendous volume of emails sent and received by the institution each day it is neither practical nor desirable to manage each and every one as a formal business record. The trick is to be able to identify and capture that small percentage of emails that need managing as records - to separate the wheat from the chaff.
This will depend in part on the institution having formally defined what constitutes a 'record'. Further information on what properties and characteristics define a record are included in the Records Management - What is a Record? Section . The whole records management strand of this resource is relevant to this area in terms of identifying the specific qualities associated with records and the management controls required to preserve them.
It is also important that users are given clear, simple guidance on which of their emails might constitute records and require handling accordingly. This should include both categories and possible examples. For example:
| Category | Example |
| Formal agreements | Approval of contracts, project plans, policies, etc. |
| Decisions/confirmation of actions | Approval to spend money or to carry our a particular activity |
| Confirmation of completion | Project sign off, receipt of goods, etc. |
Next Steps
It is one thing to equip the user with the ability to identify the records contained within their email, but this is of little consequence if they are not also given the means to act accordingly. For those emails which are identified as being records it is important that they are formally recognised as such and managed in context with the other records to which they relate. This is likely to require the transfer of the email record from the user's inbox to whatever facility is being used to store and manage all other records within the institution. This may be either a shared file server, document/records management system, repository or collaborative technology such as Microsoft Office Share Point. It could even mean printing out the email and managing it as a hard copy record if no suitable electronic facility exists.
It must be made as easy as possible for users to transfer email records to such systems so as not to erect any unnecessary barriers to this process. The email records should be transferred to the appropriate area of the record-keeping system and then managed in a consistent manner to all other corresponding records. In this way the email record will be managed appropriately according to its content and not based on the fact that it happens to be an email.
