Organizing emails
Organizing emails
(OP)
In yesteryears engineering firms would communicate via telephone or regular "snail" mail.
For telephones one would potentially record the general topics of conversation with perhaps a pre-made company telephone memo form.
Both the letters and the memos would go into the project file. Thus, at any one time you could look into the file and have a complete history of the various communications that took place.
Today, much of our communication is by email and still much by telephone.
I was wondering how many of you deal with the challenge of documenting emails and saving them in "project files" to be able to return to them in the future if needed? I know a number of engineers who simply let their in box fill up with vast quantities of emails and, under Microsoft Outlook, they get archived somewhere as time passes.
This doesn't seem like a good plan.
What do you all do?
For telephones one would potentially record the general topics of conversation with perhaps a pre-made company telephone memo form.
Both the letters and the memos would go into the project file. Thus, at any one time you could look into the file and have a complete history of the various communications that took place.
Today, much of our communication is by email and still much by telephone.
I was wondering how many of you deal with the challenge of documenting emails and saving them in "project files" to be able to return to them in the future if needed? I know a number of engineers who simply let their in box fill up with vast quantities of emails and, under Microsoft Outlook, they get archived somewhere as time passes.
This doesn't seem like a good plan.
What do you all do?





RE: Organizing emails
I've got project files by client in my Outlook Archive. Outlook gets cranky and slows down when your inbox gets big, but it just doesn't seem to care how big your archive is.
I'm usually able to put my hands on a specific e-mail in a few minutes, so it works well for me. Printing off e-mail doesn't work at all.
David
RE: Organizing emails
You also have to watch that the Archive folders don't get too big before you save all the e-mails as .pst files in the main project folder - I had a problem a couple years ago when I had one archive folder grow to almost 8 Gb before I asked the IT guy to save all the e-mails to the main project file folder on the network- crashed the computer and caused a lot of time and trouble for all concerned.
In my sector of the industry we get a ton of e-mails with large file attachments which can really use up the memory.
The legalities I've been following indicate that all e-mails are considered "documents" that must be kept as part of the design files, and in my neighborhood, that means for at least 10 years. So watch what you say, and how you say it, because a flippant e-mail that was meant to be humorous today can come back to screw you a few years later.
RE: Organizing emails
This can be a bit worrisome if you ever have the misfortune of going through discovery as a part of a lawsuit.
RE: Organizing emails
RE: Organizing emails
It's not really difficult to find any particular email. I do save all the emails.
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Organizing emails
Am currently toying with the idea of converting all to pdf files and storing in the job file (all of my job files are electronic...very little paper)
Ron
RE: Organizing emails
Oh, and by the way, asking for group consensus with email and reply all is basically pointless. You'll just get a million useless replies with no resolution and more issues than ever. I've started using "unless otherwise notified - here's my intended action" type of emails - they're much more effective.
RE: Organizing emails
My organization scheme has always been to stick with the same 'project name' for all emails about that project, and then use the 'search mail' function to find all emails of a particular project. Works great, as long as you're smart about how you title your email, which you honestly should be doing anyway as good business practice. Very few things drive me crazier than receiving an email with "Could you please..." as the subject line, particularly when it pertains to a project.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: Organizing emails
My personal email in Outlook is Archived yearly and I never delete anything. (unless it is out of office replies or junk)
RE: Organizing emails
For large jobs I have a folder I move emails into so it's a bit organized and out of the big mess of the main inbox. If there are important emails I put them in an Email folder on our server under the project number with a little explanation of what it is or who its from, along with any attachments.
Almost all of the most recent jobs have no physical paper folder, minus invoicing and contracts, which is pretty nice.
I have worked for places that print all the emails and write down everything in phone conversations and it can take forever to look through a filing cabinet of that stuff looking for anything.
Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com
http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog
RE: Organizing emails
But to get everything organized and especially that we find everything we all use Lookeen (http://www.lookeen.net), an outlook search tool!
It has GPOs and you can search through public folders, sharepoints and external archives!
I think this is a very good solution to deal with our mails, because we nearly adjust everything with mails!
RE: Organizing emails
Also kinda lost in this conversation: phone call records.
If I have a call that involves a decision or direction, I send myself an email and CC the other caller(s) restating the items discussed kinda like meeting minutes.
If I have a disagreement with a person over the phone, or something occurs to me I need to remember later, I send myself an email with the call info and my thoughts.
I do this because the outlook search function is super fast and makes it easy to find info via keyword or chronologically.
www.ellisconsultingengineers.com
RE: Organizing emails
My Company ID (I own 2)
-Client
--Project
Works well. Comm history is right there in the folder. Forces you to clean out the junk.
RE: Organizing emails
I personally build folders for each project and try to setup automatic filters to have the e-mails sorted into the filters. I have never tried to share e-mails but have printed out the important ones for the project folder.
I still don't have a good archiving method.
RE: Organizing emails
I have a small PST file with current stuff in it and regularly copy anything over a month old to the annual PST file.
I regularly back up the PST files ( a couple times a day using SyncBack) Its quick and easy, I can start the short backup routine when I leave my desk and it is done on my return from almost any trip away from the desk.
If I cannot find something with a quick sort by name of sender or date, then the search function in Outlook is quite handy. I do wish that it had an option to refine searches by only searching within the results of a previous search but the same result often can be accomplished with multiple search parameters.
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng
Construction Project Management
From conception to completion
www.kitsonengineering.com
RE: Organizing emails
More information at www.TechHit.com - Outlook utilities that save you time.
That said, it still takes time to organize e-mail.
RE: Organizing emails
Once the project is closed out, I move them into .pst and store them either on the system archive drive, or in off-line backup drives.
We are told to never delete any email from our projects. So, I often have a current file folder and a "less important" sub folder under it (for those meeting arrangement emails, please send again with attachment emails, etc).
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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RE: Organizing emails
Alan
"The engineer's first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem really is." Unk.
RE: Organizing emails
It's like having Google for all the documents in your PC and in email.
I can't count the number of times it's saved my bacon.
RE: Organizing emails
I archive into project files though this is often done only when I run out of space on the server.
I try my best to be organised with these types of things. It is easy to dismiss these things as non technical but, as one of my old bosses explained to me once: 'most clients have absolutely no understanding of how good an engineer is technically, what they judge you on is if you get the jobs done on time, how efficient you are to answer their queries and how neat your drawings are.'
Sad but true!
RE: Organizing emails
It almost doesn't matter how I've filed or misfiled what ever it is.
RE: Organizing emails
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: Organizing emails