Issue 1 - Messaging Best Practicies

Aside from annoying a lot of people – all at once – ‘Reply to All’ abuse can bring enterprises to a screeching halt as messaging servers attempt to process the onslaught of email – as the U.S. State Department found out in January.

When a U.S. State Department employee accidentally sent a blank email to a global distribution list of thousands, an email storm ensued.

• Some recipients used ‘Reply-to-All’ to demand to be removed from the list.
• Others used ‘Reply to All' to tell their co-workers, in often less than diplomatic language, to stop responding to the entire group using ‘Reply-to-All.’
• Some users then compounded the problem by trying to recall their initial replies.
• The recall generated another round of messages to the entire group.

Senior officials became involved as the huge volume of email resulted in a major denial-of-service and, we suspect, a huge drop in worker productivity.

"Take Immediate Action ... (on the) negative impact of hitting ‘Reply All’,” wrote Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy wrote to every U.S. diplomat worldwide – by cable.  “Anyone who disregards these instructions will be subject to disciplinary actions.”

The State Department isn’t the only organization to be impacted by ‘Reply to All’ abuse.  After a ‘Reply to All’ incident at The Nielsen Company, executives threw down the gauntlet and removed the Reply-to-All button from their company’s email client.

Do you have to take such severe action?  Can you ignore the problem?

Unfortunately, ignoring the problem can have serious consequences. An overloaded messaging system can impact Service Level Agreement (SLA) commitments. Employee time is wasted as individuals spend time reading, responding to or deleting the ‘Reply to All’ banter. And, let’s not forget the huge amount of storage space that is wasted on the email server and the legal compliance archiving system.

So, how do you deal with the problem short of removing the ‘Reply to All’ button from the email client?  We have seen three levels of response that are effective and less severe:

• Educate users. Many employees will listen. Really. Educate employees about the proper use of the ‘Reply to All’ button. Use the stories in this newsletter.  Some users just don’t understand the serious consequences that their actions can have on the corporate messaging system. Others need to be reminded about proper email etiquette. Education won’t prevent every user blunder but it will get many people to think twice before they notify 30,000 employees worldwide that they’re bringing chicken wings to the company picnic.  
   
• Add an extra reminder step. In Lotus Notes, you can modify the global mail template to display an alert box when users click ‘Reply to All’. This alert gives users an additional opportunity to decide whether they really want to send their reply to everyone on the distribution list. It is cheap to do and fast to implement, but there are two drawbacks.  First, it will come up for every use of ‘Reply-to-All,’ even if it is a two person list.  It will get annoying and users may just click ‘Ignore’ without thinking.  Second, you will need to remember to modify the global mail template every time there is an email client upgrade.  The money saved with a ‘free’ solution may be spent in IT department effort.
   
• Deploy Smart Reply-to-All control with Permessa Email Control! software. Unlike other solutions, Permessa Email Control! is designed to stop Reply-to-All Abuse without getting in the way of employee productivity.  
  
  Permessa Email Control! lets you set limits by number of recipients or by the message impact, which is a function of the number of recipients and the message size.  For example, you may decide to allow short messages to be sent to 10 or 20 people without interference.  But, a message with a large attachment can be controlled.  
  
  You also can establish different permission rights at the department, group or individual level. For example, corporate officers, security personnel, human resources, and those who send internal newsletters can be set to have unlimited access.  But, other employees’ access to ‘Reply to All’ can be managed.  By establishing permissions for Department heads, you may decide to create a limit for each one that is about the size of their department.  Some employees may have limits from 20 to 50 recipients, while others could be restricted from using ‘Reply to All’ altogether.  
  
  You can also place controls on the use of certain mailing lists.  For example, you can give unrestricted ‘Reply-to-All’ access to all employees but restrict certain mailing groups, such as “All Employees,” to only a few senders. Because Permessa Email Control! enforces at the server level, there is no need to adjust the email template each time a client is upgraded.  The policies keep working.
  
  Permessa Email Control! is easy to implement and provides the granular control needed to maintain an effective policy.  Applying email policy controls leads to other benefits too such as lower IT storage costs, greater employee productivity and improved health and availability of the corporate IT messaging system.

Permessa Email Control! with Permessa Email Policy Enforcer automatically makes best practice recommendations based on email use and can help identify reply-to-all abuse patterns.  An optimal limit on the number of recipients can be placed on all messages or just those from certain senders.