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Do you archive all emails or only those required by a specific regulation. Thanks.
Chris,
If all or part of your organizations communications are regulated, then you have a black and white guideline in terms of who and how long. The complexities come in "how" and what will they be used for post retention. If you have to "search" by all or part of the content, dates, times, sender's, receiver's, those who were blind carbon copied, etc.
You need to address these with what ever mechanism you are using to capture these emails. If the messages will be potentially discoverable for legal matters, then you need to consider admissibility concerns - will how you maintain the records disqualify them as evidence? If these aren't paid attention to then what's the point in keeping them? So there is a lot more to consider.
Also, about a million times more important (from my perspective) than a retention policy is a "deletion" policy. Most organizations totally lose sight of that one.
Good Luck,
Peter
January 2009
ps. for records that are not regulated, its "fielders choice" just make sure that it's something "reasonable". Always think that the organization will be questioned regarding its policies. If it's to short (like 10 days), you may appear to be talking precautions to get rid of potentially damaging evidence, if its to long then you may have things laying around that are damaging that you could have deleted. It just has to be grounded in common sense.