For a business organization, Email is the best way of communication. With increasing business needs and the emergence of technology, it becomes necessary for a user to learn better email management and handling techniques. The larger is the organization, more is the efforts and time required for email management and organization. IBM’s Lotus Notes is one of the most common client-server collaboration application used nowadays.
I am writing this article keeping in mind the requirements of email management for Lotus Notes users. For better and efficient functioning of any mail client, regular and judicial mail management is required. If the email management is not proper, then it causes loss of the manpower as well as money. And later on, poor email management may lead the user to data corruption and data loss situations.
So what kind of mail management is exactly required in Lotus Notes or any other email client! It includes from basic email operations (that includes composing, sending, receiving mail, etc.) to the mailbox size management, archiving and using other mail management tools and other advanced capabilities.
The factors that are needed to be kept in mind are: time management, email management, priority management, Information management, Email protocol. To manage all these perspectives, a user must learn better tactics for efficiently using the Lotus Notes tools, email management and organization, resolving interruptions that can occur while using the tool, proper work organization and scheduling
How to manage your Lotus Notes mailbox:
Mailbox size is a very important factor that must be taken into consideration. The lesser is the mailbox size and number of mails; the better is the mail management.
You can move some of your mails from the Inbox to a new folder that will decrease your mailbox size. And hence provides a better email management.
To create a new folder, follow the given steps:
• Go to Menu> Create > Folder.
• Clicking the Folder option will open a ‘create folder ‘dialog box
• Write down your desired name in the ‘folder name’ field. After that, ‘Select a location for the new folder’. Click OK.
• Open your mailbox. From the top menu bar, choose ‘Folder’ then choose ‘Move to Folder’ option. It will open a dialogue box which shows the list of folders from which you can choose the folder where the Inbox mails are to be moved.
You can also use ‘Drag and Drop’ method to move mail from one folder to another folder.
How to check the size of your mailbox:
Go to the top menu. Choose “Actions” > Add-on Features> Show Mailbox Info. It will open a dialogue box that shows the mailbox related Information such as: mailbox size, free available space, used space, mailbox quota, number of documents in mailbox etc. The preferred mailbox size is 200 MB (or 500 MB maximum).
Follow the given steps to check the mail file size:
• Go to File> Applications> Properties (If using Lotus Notes 8, for other versions go to File> Database> Properties)
• Click the "i" tab
• Now check disk space, this would let you know the amount of all data that is in your Lotus Notes.
Now if you find an unwanted growth in the mailbox size, next step should be to reduce its size.
From the left side, ‘Select Views’ > ‘All Documents’. This will let you see your all mailbox documents.
• Sort all your mailbox items by size by clicking on the ‘Size’ option.
• If you find that the content of a mail is of no use to you, then you can save the associated attachment if required and after that delete that mail.
• To save the attached, simply double click it, a dialog box will open that provides you the option to view, open, edit, save and delete the attachment. Click Save, this will open a ‘Save attachment’ dialog box. Choose your desired file name and location where the attachment is to be saved. Finally click ‘Save’.
• If you want to save the mail documents after saving the attachment, then this can be done. After saving the attachment, double click it and choose ‘Delete’. You will be given two options to save the document. The option ‘Save and Close’ let you save the document as it is. By choosing another option, i.e. ‘Save and File’, you can save the document at your desired location.
Note:
While replying a mail, it’s better if you choose to respond without the attachment. If you need to send attachments back and forth to each other repeatedly, then it’s better to use some Lotus Notes Collaboration Tools(such as: TeamRooms, Discussion Groups) to post the attachments.
Server archiving:
The above discussed is a basic and primitive way for managing the Notes mailbox size. Another approach that you can use for Email size management is ‘Server archiving’. By using server archiving you can store your older mails that can be accessed via archive mailbox. Archive mailbox provides a way for storing mails separately from the main mailbox size thus reduces its size.
Benefits of server archiving:
• For reducing Lotus Notes main mailbox size
• As a mean of backup: Mailbox server archiving is done on the server so it can be used as a mean of backup. If some mailbox item gets deleted accidentally, then it can be restored from the backup.
• Better access facility: The mailbox archive on server can be easily accessed by the user from any location at any time, it only requires Lotus Notes client set up or Domino Web Access (iNotes).
How to archive Lotus Notes mails:
It provides you the ability to archive all mailbox items or only the selected ones. Before proceeding further first check your mailbox archive settings.
For checking the mailbox archive settings:
• From the main menu, go to Actions>Archive>settings.
• Open the Criteria tab and select the checkbox "Default for last modified"
• Click OK to enable the selected criteria.
How to archive Lotus Notes?
To manually archive selected folder/folders, follow the given steps:
• Start the Notes mail application.
• Choose the folder that is to be archived.
• Go to Actions> Archive> Archive Now and Click Yes
This will create an archive for the selected folder according to your predetermined mailbox archive settings.
You can also schedule the archiving process at your desired time by following the given steps:
• Go to Actions> Archive> Settings.
• Open the Schedule tab. Check the checkbox "Schedule archiving"
• Select the desired day and time for performing automatic scheduled archiving and Click Ok
To open your archived mailbox in a Lotus Notes Client:
Go to Tools > Archive> not accessed in X days. (X= 30, 60 or 90 days). This will open your archived mailbox as follows:
To open your archived mailbox in Domino Web Access:
Simply click on ‘Archives’ from the top menu, the archived mailboxes will get opened.
Along with these simple email management techniques that are described above, Lotus Notes provide many capabilities for better email organization, handling & management. The advanced Lotus notes mail management tools include: Power Drafts/ Templates Email Power Draft, Meeting Power Draft, Work Power Draft, mail Auto route & delivery options, Senders Colors and Recipient Icons and Message recall etc.
In my upcoming article, I am going to discuss these advanced Lotus notes mail management tools and capabilities.
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