Good morning!
We globally delete messages from trash if they have been in that folder for two weeks. We empty the Junk E-mail folder for messages moved there over one week ago. We have a 2 GB beginning limit on mailboxes. Users requesting additional space are given the standard "Please take a look at your mailbox first" type of information and then we up the quota. There is no hard and fast limit on mailbox size. That's going to bite us later, but that's the way they want it.
We have a standard set of folders that we recommend to our users for archiving their mail.
- Audit or Litigation - Messages that can be deleted only after their legal limits have been satisfied. This can vary.
- Historical - Typically the 7 year, tax and regulatory mandated period
- Routine - Daily types of email that can be deleted at the users discretion
- Short Term - typically deleted if needed for less than a month.
Other than the Trash and Junk folders, the user is responsible for managing their mailbox. It was easier when everyone was using Thunderbird in our old mail system because you can set expiration dates on each of the folders and the messages are automatically deleted when they expire. Now, with the web client (and we're still on 5.025) users need to remember to use their favorite search tool, or manually sort by date, to remove mail that has reached its expiration limit.
When a user is leaving our system, they manage their account by forwarding needed mail to collegues, deleting unnecessary mail, and exporting their account, including calendar information, to either CD or DVD and given to their department to store until it is no longer needed to meet legal requirements, which is typically 7 years.
Let me know if you have any questions. I'll be interested to see what everyone else is doing out there!
--
Cheryll McCormick
University of Wisconsin System Administration
Office of Information Services
780 Regent Street
Madison, WI 53719
(608) 263-4492
From: "Matt Mencel" <MR-Mencel@wiu.edu>
To: "zimbra-hied-admins" <zimbra-hied-admins@sfu.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2011 4:45:13 PM
Subject: Scheduled Archive or Deletion of Email
Not so quick poll. This conversation came up today here at WIU...we have been noticing it might be time to purchase more storage.
Does your university delete messages automatically after a certain period of time?
If so...
What is the time frame?
Do you only delete certain types of messages, or just attachments?
Do you keep compressed archives of old messages?
Do you allow the end user to decide if/when to archive their old messages before they are deleted.
What is your reasoning...do you do this because of FERPA/HIPPA/SOME_OTHER_LEGAL_ISSUE?
As far as what we currently do? We store mail as long as the account is active. The users can archive mail if they want but we don't currently provide an automated way for them to do this. When users request quota bumps we send a message explaining how to find and delete large or unwanted attachments....and provide them a saved search folder of "has:attachment larger:5m" to help them out....only after they do that do we look at giving quota bumps.
When we remove expired/inactive accounts, we back up the mailbox and store the archive on disk for a certain period of time.
Thanks,
Matt