Vaulting Email and Folder Structures - What approach do you take?

[Calis]

Hi Guys, Something for discussion - The migratoin of users to  EV and dealing with thier existing mailbox and PST folder structures.

My Setup:

- Archive older then 1 year.

- All psts get imported into Vault. Merge folders is on.

- No direct editing of Vault allowed. Only moving of items within Vault. Outlook folder strucure drives the Vault folder strucuture. Users manage folder structure in Mailbox only.

- No shortcuts in mailbox to Vaulted items

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The reason we do it this way is so users only have to think about managing email in the Mailbox. Folder structures and filling are done at that level. Users dont need to think about moving email out of the mailbox. Email older then a year WILL be in the Vault.

But some users we have ALWAYS move mail from the mailbox into thier archive PST IMMEDIATLEY. (this is not our recommendation)

What happens with these users is the that the folder structure in thier mailbox and PST can be very different. So when a PST of say 7GB is imported suddenly there is confusion over where folders are and the difference between the two.

Some would suggest when importing the PST to use the "this fodler under the root folder" and seperate them out. That works fine but we try and have mininal difference between mailbox and Vault.

Users who archive everything immedialtey suddenly have current email in the Vault, with differeing folder structures, and need to wait for items to expire after 1 year to start creating the strucutre in Vault. Other options I guess are:

- You could simply Vault everything in the mailbox and start fresh

- Import all PSTs back into the mailbox and then Vault it - done this a few times.

- Export the PST with a future date to export only folders then move to mailbox.

- Use the "this fodler under the root folder" and have multiple folder structres in the Vault.

I try to approach it like this: minimal change, along with new functionality = hopefully better acceptance

What is everyone doing to keep people happy and cause minimal differences/changes like the above?
Or its it not important to you and they have to put up with it?

Keeing in mind we have to backup and restore the Vault, provide enough space and performance, keep Exchange in a good state also. Maybe these things are the drivers for you?

[JesusWept3]

Personally I would merge, not create or copy shortcuts and have them use AE or Vault Cache / Virtual Vault to view the migrated items

[Calis]

p.s. forgot to mention

- No shortcuts in mailbox to Vaulted items

[TonySterling · Accepted solution]

I almost never recommend merging folder structures and almost always put the PST's under a root folder.

I think this is less of a change than merging as it leaves the structure in place as if they user was still working with PST's and most customers agree.  Of course, that is why the option is there as everyones specific needs are different.

Either way, if you merge or don't merge, it makes no difference to the backup or performance of EV, you will have the same amount of data so you best bet is to get a good idea of the amount of data you are importing so you can scale appropriately.