• Send emails that contain clear tasks, not banter
• If the email you receive is not clear, call up the person who sent it and ask for more information. Too many people reply to the unclear email asking for clarification, which wastes time and does not guarantee a response.
• If you speak to them, follow this rule: Do you Seek Clarification Via the Telephone First 
• If you can't get through, follow this rule: Do you chase your Manager or does he have to chase you? 

Using your mailbox as a task list also saves you from having to use inefficient paper-based cards to track your tasks.

It is better that email is not used as communication, but for many instances, if the person is unavailable, it is better to send the email, than not. If you can’t do an ‘as per our conversation’ then add some text at the top of the email. e.g.

"As per the message I left on your phone…" and detail the questions you would like answered.

Your inbox should only contain 'tasks', that is actionable items that are on your list of things to do. Everything that is in your 'Inbox' (including sub folders) should only be to-do items. So do it now, delete all emails you have done, or move them out of the folder if you want to keep them for reference.

In fact you could go so far as to say you should not do anything unless you have an email telling you to do it (which is why we send ourselves emails).

If you find:

• That the task is already done, then reply "ALREADY DONE".
• You don't agree with the task or are unable to complete the task then, reply "NOT DONE - the reason is XXX".
• That there are multiple tasks that are DONE and NOT DONE then, reply with "PARTIAL DONE - See below." at the top of the email.

Tip 1: Provide Detail in your "Done"

In any reply include relevant information, such as the URL and the code or text that has been updated, which allows the person requesting the work to check what was done and allows for offline reading.

Use SnagIt with Balloons in screenshots.

If you find that you have already sent a "Done", then the client asks you to undo the change reply "Undone".

Tip 2: Reply "Done" if you have a task that is > 4 hours

Ideally all tasks should be less than 4 hours. If you are given a task that is going to take days, then split it following the 4 hours rule. 

Q: What if you can do 8 out of 9 items? Can I reply "Done"?

A: Yes. If there are multiple items of work in an email and you can't do them all at once (in say 4 hours), reply "Done" to each item individually, and put yourself in the TO: so you can go back and do the remaining items. (See rule "To Myself")

Done - 8 out of 9 tasks.
Tip 3: Don't consolidate emails

If you get multiple emails or tasks, don't consolidate. It is still best to reply to each email individually as you go, rather than compile the information into one email. This way the person requesting the work hasn't lost the email history and can understand what the work done relates to. It also means that if something needs correcting it can be corrected after the first completed task.

Tip 4: Now Delete your email - Aim for 0 inbox.

There is no point keeping emails that just clutter your Inbox. You don't need to keep the original email because after you have replied "Done" there is a copy in Sent Items. If you must keep an email, then move to your "Saved Items" folder. 

Tip 5: Include URLs in screen captures

Screen captures should always include the:
* URL
* Top left - so you can see what browser it is eg. Internet Explorer or FireFox

Tip 6: When appropriate use text instead of an image

DONE - There was a problem with the SQL. I added the line on Yellow:

SELECT
ProdName = CASE WHEN Download.ProdCategoryID <> '' 
THEN ProdCategory.CategoryName
ELSE Download.ProdName END,
Downloads = (SELECT Count(*) FROM ClientDiary
WHERE ClientDiary.DownloadID = Download.DownloadID 
AND ClientDiary.CategoryID = 'DOWN'
AND ClientDiary.DateCreated > '01/01/2000'
AND ClientDiary.DateCreated < '01/01/2003')
FROM
Download
LEFT JOIN ProdCategory ON Download.ProdCategoryID=ProdCategory.CategoryID 
ORDER By Downloads DESC 

Tip 7: Handle an email once

Follow a tip I got from my accounting days... "A sign of an efficient person is they handle a piece of paper once". When you get an email - don't just open it have a quick look and close it with the idea that you will go back to it later. Read it, make a decision and do the action. Delete as many emails as you can on the first go.

Tip 8: Use an Email tool for Outlook

We use a program called Team Companion that you can use to reply "Done" to tasks in TFS. See more information on this at http://rules.ssw.com.au/Communication/RulesToBetterEmail/Pages/FollowWorkflow.aspx 

Tip 9: Consider alternatives in a team environment
In a developer team environment, it is better to move emails to bug tracking systems e.g.:

1. TFS Work Items
2. JIRA

After you do the task, the perfect workflow is to follow the rule to better project management with TFS - use TeamCompanion to send your ‘done’ and reply ‘done – changeset xxx’.

This has several benefits:

• Improved visibility and transparency - The client can see the work actually being done
• Reduced cost of fixing a bug - the cost of a bug goes up based of the length of time taken for the client to ask for a change. If you tell a developer to change something he did today, it is many times cheaper for him to fix, than if he got the same request 2 months later (when he has forgotten was it was about) 
• The client can raise questions based on what he sees in the code
• Finally, in the very unlikely case that the code repository and backup goes corrupt, your emails are a backup!

Let's look at some examples and tips:

Figure: Bad example - the client cannot see any detail of what was done Figure: Good example - the client can see the image + the code changes highlighted in yellow

Tip #1: Include the URL
If you are using TFS, you can also include a URL to the work item in TSWA

Tip #2: Include a .diff file
You can include the code as an attached text file.  

Figure: Good example - this is a Text file with a .diff extension that includes the code change from TFS. If opened using NotePad2, the client can view the code changes with green and red color (added and deleted code).

Tip 3#: Do you have force a link between the code and the requirement?
For those developers lucky enough to be using Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS 2005, 2008 or 2010) you can associate your code changes with a work item. This means that future developers can work out not just *what* changed, but *why*.
For those using TFS, enable the Checkin policy and force all developers to associate every check-in with a work item.

Figure: Make developers associate all check ins to a work items Figure: Enabling the Checkin Policy (via Project | Team Project Settings | Source Control | Add)

Always add "To myself" in the email body so that other people CC'd know what is going on. Don't write it in the email subject as it's confusing to other recipients of the email. Put it in big font as well.

• Current Status - the bug is fixed (screenshot of working application) or not fixed (ask for more detailed information from the client)
• Investigation - the reason for the bug, or if you don't know, what you investigated, e.g. checked Windows event logs and found nothing helpful
• Solution - how you fixed the bug (code snippet if necessary)
  
  

Emails that came into your mailbox should not be left in your Inbox. The aim is to read, action (if needed) and delete. You should be trying to get your Inbox down to 0 items.

So what's left in your 'Inbox' should only be 'To Do' items. Sure you might want to add subfolders to group related projects etc. but these subfolders should also contain items 'To Do'. Some people leave emails in their Inbox, for later reference only. We believe this is not a good idea, and you should create 2 folders outside your Inbox called 'Saved Items' and 'Saved Personal Items' for such emails.

Microsoft Outlook provides you with 4 main folders: 'Draft', 'Inbox', 'Outbox' and 'Send Items'. But we believe they are missing 2 additional folders: 'Saved Items' and 'Saved Personal Items'. You can use these two folders to keep the your work related or personal emails that you wanted to keep.

You can create these two folders next to the Inbox and move the emails there.

We have a program called SSW LookOut! for Outlook to check for this rule.
It can add these folders for you.

1. Reply to ALL
2. Put (RESEND) in 1^st line of the Body
3. Plus any other instructions - such as "Hurry Up!"

This reminds the other person that you are still waiting for a response.

Use the email Subject to grab your recipient's attention. Choosing the right subject can give an email a sense of urgency or importance that choosing the wrong subject won't!

The best way of doing this is to ensure that your subject includes either an ACTION POINT (e.g. 6.30 TONIGHT! See you at The Oaks Hotel...) or a RESULT of a task you were asked to do (e.g. Here's the 5 mins. of FEEDBACK you requested from our meeting with Charles Merton). You'll note from this that including the date and time in the subject gives immediacy to the email.

If there's anything to be learnt from spammers, they know how to get your attention. Spammers use very tabloid based, or headline grabbing subjects, to try and coerce you to open that email. But don't make your email subjects tabloid-tacky, instead follow a good broadsheet paper's style of attention grabbing lines.

Never leave the subject blank! It's like writing a book and failing to give it a name!

Figure: Always use a descriptive email subject to make it easier to find later

Of course, we also use a structured approach for emails - especially when sending them internally.

We use the following format for the subject internally and encourage clients and external contacts to use this format as well.

[Client Name/Product Name] - [Project Name] – [Object Name/Description]
    e.g. Eg. WorleyParsons – IOP – Customer.aspx - Add email address validation

The advantage of this, is that when you sort by the subject in Outlook, you get all of the emails grouped together, and it is easy to recognize the client/prduct, because the subject contains tis relevant information.

Additionally I want to be able to determine which emails are the most important. Using a meaningful subject with key words makes it easy to identify and categorize emails without actually opening them (and is also makes it easy to find emails in my Sent Items). When emails are really important I write IMPORTANT in the subject. Other emails I consider important or urgent have the following in the subject field:

• BUG
• INCOMPLETE
• URGENT

Other words we use are:

• TIMESHEETS
• INVOICES
• PROSPECT
• TO-DO - for tasks pending
• FYI - information you want to keep around for a while, for yourself or for others (never for a task)
• FUTURE - ideas for the future
• IGNORE - for the rare occasion when something is requested and you really don't want to do it yet
• Product name - Registered User Support
• Product name - Pre-Sales Support
• Project name
• Client Name

We have a program called SSW LookOut! for Outlook to check for this rule.It will warn you if you forget to include a subject in your email.

We have a program called SSW Exchange Reporter to show statistics of emails with word "Urgent" in subjects.
Check sample report Current - All Mailboxes (By Folder)

So when do you change it?

• When the original email theme has been superceded by new content, you should change the email subject to a more relevant description of the content of the thread.
  E.g. from "Field of Study"
  to "Next Years Conference WAS: Field of Study"
• Also if the original subject was generic e.g. "Reminder" or "Invoice" (especially when automatically generated) then upon reply change the subject by adding the client or project name to the email subject.
  E.g. from "Invoice"
  to "IBM WAS: Invoice"

Remember, never forget the importance of a good email subject in improving communications.

Figure: Keep your email subject description up-to-date. Out of date subjects can be misleading.

Figures: a Meta Group survey found that 81% of respondents preferred the phone above email to build relationships, but 80% preferred email generally

1. When you want to discuss an issue and make a decision
2. When you are dealing with a 'delicate' problem

Making a Decision

If you want to make a decision, asking for opinions via email is the best way to ensure one isn't made. Email discussions get off topic, lose track and generally go nowhere, with every email ending with "Yes, but what about..." or "Just my 2c". This leads to a lot of time-wasting.

You should either pick up the phone or have a meeting to discuss the issue, make a decision then and there, and then confirm the decision via email. The first line in your follow up email should be "As per our conversation..." This records that a conversation was held.

The issue becomes even more important internally, when you email someone in the next office and ask them a question. This is a great way of creating unnecessary emails. Instead, stand up, walk to their desk and ask them the question. Otherwise, have a folder called "AskDavid" or similar, file all your emails that you need to ask him about in there, and when he next comes to visit you, go through them and get an answer.

Dealing with Delicate Situations

Similarly, never bring up a tricky topic with someone by email. It's very easy to misunderstand or misrepresent via email. We always pick up the phone and speak to the person first when discussing important, sensitive, complex issues, or issues where some serious convincing is required. This is the standard we follow:

• Draft the email covering the issues we want to confirm
• Call the person covering every issue outlined in the draft
• Adjust the email according to the decisions made together, adding "As per our conversation..."
• Send the email

Figure: Are you in the right frame of mind?

Hi Eric,

For the code auditor web page, please make the green ticks read:

1. Scan all your projects for coding errors
2. Enforce Industry best practices
3. Friendly licensing model

Figure: Bad example - original version of content has not been included in the email

Hi Eric,

On the code auditor web page, please change http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/codeauditor from:

1. Keep your code consistent across all projects
2. Add your own Rules Friendly licensing model - pay nothing for full version!

to

1. Scan all your projects for coding terrors
2. Enforce Industry best practices
3. Friendly licensing model bloggers even pay nothing for the full version!

Figure: Good Example - it has 'From' and 'To' with changes highlighted... so it is clear what needs to be changed

See more details on how to configure balloons branding in Fullshot and Snagit.

Now be aware not to crazy with this balloon rule.

1. The subject should start with "VOTE: ..."
2. The sender should reply with a summary after either everyone has replied or after a certain period of time to let the group know how significant their input was.
3. The voting options should be short, to the point, and provide a distinct difference for each option.
   i.e. option1;"option1";option2;"option2" is not appropriate.
4. There should also be an extra option to allow a flexible result if a member of the email group does not want to vote. i.e. yes; no; un-opinionated.
   This will provide an accurate result of the vote and will not force anyone to select an option just for the sake of giving a reply.
5. Voters should be allowed to add their extra comments along with their vote when replying to all, regardless of whether or not they think it is their "two cents", simply because the person who initially voted is looking for any and all opinions to assure the right decision is made.
6. When making a vote, try to make the options clear enough so that voters would not have to spend too much time deciding.
   A good voting system is one that allows the voters to choose an option quickly and carry on with their work, unless of course it is controversial.

1. Prior to speaking to a client, speak to relevant people to help you formulate your recommendations e.g. speak to a developer about the proposal
2. Draft an email with bullet points for each issue (don't send)
3. Call up the client (or have a meeting)
4. Modify during conversation
5. Send the email to the client (cc relevant people e.g. the developer) saying "As per our conversation..."

In addition, I often see people replying only to the sender of the email, ignoring the fact that there were other persons included in the original email. Obviously the original sender intended to keep everyone in the loop, so it would be polite to CC everyone included on the original communication. The converse is true also - don't cc people unnecessarily - you're just adding to the email problem!

If the original email was to an alias with many subscribers, in general you should not Reply All.
Also if the sender requests a 'little r' reply, then you should not Reply All.

• Doesn't play a sound
• Doesn't briefly change the mouse cursor
• Doesn't show an envelope
• and DOESN'T display a New Mail Desktop Alert (Outlook 2003)

Here's a few more distractions tips:

• MSN Messenger distractions
• General working environment distractions

1. When you receive an email from a client requesting a response, CC yourself in the reply.
2. Move the email you have just sent yourself into a subfolder of your mailbox called 'Follow Ups'.
3. Add a follow up reminder to the email.
4. Check your follow up folder daily, and reply to any emails that are older than a week using the words 'Just touching base....'
5. Remove the email from your follow up folder when you have resolved the issue.

Delayed Email
• Write yourself an email in Outlook 2007
• Before pressing send, click Options | Delay Delivery, and then specify when you want to be reminded
• The email will sit in your outbox until the required time, when it will be sent to whoever you specified (you in this case)
• When you receive it in your inbox, action the task
Reminders (follow up flags)
• Send yourself an email
• Once it arrives in your inbox, flag it for follow up and set a reminder
• When the reminder goes off, action the task

Because there is no "tone of voice" in an email, sarcasm can easily be misinterpreted by the receiver.

"John, make sure your office is clean when clients come in - you might scare them away with all that mess."Bad example: This is bad because it may seem like John is being reprimanded, even though the sender may just be giving him a "heads up" for next time. "John, make sure your office is clean when clients come in - you might scare them away with all that mess :)"Good example: When in doubt, use a smiley face at the end of the comment to soften it up a bit.

Tasks in Outlook are a powerful tool for keeping on top of to-do items but since we use email for our task list items you should avoid using them otherwise you would need to do twice as much management for your task list. You should use follow up flags with reminders for tasks on email that only need to be handled once.

Here's a couple of solutions:

• Permanently delete your deleted items. This is based on the theory that once you have deleted a mail item, you should NEVER HAVE TO LOOK AT IT AGAIN. This is a good theory, but unfortunately we don't always follow it in practice and there's no recovery
• Move the items into subfolders under Deleted Items. This is a good solution as you can manually archive items, making it easier to search. You can permanently delete items when they reach a certain age.

Figure: Good Example - Deleted Items ordered into time periods

NOTE: A hot tip for making it easy to search for an accidentally deleted item is to add the "Modified" field into your Deleted Items view and sort by "Modified". The item from two months ago which you just accidentally deleted will be sitting at the top.

Figure: Sort by "Modified"
We have a program called SSW LookOut! for Outlook to check for this rule. It leaves a reminder in your Inbox to remind you to clear your deleted items folder 

TIP: Use big headings by typing Control+Alt+3.

Make it easier for everyone to track the status of tasks by sending tasks one email at a time, and make the task it requests very clear. When a person has completed a task they just have to reply "Done" to that email, delete the email from their Inbox and then move on to the next task.

This rule can be by-passed when dealing with small tasks relating to the same topic. In cases where this is needed, you should number each task that you wish to be completed, as per "Do you number small tasks related to 1 topic". however, the person completing the task should still reply a single "Done" to the whole email once they have completed all of the small tasks.

Also send separate emails per topic - that way there can be one email per topic. The advantages are that you get an email history on a specific topic and it is easier to include someone else.

This way you won't forget any questions in the original email.

-----Original Message-----

From: Daniel Hyles www.ssw.com.au
Sent: Tuesday, 28 May 2002 7:31 AM
To: Adam Cogan www.ssw.com.au
Subject: FW: Morning Goals

Reply In-line in red

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Hyles www.ssw.com.au
Sent: Monday, 27 May 2002 8:00 AM
To: Adam Cogan www.ssw.com.au
Subject: FW: Morning Goals

- TimePro Online pages
Done
- Double check backups (get backup today on both drives, I configured the other drive last night)
Done
- Make sure Exchange is backing itself up.. Check Google on why not.
Not Done
- Access reporter
Not Done

Figure: Good Example - See the "Reply In-line" comment, and see how the RED makes the email easier to read.

1. Avoid large attachments. So if you are sending an email that is >1MB you need to take one second to think:
   • Could a URL be better than this attachment? (see example on the right)
   • Could I send this as a UNC to an internal share?
   • Could I .zip this?
   • Could I put this picture on Flickr or Picasa?

     Dear Mike,
      
     Thank you for spending time with us to come to a better understanding of your 
     business requirements. Please review the new version of specification at 
     http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/SQLAuditor/Default.aspx
                             
     PS: The .docx was 4MB so I didn't attach a copy.
                        
     Regards,
     Adam Cogan
     www.ssw.com.au
     

   PS: An added advantage is that the document stays alive. If the URL has been updated and a user takes a week to get around to this email, they will view the latest version.
2. If you have to attach the document, always use WinZip - it is common courtesy - I'll assume you already know that.
3. Never use Rich Text inside Outlook. As a software developer, most large messages I receive are screen captures. By all means use screen captures - pictures do tell a thousand words - but don't include unnecessarily huge images or attachments in your email. Generally the only time you will have serious size problems is if you are using Rich Text instead of HTML inside Outlook.
4. If you are sending screenshots then just send the region of the screen you need. Use a screen capture utility like Fullshot so you can use the region tool and get only the relevant part of the image you need. PS: Don't send screenshots as .bmps use .jpgs .gif or .png
5. If you are sending pictures (every year digital cameras are making our photos bigger and bigger) you may need to resize them down. You can either use Photoshop or for something quicker try Office Document Imaging.
   Figure: "Compress Pictures" options dialog
6. SharePoint was built with sharing files in mind and is a great way to collaborate.
   If you are using SharePoint to send a file you simply need to open the context menu, click "send to" and "email a link" as shown:
   Figure: If using SharePoint 2010 you should use this context menu

When should you break these size rules?

Basically you should be practical:

1. Keep history
2. Paste images into the email - not into a Word document and attach (so it stays with the customers reply)
3. When you paste a URL, also paste the section of the web page you are referring to (allows for offline reading)

We have a program called SSW LookOut! for Outlook to check for this rule. Figure: SSW LookOut! for Outlook warns you if your mail size is large.

This has a few advantages:

1. It automatically compresses images which you paste into your email (meaning a much smaller size email)
2. You get all the benefits of Word e.g. Formatting and styles, spell checking smart tags, thesaurus - the list goes on and on.
3. With the emergence of some great 3rd Party Smart Tags you can integrate your database in your email program. Companies often forget that improving their users' ability to handle email efficiently can be one of the biggest productivity gains you can achieve.

But all is not lost.

(With Outlook 2007)
If you go into your sent items, open up the offending email, and go into Actions | Recall this Message, outlook will attempt to delete the message from the recipient's inbox before he has a chance to read it.

(With Outlook 2010)

If you go into your sent items, open up the offending email, and go into file | Info | Resend Or Recall | Recall this message, outlook will attempt to delete the message from the recipient's inbox before he has a chance to read it.

 

Figure: File | Info | Resend Or Recall | Recall This Message (Outlook 2010)

Outlook will tell you whether it was successful or not

We always use Outlook Web Access or VPN when we're out of the office and need to email. If a clients firewall won't let us do this, and we have to use a local account, we always CC our internal account on every email we send. Emails are an important record for your business, and they need to be treated as legally relevant documents. Having multiple accounts will only cause trouble

This way Outlook will remind your colleagues about the appointment and you can update them if any changes are made.

If the appointment is for 3 days or less, send a separate appointment for each day. This is because multiple-day appointments appear at the top in your Outlook Calendar, so you risk missing the appointment (see below).

Figure: Open the appointment in your Calendar (You should already have Invited all the required people to attend)

Figure: Click on "Message to Attendees" and then "Reply to All with Message"
Figure: Send a friendly reminder!

I promise you'll be thankful you never deleted your Sent Items.

We have a program called SSW LookOut! for Outlook to check for this rule.
SSW LookOut! for Outlook can tell you if you have archive on.
Figure: SSW LookOut! for Outlook warns you if Outlook is set to archive your emails

The sensible response for employees is to be careful about what they say in email and abide by appropriate usage rules / etiquette even if they don't exist! Follow common sense on this one. Remember that your work email address should not be used for personal mail.

Using the Microsoft Exchange Web Storage System we track the number of emails sent internally (i.e. to an SSW address) and emails sent to clients in our Corporate database.

We use a Utility for Exchange Reports called SSW Exchange Reporter.

Note that although it is acceptable for seniors to check juniors' email, it is not acceptable for juniors to check seniors' email.

Sometimes, you would want to avoid using swear words, or using an angry tone as well.

We have a program called SSW LookOut! for Outlook to check for this rule.

Figure: SSW LookOut! for Outlook checks that you don't use bad words.

A solution exists in Microsoft Office 2010 which you will see built into Outlook 2010 (and the rest of Office [except Access]), entitled 'Information Rights Management', a file level security application built onto Windows Server 2010. The capability enables you to prevent recipients of your emails (and attachments) from forwarding them on, copying any text, or printing the document (be aware that determined chaps could use a lower level screen shot program to get past this). Additionally, it encrypts the file as it's sent away. As an added basis - you can secure on a group level (based on Active Directory groups). To prevent an email being forwarded simply create a new email and select the "options" tab and click on "permission" in the ribbon and select "do not forward".

If you're not running Office 2010 install the IRM for Internet Explorer download .

BTW you may be interested to know that every mail item that you send gets a file saved with these credentials so you can still open the emails when you are offline. To see: go to Start - Run %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\drm.

• Asking someone (nicely) to check your mailbox if you are away for 3 days or more. This ensures that any important emails from clients are actioned or,
• Make sure all client emails are handled before you leave; either delegate the task, or inform the person taking care of your inbox
• Check it yourself every 3-4 days from home or wherever you are (Hawaii maybe!)

Figure: Avoid using the Outlook Out of Office Assistant - This can fill up your clients' mailboxes with annoying auto-replies
We do not use 'Out of Office - Automated Response' emails as they can clog up the clients' inboxes - they are considered to be annoying! For example, John gets 300 emails a week, if he goes away for 2 weeks and sets his auto-reply on, that's 600 auto-replies!

Figure: Bad Example: Opening your sent items and manually looking at the emails can take minutes

Let's use an example; say you are looking for emails sent to Frank where they have sql auditor and link auditor in the email (subject or body) then you enter "sent items" to:Frank "sql auditor" in search box; then you get the list of sql auditor emails sent to Frank.

Figure: Good Example: On Windows XP or better, using Windows Desktop Search takes seconds

If using Microsoft Outlook 2007, then use the search option to find your sent items. 

Figure: Good Example - of searching sent emails using Windows Desktop Search

We can also use Exchange Reporter to see the number of emails sent by each user.

Figure: Good Example - of searching sent emails using Exchange Reporter

If you reasonably assume that the task you are working on would be approved by the customer, and it will take less than half an hour, you should go ahead with that task.

Sometimes clients will add attachment files into emails. Those files could be documents or images, which may contain details or solutions of the issue, or some helpful information.
To keep the history, it is very important to embed the attachment files into the email since it's easy to lose those files when responding.

Figure: Bad Example - The image is in attachment.

Figure: Good Example - The image is included in the context.
PS: Clients make attachments because they are using OWA and you can't paste an image in - see suggestion for OWA

Options:

1. Software Spam Filters
Microsoft Outlook Junk Filter
GFI MailEssentials
Red Earth Policy Patrol
Websense Email Security

2. Hosted Spam Filters
Google Apps Gmail (Free)
Google Message Filtering
Websense Hosted Email Security
SpamSoap Core Filtering
Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services

Solution:

At present, all email is filtered at the local Exchange server by GFI MailEssentials 12. While it removes a large amount of spam, an unacceptable amount still reaches user inboxes. The current architecture is shown here. 


Figure: Previous email architecture.
GMail's basic service is the only free hosted solution, so it is naturally the first one to try. With Gmail as part of the solution the architecture changes to the following. The number of emails caught by each of the filters are averages. 


Figure: Current email architecture with GMail.

Process:

The following steps need to be taken:

1. Register for a Google Apps Standard Edition account. Go to http://mail.google.com/mail/ and register with your domain name.

2. Setup a catch-all account in Gmail and enable POP3 access to it. This means that only one account will need to be checked to retrieve filtered mail.

3. Setup QSS Exchange Connector (http://www.quantumsoftware.com.au/) on your local Exchange server. This software bridges Gmail with Exchange. It logs into Gmail via POP3, retrieves the messages and then distributes them to users' individual accounts based on the header recipient fields.

4. Switch over your MX records to point to Google's servers. This takes around 24 hours to take effect. When the change fully propagates, email will be delivered to GMail and retrieved by Exchange Connector.

5. Monitor the GMail spam folder for false positives. Move false positives to Inbox. After approximately a week, GMail should have learnt enough to be left unmonitored. Emails can then be retrieved by user request.

Results:

The following report was generated by GFI MailEssentials 12. Note that the MX records changed over on 12/02/08. 


Figure: GFI spam statistics over the architecture change-over periods.

It can be seen that after the MX records changed over, there were a couple of days of unusual data. This was due to the MX record change over and filter learning period.
By the 16th, only 20 emails were marked as spam by MailEssentials. It can also be seen that the percentage of overall spam dropped from as high at 78% to mostly single digit percentages. GMail was now catching the vast majority of spam.

It must be acknowledged that, while these figures do not represent the amount of spam actually reaching mailboxes, they do give a good indication of how effective Gmail's filters are.

From further investigation, it was found that info[at]ssw.com.au, which receives more spam than any other account, was now receiving around 5 unsolicited messages a week, as opposed to a hundred or more prior to GMail implementation.
In the first two weeks after implementation GMail caught 23124 spam emails, an average of 1652 per day.
Apart from the obvious benefits, this also saved 641 MB of bandwidth allowance.
In the case of info[at]ssw.com.au, a modest calculation of time saved reviewing spam would be 10 hours per year. This estimate is based on an average of 25 emails per day and 4 seconds spent reviewing each one. Actual times will obviously fluctuate, as will the amount of spam other users receive.

Possible Issues:

A third-party has access to your email.
False positives. The GMail filter is very accurate but it is possible legitimate emails will be caught. In the Standard (free) Edition of Google Apps, spam emails are only retained for 30 days before being permanently deleted. With Premier Edition (US$50 for one account for a year) you have 90 days with the inclusion of Postini message management.
Inbound emails will be limited to 20MB per message.
In the current stable release (3.5.9) of QSS Exchange Connector, mailing list emails from Yahoo Groups and the like are not correctly delivered to mailboxes when "Automatically detect recipients" is turned on. This has been addressed in beta release 3.6.0.2397 and should make it to a stable release soon.
Using this method, all spam is delivered to one mailbox. This has the advantage that one person can easily review all spam. The disadvantage is that each user doesn't have easy access to his/her spam messages. If users do not personally their own messages, legitimate email is more likely to be lost. Google Message Filtering would be a solution to this issue.

From: Adam Cogan 
Sent: Tuesday, 29 April 2008 11:59 AM
To: Code Auditor Team
Subject: RE: Rule files

+1 on this. It can be quite frustrating.
________________________________________
From: Uly
Sent: Tuesday, 29 April 2008 11:51 AM
To: Code Auditor Team
Subject: Rule files
Hi,
 
I saw two clients today that complained about Rule files being created even though one 
    
had already existed. They were all named x.SSWCodeAuditor where x was a number from 1 
    
to 13 in one of the cases.
 
Why do these keep being created?
 
Uly
    

Figure: Good Example.

The estimation is more important if the task is from clients. A client cares about the time more than others because he has to pay for having this task done. Thus, he will be happier to see a notification with an estimation. With this estimation, he can stop you easily if he thinks the time is a bit more than excepted. No client would like to know it takes a lot of time to complete this task without being informed of this in advance.

Figure: Bad Example - Send a task to self without an estimation

Figure: Good Example - Send a task to self with an estimation
 

New,

I already talked with Sergei, he will handle it.
________________________________________
From: Adam 
To: Andy
Cc: Sergei; 
Subject: Timepro!

Hi Andy,

As per our conversation yesterday about TimePro! 
keeps crashing when I do a search under 'Company', please fix

Sergei

As per our conversation - please action
________________________________________
From: Adam
To: Andy
Cc: Sergei
Subject: Timepro!

Hi Andy,

As per our conversation yesterday about TimePro! 
keeps crashing when I do a search under 'Company', please fix

If you need to handover an entire project there are more details here:
http://rules.ssw.com.au/Management/RulesToSuccessfulProjects/Pages/HandOverProject.aspx

• Where you are a little unsure
• When you are new to a company and sending an email to a large distribution list
• Sending a complicated email
• Sending a sensitive email (where the content could be perceived as confrontational)

Doing this will ensure:

• You avoid grammatical and spelling errors
• The layout and tone of the email is professional
• You haven’t forgotten anything important
• The receiver knows who else agrees with the content