It’s 4:30 on Friday afternoon when you get the message that a key vendor will not be able to deliver what they promised on time, which will in turn cause YOU to miss a critical deadline for your most important client. Frustrated, you call the vendor, who instantly denies ever being told about the deadline.

You know deadlines were discussed but can’t find it in your original written agreement. You then turn to your e-mail only to be forced to dig through hundreds of messages to try and find the e-mail where you conveyed the importance of this project being delivered on time, but you can’t find it because it was deleted.

Sound familiar? Or perhaps you’ve been in a similar situation where you’ve had to “archive search” for old e-mail communications? Think about it – almost all of your business communications and negotiations are performed via e-mail, making them important documents to keep for reference. And since you send and receive hundreds if not thousands of e-mail messages annually, it just makes sense to have a simple and easy way to find old communication threads. But this isn’t just a convenience issue, it’s a legal one.

What Every Business Is Required By Law To Do

Some industries have strict guidelines on storing e-mail communications (financial institutions for example). But what most people don’t realize is that ALL businesses need to address email
storage and in this instance, ignorance is far from bliss – it could put you and your organization in serious legal trouble.

David Thompson, AXS-One, explains the legal and business reasons why e-mail archiving is a must :
“Enron, Morgan Stanley and the Australian Wheat Board are familiar names that may send shivers down the spine of senior management. All these organisations have been involved in controversy over e-mails that have cost the company’s reputation and/or resulted in large fines. Companies need to be prepared for “electronic discovery.”

Simply put, this means you must know where your data is and how to retrieve it. Failure to do so can lead to fines or loss of a lawsuit. Those in IT records management need to be aware of the protection required when it comes to electronic documents; having no protection carries risks that the business may not be able to sustain.

While Australia doesn’t have a Sarbanes-Oxley Act as in the United States, there are a number of legal obligations for the retention, and destruction of e-mails and other electronic records. For example, the Corporations Act (which requires items to be retained for seven years) and applications for employment (six months).

In addition, records created by the HR department and Occupational Health and Safety may be covered by a number of statutes all with varying retention periods from six months to 25 years or more.”

The post Could You Be Breaking The Law By Not Archiving E-mails? appeared first on Mon Technology | IT Support Melbourne.

You and your staff can take work home and even work on the move, sending emails in the car or files from the coffee shop. But you have had a frustrating problem: you haven’t been able to get or send the same up to date emails and replies on your mobile devices. You have to wait until you are back in the office, making your responses slow. And even then it is hard to know which email version to reply to. Different versions show on each of your devices! Your staff are battling with the same issues and it is slowing your company down.

Now there’s a simple cost effective solution! Mobility has been made super easy with Office 365. You can get the same emails on all of your mobile devices, laptops and workstation. Now you can work when and where your schedule dictates – with freedom.

Office 365 is available for iPad, Windows Phone, iPhone and Android phones, so as long as you or people on your team have an internet connection. Your workers can even sign in and work if they’re in Timbuktu or travelling on the Nullarbor!

Email and Microsoft Office 365

Although Office 365 is much more than an email platform, the biggest reason most businesses move to Office 365 is because they want the email that comes with it.

Office 365 offers the same, familiar email as Microsoft Exchange Server but the technology has moved into the cloud. It is available to micro as well as small and medium size business.

Working with Office 365 means that you no longer need to install Microsoft Exchange on your in-house server. So you’ll save money because you no longer have to buy and maintain an Exchange Server.

You’ll also save money on user licenses. With one licence, you can install Office 365 on up to 5 devices including your desktop, smartphone, tablet and more.

And there are no more software updates and upgrades to worry about. You and your employees will always be on the latest version of Microsoft Office.

The post Work ‘On the Go’ with Office 365 appeared first on Mon Technology | IT Support Melbourne.