Hi,

I have to design an email archiving system that will archive user
selected emails for about a hunderd users (emailaccounts) in total.

This archiving system will be part of a much larger CRM package, which
is already in place.

What I basically want is a list of CRM packages that already have this
sort of email archiving implemented, so i can quick start the design
from there. To learn from your rivals, if you like.

Also links to discussions on this subject will be very welcome.

Actually any information on email archiving systems is welcome. (hard
one to find for myself, being all very commen words (e.g. email
archiving system...))

To sum this question up: I'm looking for information to help me design
a solid email archiving system for lots of email accounts.

Your efforts are very much appriciated.

---

Clarification of Question by koffie-ga on 26 Jun 2003 10:52 PDT

By "user selected emails" i mean that the idea is that the end-users
of this system will contnue using their preferred email-clients and
that they can somehow "instruct" a certain email to be archived.

How to "instruct" an email to be added to the archive? I have to ideas
(but other ideas on this subject are more than welcome!)
1) Users can Redirect their emails (incoming email) to certain
adresses that will be read by the CRM package that will do the
archiving. They can BBC their emails if it's outgoing.
2) They can use the "save as..." feature of their email clients to
create a separate document of their email and drop them in a dropbox
that the CRM package will process.

koffie-ga,

Thanks for the opportunity to answer this question!  First, let me
offer some white papers which discuss this functionality at a more
in-depth level.  The first one is from Ferris, who is a market
research firm that specifically targets this area:

     http://www.ferris.com/rep/20020302/default.asp [Also available in
PDF]

E-mail answers also maintains a short list:

    http://www.email-answers.com/software.htm

I also wanted to contribute a short article on purchasing a CRM tool.

    http://www.itmanagement.earthweb.com/datbus/article.php/799941

Okay, now on to the "meat" of your question - a quick list of CRM
packages that have e-mail archiving built in.  Some of these packages
are described in-depth in the above white papers.

   AnswerTrack					http://www.answertrack.com

	"AnswerTrack is a comprehensive solution for businesses that need to
track, route, measure, 	and manage email communications with external
or internal customers. Most commonly, 	AnswerTrack is used to track
inbound customer email to support@company.com, 	sales@company.com, and
info@company.com addresses."

   SRA Assentor					http://www.assentor.com

	[A] - Seems to be a compliance solution and does include some CRM
capabilities.

   Documentum Records
Manager	http://www.documentum.com/products/glossary/records_manager.htm

	[A] - This used to be called TruArchive Enterprise, and again is
defined more as a compliance solution.

   Tumbleweed IME				http://www.tumbleweed.com/en/products/ime_overview.html

	[A] - Tumbleweed seems to be a "gateway solution" designed to be part
of an existing CRM package.

   Remedy						http://www.remedy.com/

	[A] - Remedy has always been defined as "the cadillac" of trouble
ticketing and response management toolsets.  It is highly customizable
and is available in many different flavors.  It has been defined as a
CRM tool.

   Siebel						http://www.siebel.com

	[A] - Siebel is certainly one of the larger players in the CRM space
and their eMail Response and eService products are integrated with
Tumbleweed (mentioned above):

	"...today announced that Siebel Systems and Tumbleweed have entered
into a strategic alliance to integrate Siebel eMail Response™,Siebel
eService™,and Tumbleweed Integrated Messaging Exchange™(IME™) to
provide a secure two-way communications channel to enhance customer
response management and customer service on the Internet. "

   Request Tracker				http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/index.html

	[A] - Request Tracker is primarily regarded as a ticketing solution,
but could easily archive electronic mail and offer many of the
capabilities you were looking for.

I don't want to forget Groove, which is a collaborative workspace
solution that works with e-mail and contains some of these
capabilities.

Some other comments and opinions on this:

As far as "instructing" an e-mail to be added to the archive, many of
these systems are designed to capture all electronic mail.  I'm sure,
first-hand, that many of the systems can be configured to operate in
the manner you describe - at least as a "forward" solution, where you
forward the electronic mail to the toolset.  I'm not familiar with any
CRM toolsets that will allow you to save the e-mails to files and then
have them imported into the tool.  A point of interest; if you are
going to allow people to "select" the e-mails they want added to the
archive this can be done very simply, without any of the above
software, by just adding a mailbox for each category that you want to
archive for and making certain that the way that mailbox can be
accessed fits your requirements.  Most of the solutions listed above
can do full-text search and context matching, as well as
classification in some cases.

Many of the above solutions are implemented as either a "forward"
solution, or a "gateway" solution - they are the ultimate agent
"before your users", so to speak, before the e-mail reaches the
mailboxes of your employees.  Some act as the entirety of your mail
solution.  I wasn't sure if this was a barrier towards adoption, so I
included both.

100 users should be a piece of cake for any of the above-listed
solutions.  As far as integration into your existing toolset, you may
want to posit that as a separate question - so we could know some more
details about what you're using currently.

koffie-ga, I hope i've been helpful in your search.  If I can offer
more assistance or clarification, please don't hesitate to request
that I do so.

Search methodology: terms "email archiving CRM" on alexa, Teoma,
Vivismo, and Google.

Best regards,
arimathea-ga
Researcher