Deborah Mowry said in news:
[email protected]:
Office with 100+ users, the help desk administrators removed
AutoArchive because "it does not work".
Is this true?
While a help desk admin was sitting at my desk, he even did a File |
Archive and the folder got archived but the messages within did not
go to the new Archive folder. Is it buggy too?
Deborah
PS How else am I supposed to get rid of email from my inbox but have
it stored for tracking (we have to keep all messages 7 years)
Archiving works on the *modified* date, not the received date nor on the
create date. When you move an item to a different folder, the modified
date gets changed. So you might have an e-mail that shows a received
date of months ago but you moved it recently so auto-archive won't move
it (because you have it configured to move items with an older modified
datestamp). You can add the Modified datestamp column to see what date
that auto-archive will actually use.
Using auto-archive is a 2-step process. You have to enable the *global*
auto-archive settings. These are under the Tools -> Options -> Other ->
Auto-Archive panel. You must also enable auto-archiving for each folder
where you want it used. The global setting simply enables auto-archive
to run and some defaults but it does NOT force auto-archiving on any
folder. You decide which folders will get archived by enabling that
feature for them individually. I believe there is a button in OL2002
under the global auto-archive options to apply those settings to all
folders. However, I believe that only sets the configuration to be the
same for all folders but it does not actually ENABLE the archive
function. I believe the default for all folders is "Do not archive this
folder". Even if the global auto-archive settings are configured and it
is enabled to run, and even if you click the button to apply those
settings to all folder, you will still have to go under each folder's
properties to *enable* archiving get exercised against them. Think of
it like incremental backups which read the archive file attribute. You
run the backup program but that doesn't mean everything gets backed up.
Only the files with the archive bit set will get backed up while files
without the archive bit (i.e., unset) get ignored. Running auto-archive
is like running the backup program. Enabling the archive function under
each folder is like setting the archive bit on each file.
Note that you should set the global auto-archive function to run at an
interval that is equal to or less than the shortest interval you
configure for any folder (if you customize the archive setting instead
of applying the global ones). Think about it. Say you customize a
folder to enable archiving and set it to archive items older (for their
modified datestamp) than 3 days. But you configure the global
auto-archive utility to run every 15 days. Well, nothing gets archived
until every 15 days although some items in the folder are 4 to 15 days
old before that. Just like your backup program, nothing gets backed up
until you actually run it to find whatever files might qualify for
inclusion. In other words, the global archive function should be
configured to run at an interval which is the minimum of the interval
configured for all folders that have archiving enabled.
The biggest failings in understanding auto-archiving are:
- Not realizing the modified datestamp gets used, not the received date.
- Not understanding that archiving is like backing up in that you need
to enable the global archive function to run AND you need to decide
which folders will use it. It is a 2-step procedure.
- Setting the global archive function to run at an interval longer than
the shortest interval specified for a folder's custom archive settings.
