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Recent political events may have catapulted the importance of email archiving into business leaders’ consciousness, but it nonetheless remains a critical aspect of IT management, especially in terms of data security. Wherever choosing a third-party email archive solutions provider is concerned, analytics can not only make the flow of business communication smoother, but also ensure the compliance of businesses to industry and regulatory requirements.
In a nutshell, analytics are what provides another layer of intelligence to email archive solutions. To better illustrate how advanced analytics can make for a stronger and better suite of email archiving solutions, consider the following capabilities:
- Automate the identification and tracking of emails that need to be retrieved on a consistent basis – Generally, email archiving follows this pathway: emails are captured, indexed and then categorized. Analytics then becomes a powerful tool that administrators can wield to implement and enforce compliance throughout the pathway. Take for example, an HR manager who wants to sift through employee emails to ensure that they aren’t sharing sensitive personal information. With analytics in place, the HR manager will be able to set parameters within the system so he/she does not have to look for those emails one by one. The system significantly narrows down the work and will tag any emails it finds to contain such information, and moving forward, these can easily be retrieved for whatever purpose such as for performance reviews.
- Alert administrators real-time for problematic emails – Another capability of analytics in email archive solutions is to alert administrators for problematic emails. Using the same example mentioned above, the HR manager can set an alert for emails that contain sensitive information, inappropriate content, or foul language, for example. As the alert is done in real time, the HR manager may also choose to set up an automated response whenever a problematic email is identified. For instance, he/she can send out a reminder to employees about HR policies, and to refrain from sending out such emails again. Thus, real time capability is a handy and proactive tool for conducting in-depth analysis on the content of emails. Administrators can analyze who are sending out certain types of emails and their frequency, as well as other metrics.
- Create compliance reports with ease – Lastly, analytics allow compliance reports to be created with ease. Using the example above, the HR manager can instantly create a report and send it to senior management, for example, once the system sends an alert regarding a problematic email. Leading email archive solutions that have advanced analytics will not only index the message and its contents but also any attachments to it. Thus, businesses can expect to receive a comprehensive and intelligence compliance report.
As email use continues to expand across the business landscape, it’s increasingly important that email archive solutions feature the flexibility that businesses need. By automating almost everything the administrator needs to do, from identification to tracking to retrieval, the ability to do so in a mere matter of seconds is truly powerful and intelligent indeed.
