Managing Email with SharePoint
September 13, 2011
Email often means Microsoft Exchange. We came across an interesting article which suggests that SharePoint can also manage email. The CMS Wire story is a “Case Study: SharePoint as an E-mail Management System.”
Our question: Why would we even think of using SharePoint to manage e-mail when Microsoft already has Outlook/Exchange/Windows Live Mail? Another point is that SharePoint wasn’t made specifically for this application, but the article has another idea.
The write up presents an example of how large amounts of data are generated by law firms with specific numbers generated for each client. If these numbers were applied to e-mail content it would quadruple the data amount. The author reports:
Our solution would require a user-friendly method and UI to store email content in the context of the client and retrieve that content and related data to the matter being processed.
There isn’t a commercial product that archives e-mail like other digital content. Most e-mails are archived in digital storage while leaving a stub in Outlook. The author had to create a program that would interact with Outlook, but would also tag the content with metadata to facilitate the profiling and retrieval program. They developed the SharePoint and Handshake Software solution, which allows users to exchange metadata elements from other back office systems into an enterprise-wide metadata catalogue. If you have terabytes of e-mail content that needs to be intermingled with the rest of your digital content, check this application out.
After working through the write up, we see the value in the approach. However, in order to make content findable, the ArnoldIT team would have used the SurfRay Ontolica system. Light weight and easy to use, Ontolica makes a wide range of content instantly accessible to an SharePoint user.
Stephen E Arnold, September 13, 2011
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