Email Archiving Solution for Business: Definition And Best Practices
Emails are one of the most reliable ways of communication, especially for businesses. Since it is considered a formal way of communication, emails are used internally as well as externally. That’s why an email archiving solution for business is a must. And we are not just talking about backing up your email inbox. Email archiving offers a lot of additional benefits. In this article, we are going to discuss all of that, so read thoroughly.
Email Archiving: Definition
Email arching is a practice in which emails are saved in a format that can be easily stored on a secure cloud or on-premise environment. Furthermore, digitally stored emails should be easily searchable, auditable, and retrievable. Also, while deploying email archiving business needs to ensure that no one can temper the stored emails in any way. But why do companies need to archive their emails? Let’s have a look at some reasons why.
- Archiving emails allows a business to be legally compliant by keeping all conversations in a secure location.
- For internal auditing and investigations
- Being able to comply with regulatory authorities.
- Record Management
- Archived email conversations can prove to be an asset in legal matters.
Traits of An Email Archiving Solution For Business
Upon looking you will find various email archiving solutions for business on the internet. Obviously, you are not buying all of them. Therefore, we are going to list down the characteristics of an ideal software that you can use for your business.
Excellent User Experience
As you know, the email repository will contain thousands if not millions of emails. So you need a platform that allows you to easily navigate throughout the repository. Also, the entire email database should be centralized. The software should be easy to use from the user’s perspective. Also, make sure that the user interface and user experience of the email archiving solution are familiar to the employees of the company. In order to keep all users productive, the search speed should be fast as well as accurate regardless of the size of the archived email repository.
High Data Quality and Reliability
An email archiving platform must be foolproof and reliable. Period! You can’t afford to lose your emails at any cost. So for this, you need to look for a platform that delivers minimal downtime and even if the network is down, they can guarantee no data will be lost. To keep upholding the chain of custody, the platform should provide unaltered audit trails, complete transparency, reporting, and other legal obligations.
Data Security
The archived email doesn’t guarantee its security. And if the data is not safe, the company will not be compliant. To ensure the safety of your data, you can make it encrypted as it leaves your company. The key to decrypting the data should only be held by the organization autonomously. Not even, email archiving service providers should have the access to data decryption keys.
Types of Email Archiving Software
There are two types of email archiving solutions for business: on-premises and on-cloud.
Earlier businesses did not like to spend too much money on email archiving, so they used to store email conversations on low-cost media like magnetic. But now the change is shifting towards cloud-based storage because of its low operating cost, efficiency, scalable, and security. And looking at the pace of email usage, the adoption of cloud-based email archiving is going to grow only.
There are a few other reasons why businesses are switching to the cloud like it has low setup cost and no need for dedicated infrastructure. The process of data retrieving is also easy and straightforward on the cloud as compared to on-premise.
The problem arises for those businesses who want to migrate from their existing on-premise setup to cloud email archiving. The migration process is not only costly, time-consuming, and resource intensive, but it also comes with the challenge of potential data loss. Therefore, while migrating you need to be careful and subtle about your approach.
Ending Note
In this blog, we have learned about the email archiving solution for business and how to choose an ideal software as per your requirement. Also, we see which deployment type is preferred nowadays between on-premise and cloud. Email archiving turned out to be an essential practice for companies. It keeps email conversations safe and secure.