GFI Software Enhances Email Archiving Solution for SMBs

GFI Software announced a way for SMBs to generate real, actionable data to improve operations, enhance productivity and better support customers.

GFI MailArchiver, the company’s email archiving solution, now includes MailInsights, a data analysis tool that enables SMBs to maximize the wealth of information contained within their email.

SMBs can use MailArchiver to:

• analyze how quickly a sales or customer service team is responding to customer emails;
• spot trends such as common keywords or topics in emails being sent and received;
• identify which employees or types of email attachments are consuming the most storage space;
• learn exactly who their employees are emailing the most; and
• to defend against the disclosure of proprietary and confidential information.

"Almost every SMB uses email, and the wealth of data that GFI MailArchiver can generate from an email archive can provide profound insights into any business or organization," said Phil Bousfield, general manager, Infrastructure Business Unit, GFI Software. "Small businesses not taking advantage of that existing resource-which they create and build upon every day-are missing a significant opportunity to generate their own business intelligence to better understand their operations. GFI MailArchiver with MailInsights proves email archiving can provide much more than just a convenient message repository, it can now deliver more strategic value than ever before."
 
Helping SMBs Make Smarter Decisions
Traditionally, archiving has been viewed as an email management solution used to reduce demands on a Microsoft Exchange server and minimize dependence on PST files, as well as satisfy e-discovery and regulatory compliance requirements.
 
Email is increasingly being used as a business intelligence tool. A survey commissioned by GFI and gathered by polling expert Opinion Matters, found that 75% of those questioned use email for communication trend analysis, while three quarters use historical email to plot response times to customer queries, particularly in sales-driven environments. The research highlights how email archives have become business-critical unstructured databases that retain key knowledge, workflow information and customer contact data that offers value to an organization once it resides in an archive. With 75% of those surveyed valuating the data contained within email archives at more than $100,000, these findings illustrate that the ability for an organization to incorporate email archives into the overall business intelligence strategy can deliver cost-effective long term value to organizations seeking to do more with less.
 
MailArchiver with MailInsights expands traditional archiving functionality. With a web-based interface, MailArchiver offers customizable reports that help business owners better understand their organization and its behavior in a variety of ways.

MailInsights reports generated by MailArchiver include:

• Communications Flow – identifies who a user or group of users are communicating with most often inside or outside of an organization
• Email Responsiveness – provides insight into how long it takes employees to reply to internal and external email to help monitor and improve customer service levels
• Inappropriate Words – tracks inappropriate language and specific key words in email to monitor and track potential violations of company usage and information disclosure policies
• Email Storage – monitors email storage capacity to identify large attachments, enforce retention polices and identify users and groups of users consuming the most storage resources
• Inactive Accounts – creates a list of accounts which received email but have not replied within a specified time period, enabling IT admins to take corrective action and reroute incoming messages
• Webmail Usage – tracks who is exchanging the most email with webmail services, which could be an indication of higher risk messages or inappropriate use

Email Management Challenges
MailArchiver enables SMBs to address the challenges associated with their email system, including:

• managing increasing volumes of email and attachments;
• maintaining the performance of Microsoft  Exchange servers; relying too heavily on PST files or tape backup to retrieve old or deleted emails;
• complying with the data retention requirements of government regulations; and
• ensuring that critical information contained in email is not lost and can be restored for business continuity purposes in the event of systems failures or natural disaster.

MailArchiver also enables users to access, search and retrieve their archived email through a web portal for Android-powered devices, BlackBerry smartphones and iPhones.
 
All MailArchiver customers with a current maintenance agreement will automatically receive the latest version of the product with MailInsights. It is priced starting at $29 for (10 to 24 mailboxes), including one year of maintenance.