If a company encounters eDiscovery it usually is obliged to find some old email messages. The faster is finds the less will be its expenses for the trial and the more will be the chances to win the case.
Companies that send the old messages to the archive may come across the issues of finding the information they need.
It is one thing to keep large quantities of emails and attachments in an archive. It’s another to really find specific data when it is needed. Exchange Online and Office 365 recognize 58 different file types. IT managers may ask themselves why it is considered to be an issue. An email message is nothing but an email message, isn’t it?
The issues may arise when email messages contain specific file attachments that can contain the information that may be needed. If this information is kept in an unindexed attachment, that message will never be found in the search results. This problem affects users’ productivity in 2 ways.
First, in many cases, the users may keep in mind that they had this data at this point in time, but when the needed data is not found by their initial keyword search through their archive, they spend much more time looking for the desired content. Second, when at last they see that they are unable to find it, they spend even more time to create anew the information they couldn’t find. Remember: the more time you spend for getting the necessary information, the smaller are the chances to win the court.
Some of you may also think that that 58 indexed file types include most of email attachments a person usually encounters, but in reality there may be hundreds of different file types in use. As a result you are not able to find the information you need in an Office 365 archive and end up in a dangerous eDiscovery situation.
To prevent such a situation you should always keep the reserve copies of your Outlook emails on the side storage and regularly back up Office 365 with third-party applications like UPsafe.