Email records

Managing emails

Emails play a key role in communications and engagement with both our internal and external stakeholders. Evidence of our business activities and decision making is often recorded in emails, meaning they need to be managed as University records in line with the Records Management Policy (MPF1106).

Types of email

There are many categories of emails we send and receive, and not all need to be kept as university records. Let’s take a closer look at these categories:

CategoryExamplesOutcome
Spam/junk emails
  • Unsolicited emails from third parties attempting to sell goods or services
  • Phishing emails
Report and delete any phishing emails and delete all other spam/junk emails
Personal emails
  • Organising lunch with a colleague
  • Flu vaccination booking confirmations
  • UniSuper booking confirmations
Delete once no longer required / event has passed
Ephemeral emails
  • Meeting invites and acceptances / declines
  • Out-of-office messages
  • External and internal newsletters (if you are the recipient and not sender of internal newsletters)
  • Emails where you have been CC'd purely for informational purposes
  • Emails from ServiceNow regarding lodged tickets
  • Copies of emails
Delete once no longer needed for reference purposes under Normal Administrative Practice
Official business emails

All other emails that:

  • Relate directly to your work activities and engagement with internal and external stakeholders
  • Provide evidence of business authorisations and decisions
  • Contain advice, guidance and formal communications
  • Provide evidence of compliance with University obligations.
Keep for the relevant minimum retention period specified in the University Records Retention and Disposal Authority

Storing emails

Often emails are related to broader work being undertaken and form just part of the records related to a particular activity, matter or incident. Unless relating to high-volume and short-term value activities, where reasonable, emails should also be stored alongside other related records in University systems that support your work activities. This makes it easier for University stakeholders to locate and discover all records relating to the activity, matter or incident.

You should store emails to line of business systems:

  • When broader staff access to the email is needed and you are the sender or main recipient of the email
  • At the end of the email chain (or at points throughout, if attachments are being shared).

Email management tips

To help keep on top of your inbox and make it easier to find and manage emails:

  • Ensure subject lines provide sufficient description of the email contents
  • Create a new email trail, rather than use an existing one, if the topic you want to discuss does not relate to the original email trail
  • Remember, all emails created by University staff can be subject to Freedom of Information requests. Ensure you delete personal emails as soon as possible and always use professional language in your emails
  • Set up rules to help sort and manage short-term emails. For example, set up a rule that will automatically move emails to a folder for emails generated by ServiceNow, and assign a retention policy to the folder (ie, 1 Month Delete)
  • For group mailboxes, document how emails received into the inbox should be categorised and managed, and distribute to all people with access to the mailbox
  • If you have saved an email to a different business system to facilitate broader access, you can delete the email from your inbox.

Further information

If you require further information or advice on email records management, please submit a ServiceNow request.

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