Challenge:

Lincoln Electric is a world leader in the design, development and manufacturing of arc welding products, robotics welding systems, plasma and oxyfuel cutting equipment. Recognized as the welding experts, the company has manufacturing operations in 18 countries and a worldwide network of offices in over 160 countries. Lincoln Electric was using a large amount of storage space on their servers to support mail files. In an effort to reclaim storage space, they began searching for a product that would allow them to identify and delete outdated emails. The product would also have to be capable of notifying users of the deletion process and give them ample time to move or copy any emails they wished to retain.

Solution:

After an extensive search, Lincoln Electric selected Mail Attender® for Lotus Notes as their solution. Mail Attender had the ability to perform the exact type of mail management they required. An added bonus was the product’s ability to perform content searches within mail files. “When we initially looked for a product, we were not concerned with the searching capability,” said Carol Townsend, Lotus Notes Administrator. “Once we found out it could perform keyword searches, it became an area of interest to our legal department.” Mail Attender was installed for 1700 users across five mail servers. Once the installation was completed, Lincoln began using Mail Attender’s document retention features to delete documents over a specified age. Initial restrictions included a delete of all documents that were dated 1998 or older. “Another key feature is the products flexibility in scheduling agents,” said Townsend. “If we are running an agent and we reach the end of our pre-determined processing time for the day, Mail Attender will pick up exactly where it left off and continue processing the rule the next day.”

Result:

Once Lincoln began running the age retention rule, over 500 MB of space was reclaimed. This number is expected to grow once additional rules are implemented. Lincoln is also running activity restrictions that prohibit the editing and the deletion of specified documents; thus ensuring the authenticity of information. “Mail Attender was the most comprehensive product we found in the market. We are not even using it to its full capabilities,” added Townsend. “Overall, we have been very satisfied with its performance and the results we have enjoyed.”