A combination of tools and techniques allow me to work this way:

1. Leveraging Outlook’s “Instant Search” capabilities
2. Practicing the four Ds: “Do it, Drop it, Delegate it or Defer it”
3. Minutia: tips, tricks and add-ins

1. Instant Search

Arguably the best thing to happen to e-mail in a long time, Outlook’s Instant Search function works so well that I can find any e-mail that I know I have ever sent or received with just a simple query right in Outlook’s browser window. As an attorney, I used to create intricate folder structures in which to file e-mails; Outlook’s terrible ability to search required doing so in order to be able to find anything. Now, every piece of e-mail I send or receive gets stored in a single folder.

(Instant Search requires Outlook 2007 or 2010 and Windows 7, although the functionality can be replicated using Microsoft Desktop Search and other versions of Windows/Outlook.)

While conforming to my firm’s retention policy, I keep every single e-mail in one folder (aptly named All). At +250,000 items and +12GB, it’s not the largest mailbox folder in existence. It’s my understanding, however, that it really doesn’t matter how large the folder grows. I won’t ever experience performance issues, and, using proper search techniques (see this Micrsoft article for a description of the search query syntax), I can find what I want instantly just by knowing what it is I’m looking for.

A little while back, IBM released the results of a study which concluded that “actively creating [and filing into] folders does not increase efficiency or success” in finding e-mails at a later date. Specifically, they found that it took an average 17 seconds to find an e-mail using search as compared to 58 seconds when navigating through folders to find a message. Add to that the fact that “10% of [a person's] total email time [is spent] filing messages,” and the conclusion is that you can save yourself a lot of time if you stop filing messages and just learn to search for them properly.

For those of you (attorneys in particular) who may not believe this is possible or practical, think about it this way: whatever criteria you use to file the e-mail in the first place are, and always will be, inherent in the e-mail (sender, recipient, date, subject, body or attachments). Down the road, when you need to locate that e-mail, the memory cues that you would otherwise use to navigate to that e-mail in your folder structure can be applied to a search query, allowing you to find it with greater ease than a combination of navigating and searching.

2. The Four Ds: “Do it, Drop it, Delegate it or Defer it”

I don’t know if he gets credit for it, but I first came across the Four Ds when reading Scott Hanselman article on Zero Email Bounce. Though I was already a practicioner of both the empty inbox and the philosophy articulated in the Four Ds, it resonated.

It boils down to the following: treat your inbox like a To Do list, and when you are going through your inbox (whether you do so regularly throughout the day, on a set schedule, or in some other fashion), do not move on to the next message until you have acted on the one you are viewing.

Your actions can either be to “do” whatever it is that the e-mail requires you to do; delete the message so that it is no longer in your inbox*; delegate the “to do” action (typically by forwarding the message to someone else); or else defer the action.

(*Previously, I indicated that I don’t delete any messages. While I hit the ‘delete’ key to get things out of my inbox and into the Deleted folder, as I discuss below I actually move those to the All folder on a periodic basis.)

The last D – deferring – one was one of the keys to my becoming successful at maintaining a clean inbox while not losing track of my responsibilities. While there are lots of ways to defer an e-mail/action, the method I practice is to move the e-mail to my calendar. As I discuss below, I have an add-in which makes this a single-click action, and allows me to postpone addressing an issue until some appropriate time in the future. This means that I have to be religious about addressing calendar reminders when they pop up, but here, too, the 4 Ds reapply: either act on the action or reschedule it to some future time/date when you expect you will be able to act.

3. Tips, tricks and add-ins

The rest are details. I use an Outlook add-in named SimplyFile, which accomplishes three essential tasks:

1. When I send a new message, it automatically files the sent copy in my All folder.
2. When I reply to or forward an e-mail it not only files my sent item, it also files the original message to which I am replying or fowarding to my All folder, saving me the extra step of having to deal with that originating message.
3. It includes a ‘Schedule it’ button on my Outlook ribbon which allows me to turn an e-mail into a calendar appointment.

One of my 4 Ds is to delete messages, which I do in the normal fashion. Microsoft recommends that you not let your Inbox, Sent Items or Deleted Items folders grow too large, so every now and then I move everything from Deleted Items to All. I do the same thing for the Sent Items folder (even though not much accumulates there due to SimplyFile, messages sent from my iPhone or iPad get copied there).

I do, as appropriate, file messages into my firm’s document management system, in accordance with our retention policy. The technique I outline above, however, is one that is practicable both for handling your non-filed e-mails and by people who do not have a DMS integrated with Outlook.

And that’s it. There are countless articles written on additional techniques for prioritizing messages, compartmentalizing your day to enable you to manage e-mail effectively, etc. While everyone needs to find a method that works for them, I can tell you quite honestly that I actually feel good when I see an empty inbox. It has been worth it to develop the habits and techniques that allow me to accomplish that on a daily basis.

Finally, for anyone still using complex folder structures, I strongly encourage you to consider leveraging the power of Instant Search in Outlook 2010 & 2007. You can find what you need just as fast if not faster, and you can save yourself a lot of time in not filing in the first place.

This works great with lists, as the new form is populated with all of the fields from the content type, and you can easily modify the XSL to choose which fields are displayed, as well as the layout.  However, the form will be a lot more empty if you try this with a document library.  For some reason, the new document library forms include the data view web part for the library, but do not start off with any of the fields included.  But the fix for this is pretty easy.  Just follow the steps below to get the data view web part to include all of the available fields:

1) In Designer, create a new edit form and pick your content type

2) Click the form to open it

3) Click to the right of the “created at” field.  This should show “Data View Tools” in the ribbon.

4) Open the Design ribbon, and check “Sample Data.”  That should be it–that puts all the fields into the form.

After that, you should be able to modify the layout, as well as the fields in the XSL.

According to the release notes, there are 3 registry keys that need to be added to each WorkSite Server in order to use the server-side duplication detection.  The first one disables client-side email duplicate detection:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Interwoven\WorkSite\imDmsSvc
Name: Duplicate Detection Type
DWORD Value: 2 – Disables Client-side E-mail Duplicate Detection

The second key enables the server-side detection:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Interwoven\WorkSite\imDmsSvc
Name: Server-Side Duplicate Detection
String Value: Y - Server performs duplicate detection

The third key determines the scope of the detection, and, as I’ll explain afterwards, could be the most dangerous key you could configure:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Interwoven\WorkSite\imDmsSvc
DWORD Name: Server-Side Duplicate Detection Type
Values:
0- [default] Searches for duplicates within the target folder or workspace.
1- Searches for duplicates across entire target library.
2- Disables duplicate detection.

Why might this key be dangerous?   With the right combination of supported configurations, it could spell disaster.  First, imagine you have the Email Management for Outlook installed, and have users that have linked folders within their Outlook inbox to matter Workspaces.  Next, imagine that when they linked their Outlook folders, they chose the option to keep the email in Outlook after it is filed.  Next, imagine each folder has 5,000 emails, and some of these emails have attachments that are 1 MB each.   See where I’m going with this?  Ok, well, now imagine you set that Server-Side Duplicate Detection Type registry key to 2, disabling email duplication.

With this combination, the Email Filing Service will cycle through the linked folders and file thousands of emails over and over again — until you either run out of space on your file server, or on your SQL data/log volumes.  Or until you notice that your new document number is all of a sudden 300,000 more than it was yesterday.

I contacted Autonomy about this potential situation, and they confirmed that there is no way to force de-duplication for linked folders.  I’ve submitted a new feature request for this behavior to Autonomy.  I hope they read those things.

All that being said, I have successfully performed this upgrade and enabled these features at a client.  The enhanced duplicate detection functions properly, and even adds links to the original email if a user attempts to file it to a different Workspace folder.  This is yet another step in the right direction for iManage’s email-filing capabilities.

Let’s leave those drawbacks out of the equation for now, and focus on what should be a benefit:  the ease of finding documents across the enterprise.   How could this be bad, you ask?  The Enterprise Search utilities are designed to respect the security of whatever system the content lives in.   That’s good, right?  Well, what if the documents aren’t secured in the source repository?   Some older systems make it inherently difficult to find documents with the native search interface/engine.  Since it may be difficult to find documents, users start to skip the step of securing documents.   Their thinking is, “Well, no one can find the document anyway, so why do I need to waste 45 seconds and add security to it?”.   These unsecured documents could be financial statements, HR documents, or any other content that should be secured.

Enter Enterprise Search. Once Enterprise Search is introduced, that open level of security would now be apparent to all users of the system.   This could cause headaches in the enterprise, and put a black-mark on the Enterprise Search tool — even if it’s not the Enterprise Search tool’s fault.   This is just one example of the implications of adding new ECM functionalities to an environment.   The security example here can be alleviated by scripting a security update to the source repository prior to the deployment of the Enterprise Search; essentially resolving the issue before it can become a security nightmare.

Another significant new feature in version 7 provides automatic detection and comparison of changes when attachments are sent, modified and returned through email, alerting users directly in Outlook. By identifying changed documents and launching a comparison as modified documents arrive, Workshare Professional 7 improves efficiency, making document collaboration a more seamless process.

I think attorneys will love this feature as it saves clicks and steps.   Additional performance improvements have been made in the Workshare Protect meta-data removal module.  What’s more valuable than an attorney’s time?  Kraft Kennedy is a member of the Workshare Alliance Network.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/838028

There are several options and workarounds for dealing with this issue.  One workaround is simply to disable the “options” call, which will disable the initial authentication prompt that users would have to cancel.  Before attempting this, you should read the KB article to learn more about this call, and thoroughly test your environment.

To disable the call, just add the following code to the <system.webServer> section in the web.config file for each web application on each SharePoint web server.

<security>
<requestFiltering allowDoubleEscaping=”true”>
<verbs allowUnlisted=”true”>
<add verb=”OPTIONS” allowed=”false” />
<add verb=”PROPFIND” allowed=”false” />
</verbs>
</requestFiltering>
</security>

Sometimes the flashy new features and modules that plug into the old code can cause issues. Maybe they are stretching what the product can do. Who knows? Too many times have I seen new releases and service packs get caught in a seemingly long and drawn-out Beta test or QA testing. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad vendors are trying to fully test their software before a general release, but I’ve seen many estimated release dates come and go. Updates get released, then pulled back into QA.  Eventually, things usually work out.

My advice to clients is usually the following:

1. Wait it out a bit. Especially when that major new version or service pack gets released, don’t rush to implement unless absolutely necessary. Give it a few weeks to see if they release a “new patch” to fix issues with the old patch.
2. If you have a development or test environment, try the new release there first and really bang away at it.  If you have the time, perform some tests over a period of a couple weeks to check ongoing stability.
3. Keep an eye on any vendor support forums or social groups on LinkedIn for any feedback from the guinea pigs.

These simple steps could save you a few migraines.

“Some or all identity references could not be translated”

The systems were up to date on updates and hotfixes, and the applications appeared to be configured correctly.  The problem in the end turned out to be that the servers all had the same SID and were joined to the domain with different computer names, but the same SID.  This led to the unpredictable domain authentication issues that we were seeing.

For anyone in this situation on Windows 2008 Server R2 machines, don’t run the “NewSID” tool.  That will blue screen the server, and you’ll have to restore from a backup or rebuild the box.  Instead, you can use sysprep to change the SID of the machines, even after the machines are fully configured (though it’s best to use it before configuring machines).

You should backup the machines before makiong any changes.  We were able to do the following sequence on the servers to fix the authentication issues:

1) Use the PSTools (psgetsid) to view the current machine’s SID, available here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649.aspx

2) Disconnect the machine from the domain and place in a workgroup.

3) Delete the computer account from Active Directory.

4) Run sysprep on the Windows 2008 R2 server from this path:
/System Drive/Windows/system32/sysprep/sysprep.exe

Click the “Generalize” box, which creates the new SID, leave the other options as is, and press OK.

5) Once the machine reboots and runs through some Windows dialogs, use psgetsid again to verify that the SID has changed.  Rejoin the server to the domain, and then verify that the apps are all working as they should, and that the authentication issues are gone.

In testing our pilot deployment, one issue was apparent.  The ODMA integration between Adobe Acrobat and DM was broken!  I checked the Open Text Knowledge Center on the proper steps to integrate Adobe with DM, and verified that yes, the API file is in place, and yes the PassiveODMA registry value is in place.   Upon opening a support ticket, I was informed that ODMA integration is gone with DM 5.3.  In fact, starting with DM 5.2.1 CU4, Open Text was not including the ODMA integration with Adobe.   That seemed strange, since it was working with our 5.2.1 CU5 client just fine.  Turns out that if the API file and PassiveODMA registry key are in place from a previous installation, it will still work with CU5 and CU6.   However, with 5.3, ODMA integration is no longer in the code, so if you have the API file in place, that DM menu option in Adobe is there but that does absolutely nothing.

In double-checking the release notes for DM 5.3, I found that this integration change was mentioned, but as the 4th footnote on a page — definitely not prominent.  And no mention of this change with 5.2.1 CU4  in the Knowledge Base or in the Application Note titled  “eDOCS DM 5.2.x – How to Successfully Integrate Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader”.

This leads to two valuable lessons for any product integrator:

1. Be sure to read all Release Notes, including footnotes!
2. Before deploying a software upgrade, deploy to a small pilot and test all integrated applications.

Regarding the Adobe integration with DM 5.3, the DM Interceptor is needed.  This is actually documented as an option in the Application Note referenced above, but is a requirement starting with DM 5.3.