The Challenge

Office staff has to overcome countless challenges daily in order to ensure a smooth operation and managing e-mails is one of them. When using Outlook, adopting a proper archiving method for the entirety of the emails is important to ensuring effective continuous communication with third parties and colleagues.

Whether it is about a small, medium, or large business, the choice for an up-to-date and easy-to-use archiving method lies between two main options: Keywording and Foldering.

A breakdown of the methods

Receiving and having to deal with numerous emails can undoubtedly become quite tough during a workday. To avoid these overwhelming situations, the following email archiving systems have been developed and are readily available in Outlook:

Foldering
It is the traditional method of organizing your crowded inbox. It refers to the digital form of conventional paper folders and binders and it forms the most intuitive way to organize messages.
PROS: Archiving is self-evident, and the folder trees also serve as a kind of catalog of items or ideas. For example, two folders OPEN CASES and CLOSED CASES with the each containing a number of subfolders can quickly provide the answer to the question “how many open cases do we currently have?”.
CONS: The user cannot easily place the same email into two or more different folders/subcategories when this does apply to more than one. The lack of proper categorization will more likely cause miscommunication and lead to inefficient and time-consuming actions among staff.
CONS: The user can easily place something in the wrong folder.
CONS: Inbox can easily be turned into a chaotic list of folders and subfolders, in which the user may not be able to find what he is looking for.

Keywording
For Outlook it is ‘Categories’, for Gmail ‘Labels’, while for us here at MetaDocs it is called ‘keywords’. Whatever their name, an archiving method using tags may sound complicated, but with the proper tools provided by Astris and some practice becomes the fastest and most robust method of archiving.
PROS: It is a multidimensional archiving system meaning an email can easily be assigned to more than one “subject” or “category” at a time, one click for each is enough and it is like putting the email to several folders.
CONS: It may take some time for the user to get acquainted with the titles and color codes, associated with each keyword.
CONS: There is no substitute for the “catalog” facility offered by a folder tree.

The Solution

In our fast-paced world, careful planning -especially for businesses- is of essence, hence a careful selection the proper archiving method is necessary.

Our team of experts and consultants, having studied in depth the ways of organizing, sorting, and archiving emails, can help you determine the best fit for your business, as well as guide you through the entire learning process.