Email via Helpdesk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IT will be initiating a multi step effort to improve the performance of our current Exchange email system. We have experienced a 75% growth in the last two years in the number of emails that are being kept in individual mailboxes . This extraordinary growth necessitates that we now take steps to ensure a stable environment for this essential service.
· First, we will begin a move of all user mailboxes to new servers and a new storage system, starting in January, 2008. You will be notified before your mailbox is moved and the moves will occur after hours and on weekends. Depending on your mailbox size (how many items you have stored in your mailbox) the move time will vary from 15 minutes to several hours. Your address will not change and you should not need to make any changes to your PC. We will be moving mailboxes by division and departments where possible. Your mail client (Outlook or Entourage) will need to be closed during this move and you will be unable to access your email until the transfer has been completed.
· Next, we will publish a College Email Use policy that will outline the new standards for use of College email which allows a generous but not unlimited amount of storage for individual mailboxes. Anticipated publication date is early 2008.
· Third, we will implement an email archiving system that will further stabilize and improve performance of our Exchange email system. Archiving will allow email messages that have not been accessed for a period of time to be moved to a lower cost storage allowing you to retrieve them when needed. More details on this archiving system will be sent at later date.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MAINTENANCE OF YOUR EMAIL
To ensure these initiatives are successful, we need your help in making sure your mailbox is only housing essential college-related mail. Once you have removed non-college related emails and emptied your deleted items folder, the following methods should be used to subsequently manage unusually large volumes of email and/or attachments.
Conduct regular evaluations of accumulated emails and delete those that are no longer essential or college-related. Each of the 4 areas below should receive your attention.
1. Inbox. Items older than 120 days should be deleted. If a message needs to be retained longer than 120 days, it should be moved to a personally created folder. For best performance, you should try to reduce your Inbox folder to less than 3,000 items.
2. Sent folder, Personally created folders, Calendar entries, and Junk E-mail folder.
3. Deleted items in your Outlook mailbox. Items older than 30 days old should be deleted. The preferred method is to configure your email client (Outlook or Entourage) to empty the Deleted Items folder upon existing. Most email clients can be configured to automatically perform this function.
4. Move and store Attachments elsewhere. Store large College-related business attachments on your network storage location and remove them from the email message.
NOTE: After completing these steps, please remember to empty the Deleted Items folder.
For more information on managing your email using the Outlook 2003 client, please go to the following Microsoft site:
If you need assistance with managing your email, configuring your email client, or creating personal folders, please contact Helpdesk (Helpdesk@cofc.edu ).
