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True Archive

Archiving removes a message from the live User mailbox and places it in a matching Archive-mailbox. Messages moved to the archive are no longer displayed in the user's regular email account. This allows IMAP email clients to work at their optimum speed without having to constantly monitor old messages.

Mailtraq EWA webmail provides a browse facility to view the Archived messages. Read more...  The browse ability is only available for Internet Explorer. It is not available for Edge, Chrome, Firefox, etc.
Archived messages, however, are no longer browsable in IMAP clients - they should be considered as in deep-storage. Users are not able to modify messages in the archive, and as such they provide compliance level archiving for legal mail retention requirements.

Live Archives
Mailtraq provides a separate facility for live-archiving where users retain the ability to browse aged messages in regular IMAP clients. Read more...

Archiving provides a searchable store of messages from which one can recover an 'old' message. This section explains how to configure Archiving in Mailtraq - how to set the mailbox controls and use the System Archive - and how to recover messages from the Archive.

Many governments define mail retention requirements for corporations, making it mandatory for you to have a history of all e-mail for a required period.  Conversely, it is often not in the corporation's best interests to maintain mail indefinitely.  For both of these reasons setting a specific mail retention policy is a safe way to control what happens to your mail in the long term.

Primary controls

The primary controls for Archiving are found in the Archive-tab of the individual Users' mailbox. Mailboxes do not archive by default - all messages are retained. The Administrator can either set individual archiving rules, or configure a system wide Default at the System Mail Archive control.

Mailbox Archive-tab

This tab appears in the Mailbox Properties dialog and is used to configure what happens to messages after they reach a specified age. Mailtraq has two options for Archiving depending on the Database Mailtraq has been set to use: Firebird or AFX. The way messages are handled varies depending on the selection.

 

Current Mailtraq Systems
AFX has been the default option since March 2007, and is the recommended choice for nearly all users. It replaced a central store of messages with individual archives for each mailbox. When you are using AFX messages are moved from the mailbox to the matching archive in the database.

 

Also read: KB09103001 Working with Archives

 

Tip
Note that only mailslots which enable an archiving policy will actually archive messages to the system archive.  A simple means for getting all messages regardless of destination is to create an inbound copy mailslot and use the Forward a copy of all incoming mail to feature in Options | Incoming Mail... | Options. 

Since all mail (both received from outside the organization and sent from within the organization) is at some point incoming to Mailtraq, this option will effectively copy all mail that is processed.  Then simply configure the archive settings for that mailslot to move messages to the system archive after a short period.     Read about creating simple 'Copy' Records here.

The Archive system also relieves the burden on the main mailbox in IMAP/Webmail installations  by moving messages out of contention so they don't have to be loaded. Messages are still accessible to users, but are not displayed every time the email client 'refreshes'.
Read about Accessing archived messages.

Archive-tab Settings

Archiving can be processor intensive, particularly if you impose expiry to archive on a mailbox with a large volume of mail. Mailtraq provides Database Maintenance controls to allow you to manage this process. It is essential that you a configure suitable Database Maintenance schedule to make sure the system works efficiently. 

Do Not Archive this Mailbox

If this option is selected then messages will not be automatically removed from this mailslot

Use Default archive settings

If this option is selected then the archive settings will be taken from the default settings set in Options | System Archive...

Archive using settings below

If this option is selected then messages will be archived according to the settings defined on this tab.

Archive messages after...

This determines how old the messages must be before they are archived.  The age is defined by how long the message has been in the database, not necessarily how long it has been in this mailslot.  When messages are drag-posted between mailslots the age is reset (as the resulting message is essentially a new message that was forwarded).

Messages that have been recovered from the system archive are marked as no-archive (view Message Properties to see if this is the case for a message) and will never expire.

Notify Message Sender when Archiving

If this option is checked then a notice will be sent to the return-path of the message sender when the archiving or deletion takes place.  This would not normally be enabled and it is not Internet policy to send out such notices, but in specific cases where a mailslot is used as a queue for automatic notices.

Note
Automated responses to mail messages can be regarded as a security risk in certain circumstances, so this option should not normally be selected.

Forward when Archiving to...

Check this option to have the message sent to a specified e-mail address when the archiving takes place.  This address can be a regular Internet address or the name of a local mailslot. A copy is also Archived unless the following control is also enabled. This can be used in conjunction with the 'Archive a copy on arrival' option.

Delete Messages instead of Archiving them

If this option is checked then messages will be deleted rather than being archived and will not appear in the system archive. 

Archive to Mailbox

This option allows archiving to another mailbox, and is used in the management of large archives with live access. Read more...

 

Archiving Advice
System administrators should have a mail retention policy in place that meets the regulatory needs of your industry. It is good practice to consult your organization's legal representatives on this policy to ensure that users do not retain messages longer than appropriate.

When does archiving take place? 

Archiving will take place during a maintenance period
set at Options | Server | Database

If you opt to Postpone then it is important to make sure that you do not restrict the Maintenance period to shorter than the amount of time required to perform the archiving and other maintenance activity.

If the "Archive after" is less than 4 hours, archiving takes place every four times per period
(e.g. 4 hours = hourly, 2 hours = every 30 minutes).

If the "Archive after" is less than one week, archiving takes place once per day.

Otherwise it takes place once per week.

 

What actually happens during Archiving?

Mail that is archived is copied from the mail\inbox\mailslot.afx file to the matching mail\archive\mailslot.afx file. The messages are then marked for deletion from the Inbox mailslot.afx file. Deletion takes place during the Maintenance Period set at Options | Server | Database and it is important that enough time is allowed for maintenance to take place.

 


Searching

 

Message Recovery

Administrator Recovery - using the Console direct

Administrators can recover messages from a User from the Console by opening their Archive mailbox.

 

Messages may then be selected and then copied to the Primary mailbox.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Administrator Recovery - using the Console Search

Messages can be found in the Archive by using
Tools | Search for Message, where the mail archive can be searched. 

 

Results are displayed at Search Results,

 

Messages can be moved using the right-click menu options. 

 

 

Indexing
Messages are not available for recovery from the Archive until they have been Indexed.
See Indexing.

User Recovery - using webmail to browse and 'Copy-to...'

EWA WebMail

Users of EWA webmail can browse their Archive.
"My Archive" is displayed on the tree on the left if :

[x]  " Allow users to access their mailslot archives "

is checked in the webmail 'admin' section, Search Message Contents-tab.

Users can then use the "Copy" command, say to their Inbox or a folder created for this purpose, to get a copy of a message out of an archive but they cannot modify the archive content.

 

Standard WebMail

Users of Standard webmail can use the message 'Search' to search their archive, but they cannot browse for messages.

Users can then use the "Copy" command, say to their Inbox or a folder created for this purpose, to get a copy of a message out of an archive but they cannot modify the archive content.

 


 

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