Outlook & SharePoint Email Management Use Case
In an enterprise environment, email is the largest form of communication. As such, a lot of business-critical information like client communication, approvals, project related communication and decision trail is locked inside the mailbox of the end user (usually fewer than 3-4 users).
This is a risk to the business, as this information actually belongs to the business/company/enterprise and should be accessible by any user with access to such information in case of compliance, audit, Request To Information/Freedom Of Information acts and reference purposes.
This is also counterproductive in scenarios where visibility of the entire projects/cases/clients is required i.e. legal, construction, energy, insurance and in industries that operate in highly compliant environments i.e. finance, insurance, banking, manufacturing.
Although it is still possible to trace this critical information while the user’s is still active, but it becomes challenging to retrieve from a former user’s deleted mailbox and even more challenging to trace where it is and if such information existed.
A simple solution to the above is to have users actively identify such information/email and save it to a central location like network drive, pubic folders (Microsoft Exchange), SharePoint etc.
Why do companies use Outlook
- Largest enterprise email client by market cap and comes free with Microsoft Office
- Feature rich, robust, well known and familiar to users
- Top-notch Security – features like encryption, spam filtering, and MFA ensure data protection
- Enterprise Support – scalable with strong IT management and compliance features
Why do companies use SharePoint
- Largest enterprise content and document management system by market cap and comes free with M365 subscription
- Best in class security, auditing, searching and compliance features
- Integration with Microsoft Office app like Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc
- Collaboration – allows real-time collaboration and version control on documents
Drawbacks of Using Network Drives and Public Folders for Storage
- Microsoft is discouraging the use of Public Folders in Microsoft Exchange and end-of-life is suspected
- Network Drive are more relevant in on-premises environment as opposed to cloud environments
- No real-time editing or version control. Not designed for modern document management needs
- Auditing, searching and compliance features are non-existent
Given the above it makes sense to choose SharePoint as the central repository to store/archive emails and attachments. The only exception to the above is that, if the business requirements are so specific that it demands for a specialized tool i.e. case management system or records/archival tool
What are the flags that a business needs SharePoint Outlook integration tool
Email/Attachments as Document Records
Teams frequently receive important documents via email that need to be stored and managed in SharePoint.
Compliance or Audit Requirements
The business needs to retain email records in SharePoint for tracking, compliance, or legal purposes.
Low SharePoint Adoption
Employees stay in Outlook and avoid using SharePoint due to extra steps required for saving or accessing documents.
Poor Collaboration Across Teams
Email-based document sharing creates silos, limiting visibility and collaboration across departments.
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Uses by industry
Legal department and law firms
These businesses need to centrally save client communication (emails) and reference documents (attachments) for each legal case/matter and often need to attach SharePoint documents to emails.
Construction, Insurance, Manufacturing
These businesses need to save client communication (emails & attachments) against either a client or a project folder in SharePoint. They use this for reference and compliance purposes.
Government departments, banking, finance
These businesses operate in a highly regulated environments and require to comply with records management laws. It varies between countries but at the very least, it requires, by law, the business to maintain and keep a record of all critical information and retain it for n number of years.
Why Konnect eMail Central
If an enterprise uses Outlook as an email client and chooses to manage, archive or save emails to SharePoint, then they can leverage a SharePoint to Outlook integration tool such as Konnect eMail Central. Here are some driving factors:
- There is a lack of integration between Outlook and SharePoint: the tool provides access to SharePoint, Teams and Onedrive locations all within Outlook.
- There is no convenient way of saving emails to SharePoint: the tool lets the user save/archive emails to SharePoint within a few clicks.
- There is no convenient way of attaching SharePoint documents to an email: the tool lets the user quickly search for SharePoint files and attach them.
- Email properties are lost when saving to SharePoint: when an email is saved to SharePoint the email properties like email date, email subject, Sender, recipient etc are lost (locked inside the email itself). The tool extracts this information and adds it as metadata in SharePoint. This enables a user to search, filter & retrieve emails in SharePoint.