While I encourage users to archive their old mail, I don't use the standard mail archiving features of Notes. Instead, I prefer to use the external filing feature of eProductivity which allows me to archive on-the-fly simply by dragging emails to an external database. This way, I am effectively archiving in real-time and with little effort. Also, the line between action and reference remains clear for me..

Today, Julia Brown blogged about Lotus Notes Mail Archiving today on the Lotus Notes 8 Tips Blog:
Archiving is a really great way to reduce the size of your mail file, and to keep things from getting cluttered in your mail. But we know a lot of people never set up archiving because they can't figure it out, and the current help is not sufficient. So this week's FAQ-style tips should help you out with setting up and using archiving

I think Julia's made good start at explaining how anyone can set up archiving for Notes mail and stay under their company email quota.

As I posted in my comment on her blog, one of the problems that often see is when users (or this Admins) incorrectly set up archiving to archive all documents in a user's mail file - including tasks and calendar entries. This, of course, undermines the value of Lotus Notes as a trusted system. Properly setup, however, Notes archives can be a helpful way to keep file sizes down and email access speedy. Hopefully Julia will address some of the many ways to configure archiving options in a future post.

Lotus Notes 8 Tips:
How do I reduce the size of my mail file (to avoid going over my mail quota)?

Discussion/Comments (2):

Vaughan Rivett (http://www.vaughan rivett.co.nz): 6/24/2009 10:41:29 PM
Is your e-mail getting fat? Time to archive!

When you are doing your archiving, are you just allowing it to go into one place or are you making use of folders?

I have a few folders which I use in conjunction with the Lotus Notes "Quick Rules" feature which allows emails to be automatically send to a folder. I use this a lot for newsletters that I may want to monitor.

When archiving takes place these emails appear in the same folders in the mail archive as they did originally in my mail file.

I know that eProductivity can copy the content of the mail into an action, however, I am linking the email and then sending it to a folder.

What are you thoughts about this? What are you comfortable with? What works best for you?


Eric Mack (www.ica.com): 6/26/2009 3:05:40 PM
re: Is your e-mail getting fat? Time to archive!

Vaughan, I use eProductivity's built-in ability to FILE to an external database. This way, I am effectively archiving manually as a part of my filing process. So, I have an email, I decide the next action. I then file to external db. Done. Works great.


Add a comment