Grimshaw - To use vaulting technology
Grimshaw, the global building design and construction
practice behind both the Eden Project and Zurich
Airport, is in the process of implementing email
vaulting technology from Union Square Software to help
manage and retain a forensic record of all email
communication within the practice. Contractual details
and other business-critical communication is now often
being agreed and confirmed in email messages, so the
growth in legal responsibilities for looking after, and
being able to produce, full email audit trails has
increased significantly.
Over 25 years, Grimshaw has established a reputation
worldwide for rational building design and a profound
understanding of the use of materials. The practice now
operates worldwide, with offices in London, New York and
Melbourne employing 200 staff.
Grimshaw had previously been relying on Microsoft
Exchange Server Public Folders to store project emails,
however this was found to be unsatisfactory as a long
term storage solution for the volume of emails being
received.
Jim Rea, IT consultant at Grimshaw, says, “Our previous
processes meant that highly important information such
as contract details and customer contact information
could be stored in a number of places – either filed
into Workspace, sitting in a user’s inbox awaiting
filing or transferred to an Outlook/Exchange archive
folder if the user had not managed to file it in time.”
The Email Vault from Union Square enables Grimshaw to
store all emails both sent and received so that there is
one large-capacity central archive that can be accessed
and examined should the need arise. An individual’s
email can then be easily retrieved by that individual or
by the IT department.
Rea continues, “Whilst we have found Workspace to be an
excellent long term storage solution for project emails,
MS Exchange Server is not designed as a long term data
storage facility. There is a finite size of 2 Gigabytes,
above which a mailbox is prone to corruption, creating a
very real danger of data loss. This creates serious
liability issues should a claim ever arise because a key
email was never filed or could not be recovered from a
corrupted archive folder or mailbox.”
“It used to be the case that important business
communication took place via paper-based
correspondence,” Rea comments, “but as the primary
method has moved away from Royal Mail to email
messaging, the construction industry is having to
confront the issue of whether their internal storage and
retrieval capabilities are up to the task. By using
Workspace we are creating an incontrovertible audit
trail to protect both our staff and clients
Rea concludes, “We have found Union Square very easy to
work with. They have a deep understanding of the
construction industry and how the technology can be best
applied to gain both administrative and operational
efficiencies.”
Email:
willg@itpr.co.uk
Arundel Jones Associates Ltd
Hill Farm, Linton Hill, Maidstone, Kent ME17 4AL
Tel : 01622 745333
news@buildingdesign.co.uk
Registered in England and Wales No. 07334149
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