Memorandum
To:

Agency General Counsels

From: Karen Geduldig, General Counsel, NYS Office of Information Technology Services
Date: June 18, 2013
Re:

Email Consolidation and Email Management

Over the past year, the State, through the NYS Office of Information Technology
Services (ITS), has been consolidating the State’s disparate email systems to facilitate
interoperability and enhance interagency communications. The next part of this process is
standardization of email management. This is also important for the migration of current state
agency email systems to the new cloud-based system. If your IT staff were consolidated within
ITS effective November 22, 2012, ITS is responsible for all technical implementation of the
steps detailed below. If your agency has its own IT staff, your agency staff is responsible for all
technical implementation of the steps detailed below, although ITS is available for advice and
guidance to support consistent technical implementations.





The State is retaining enormous amounts of email data that is difficult to manage and
interferes with operations.
The State Archives has determined that most email communication does not constitute
records that must be preserved under the law.
Retaining only email that is directly relevant to operations and/or that is required by law
to be retained will improve agency operations, knowledge transfer and succession
planning. http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/records/mr_pub_genschedule_accessible.html
Federal agencies and corporations have implemented email management policies wherein
email messages are purged from their systems 30, 60, or 90 days from the date sent or
received, for example. Such a system will aid the State in improving its email
management.



As of June 30, 2013, the State will be implementing a standard 90-day email
management system for all State agencies. Email sent and received on or after June
30, 2013, will be retained for 90 days after the date on which it was sent or received
unless otherwise deleted. Thus, all email sent or received on June 30 will be purged from
a user’s mailbox automatically on September 29, all email from July 1 will be purged on
September 30, and so on.



Under this new system, email that must be retained longer than 90 days can and will
be saved.
o Litigation holds will remain in place.
o Holds can be placed on accounts containing material potentially responsive to a
FOIL request.
o Users will be able to save email needed for more than 90 days, for example, for
long-term projects.

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ITS FOIL 2014-08
000001

o No agency will have to delete material necessary to conduct its business or to
meet legal requirements.


Older email will not be purged immediately. Any email 60 days old or older on June
30 will be withheld from deletion until July 30, 2013, 30 days after the 90-day
schedule takes effect. This ensures that users will have at least 30 and up to 90 days to
review everything already in their mailbox as of June 30. For example, emails sent or
received:
o on May 1 or earlier will be purged July 30
o on May 2-June 29 will be purged as they reach 90 days old, July 31-September 28
o on or after June 30 will be purged as they reach 90 days old

General Counsels should take the following steps to prepare for implementation of
the new email management system.


Determine what litigation holds are in place and whether any of them are no longer
necessary and can be released. Your IT staff is responsible for taking the technical steps
necessary to preserve or release holds.



Compile a list of staff on medical, maternity, paternity, or other long-term formal leave to
ensure that their email is not purged before they have an opportunity to review it. Your
IT staff will handle the technical aspects of retaining email.



Compile a list of dormant email accounts, such as accounts from employees now
separated from the agency. Contents of some of the accounts may require review before
the contents are purged.



Compile a list of group email mailboxes. If you determine that a mailbox could be the
exclusive storage location for records that must be retained, then it should be reviewed
before the contents are purged.



Consult your agency records retention schedule to determine which staff members might
have records subject to retention requirements of the Arts and Cultural Affairs Law
stored exclusively in their email boxes or archives.



Using the model email management memo to staff provided, create guidance for your
agency staff on the new email management system. Please note: information in the
model regarding appropriately saving email content or the process for litigation
holds may not exactly match your agency’s, depending on your agency’s specific
email systems and litigation hold procedures. Your IT staff will be able to describe the
saving mechanism for your agency, but please also be in touch with me (contact
information below) for assistance with this project.

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ITS FOIL 2014-08
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This new standard may change how some users manage their email. ITS staff will
provide your agency staff with technical guidance specific to your agency’s current email system
and, upon consolidation, the new email program that will be used statewide.
I will be communicating with you to share specific guidance on the implementation of the
email consolidation and standardization described here. If you have questions about the
implementation of this standardized email process, please contact me.
Contact information: Karen Geduldig: (518) 474-3019, karen.geduldig@its.ny.gov
John Cody:
(518) 473-5115 john.cody@its.ny.gov

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ITS FOIL 2014-08
000003

 
 
 
 
 
 
ANDREW M. CUOMO
 
Governor
 

 
Empire State Plaza
P.O. Box 2062
y, NY 12220-006
62
Albany
ww
ww.its.ny.gov

 

BRIAN DIG
GMAN
NY
YS Chief Information Officer
D
Director, Office o
of IT Services

 
MEM
MORANDU
UM
To:

Agency
A
Geneeral Counsels

From: Karen
K
Geduld
dig, General Counsel, NY
YS Office oof Informatioon Technologgy Services
Date: Ju
uly 25, 2013
3
Re:

Email
E
Consollidation and Email Manaagement - Reeminder

As we arre getting clo
oser to the Ju
uly 30, 20131 implementtation date of the 90-dayy email
managem
ment and preservation po
olicy, we wan
nted to makee sure that yyou are prepaared and thatt
your IT staff,
s
whetheer employeess of the NYS
S Office of Innformation T
Technology Services (IT
TS)
or not, haave all of thee information
n and docum
mentation theey need to ennsure a smoooth transitionn
and the continuity
c
off your entity’’s compliancce with its leegal obligatioons. It is exxtremely
importan
nt that no email or ema
ail box be su
ubject to au
utomatic delletion if no d
determinatiion
has been
n made abou
ut its properr disposition
n. Your ageency should
d temporariily exclude ssuch
mailboxees from the email mana
agement and preservattion policy u
until they haave been
reviewed
d. This excllusion shoulld be short-tterm.
In June, you
y received
d charts (cop
py attached) requesting innformation aabout your eentity’s legall or
litigation
n holds, stafff that are out on extended
d leave, dorm
mant email aaccounts andd group
mailboxees. This is reeminder thatt the informaation in thesee charts shouuld be used aas follows:


Lega
al Holds: Th
he ITS profeessional(s) th
hat support yyour agency’’s email systtem must havve
from you, as Gen
neral Counseel of your agency, a docuumented listt of the emaiil boxes (grooup
mailb
boxes and in
ndividual mailboxes) thatt are to be prreserved duee to active orr reasonablyy
likely
y litigation. IT staff need
d the following informattion about thhe email boxxes that mustt be
preseerved:
o The ad
ddress assocciated with th
he mailbox;
o The matter
m
associated with thee mailboxes that are beinng preservedd. The matteer
name is importantt because, fo
or example, iif six monthss from now yyou ask youur IT
with a speciffic matter, yoour IT staff w
will
staff to release thee mailboxes associated w
know exactly who
o is associateed with that matter and, more importtantly, if anyy of
those people shou
uld continue to be held du
due to a diffeerent legal orr litigation hold;
o The tiime frame th
hat each mattter needs conntent held foor.

                                                            
1

July 30, 2013 is the datte of implemen
ntation for the large
l
majority of agencies. If your agency has, in coordinnation
d
thaat special circum
mstances requiire that your im
mplementation date be later thhan July 30, 20013,
with ITS, determined
that determ
mination has no
ot changed, butt these recomm
mendations are relevant to youur agency’s traansition as welll.

ITS FOIL 2014-08
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If your agency is a NYSeMail customer, please send your documented list of email boxes
(group mailboxes and individual mailboxes) that are to be preserved due to active or
reasonably likely litigation to Kathy Shafer (Kathy.Shafer@its.ny.gov) and Moreen Petrella
(Moreen.Petrella@its.ny.gov) from the ITS NYSeMail team with a copy to Deborah Snyder
(Deborah.Snyder@its.ny.gov), ITS’s Deputy Chief Information Security Officer and myself
and John Cody (John.Cody@its.ny.gov) of ITS’s Counsel’s Office.
If your agency is not on NYSeMail but is supported by ITS, please send your documented
list of email boxes (group mailboxes and individual mailboxes) that are to be preserved due
to active or reasonably likely litigation to the ITS professional responsible for supporting
your agency’s email system with a copy to Deborah Snyder, myself and John Cody. If you
are not sure who the ITS professional is that supports your agency’s email system, contact
your Cluster Chief Information Officer. If you do not know who your Cluster Chief
Information Officer is, contact me.
If your agency’s IT professionals have not been transferred to ITS, please send your
documented list of email boxes (group mailboxes and individual mailboxes) that are to be
preserved due to active or reasonably likely litigation to the IT professional responsible for
supporting your agency’s email system. You may provide a copy to me and John Cody if
you would like.


People out on extended leave: The IT professionals who support your agency’s email
system must have from you a documented list of people from your agency who are out on
extended leave so that email will not be automatically purged from those employees’
mailboxes until they have returned to work and had an appropriate amount of time to review
their older email. You can find out who is on extended leave from your HR department if
you have not already obtained that information. Please forward your lists of employees on
extended leave to the persons identified above in the section on Legal Holds.



Group mailboxes: Group mailboxes are subject to the 90-day email management and
preservation policy. Your agency is obligated to identify group mailboxes, review their
content and save what needs to be saved in the manner identified by your agency. The
contents of these group mailboxes are to be managed accordingly going forward. If any
group mailboxes are subject to legal holds, they should be identified in the documented list of
legal holds. The IT professional(s) who support your agency’s email system should be able
to provide you a list of your agency’s group mailboxes if you have not already obtained
them.



Dormant Accounts: Dormant accounts belong to people to have left the agency by
retirement, separation, termination, etc. Like group mailboxes, these mailboxes need to be
reviewed for content that needs to be saved for longer than 90 days.

If any mailboxes have not been reviewed, or you have not yet come to a conclusion about
how to deal with the contents of a mailbox, that mailbox should be identified to the IT
professionals who support your agency’s email system so that content is not automatically
purged from it.

ITS FOIL 2014-08
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

NYSeMail FAQs: For those agencies that utilize NYSeMail, the NYSeMail team has put
together FAQs and a reminder about the 90-day email management and preservation policy.
If you would like to issue it to your staff, please contact me and I will provide the documents
to you. Please note that the NYSeMail team can also issue the information to your agency,
however, NYSeMail will not do so without your express direction.



Sample employee reminder: I recently issued a reminder email to ITS staff about the 90day email management and preservation policy. It addresses some frequently asked
questions from ITS staff related to .PSTs, employee use of third-party storage (third-party
storage is not permitted, and employees can be subject to discipline and legal liability if they
use third-party storage without authorization) and the System Cleanup Folder in NYSeMail.
It is attached for your information. Please feel free to use it as a model for a reminder to your
staff if you think doing so will be helpful, however, be mindful that it was written for ITS
staff whose email is on the NYSeMail email system and archived in the Microsoft Exchange
Hosted Archive (MEHA).



Executive Order 38: For those agencies that are subject to Executive Order 38 (Agriculture
and Markets; Division of Criminal Justice Services; Department of Corrections and
Community Supervision; Department of Health; Department of State; Homes and
Community Renewal; Office for the Aging; Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse
Services; Office of Children and Family Services; Office of Mental Health; Office of People
with Developmental Disabilities; Office of Temporary Disability Assistance; Office of
Victim Services) please add to your documented list of mailboxes on legal or litigation hold
the email box associated with Executive Order 38 waivers so that these mailboxes can be
placed on legal hold. We are doing so in order to treat these like mailboxes consistently.

Thank you for your continued time, attention and patience as we move toward a consistent 90day email management and preservation policy. Your questions, comments and insights have
been extremely helpful and we appreciate your commitment and guidance.

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000006

E‐mail Migration and Retention Schedule Changes 
Mailboxes Requiring Special Review 
 
Instructions: 
 Please fill out and return this document to your Assistant Counsel by COB 6/12/13.   
 Attach to this document any draft guidance you will be providing to staff on how to evaluate the 
contents of their e‐mail for record retention purposes. 
 Add rows to each section as needed. 
 
 
Legal Holds 
 
Hold Start 
Case/Subject Matter 
Mailbox/Account Name 
Custodian(s) 
Date 
1 

 

 

 

 

2 

 

 

 

 

3 

 

 

 

 

4 

 

 

 

 

5 

 

 

 

 

6 

 

 

 

 

7 

 

 

 

 

8 

 

 

 

 

9 

 

 

 

 

10   

 

 

 

11   

 

 

 

12   

 

 

 

 
Employees on Formal Leave 
 
Name 

Expected 
Return Date 

Mailbox/Account Name 

1 

 

 

 

2 

 

 

 

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000007

3 

 

 

 

4 

 

 

 

5 

 

 

 

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8 

 

 

 

9 

 

 

 

10   

 

 

11   

 

 

12   

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
Dormant E‐mail Accounts 
 

Date 
Account 
Became 
Dormant 

Mailbox/Account Name 

Person Assigned to Review 

1 

 

 

 

2 

 

 

 

3 

 

 

 

4 

 

 

 

5 

 

 

 

6 

 

 

 

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ITS FOIL 2014-08
000008

10   

 

 

11   

 

 

12   

 

 

 
Group Mailboxes 
 
Mailbox/Account Name 

Person Assigned to Review 

1 

 

 

2 

 

 

3 

 

 

4 

 

 

5 

 

 

6 

 

 

7 

 

 

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11   

 

12   

 

 
 
 
 
 

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000009

 
 

TO:    All ITS Staff 
FROM: Karen Geduldig, General Counsel  
DATE:  June 18, 2013 
RE:   Email Management Policy 
 
The State has been engaged in several initiatives to help government work more efficiently and 
consistently, including IT consolidation and transformation.  A more efficient and consistent 
government means that we are more accountable, responsive and transparent to the public we 
serve.  A next step in making government work better is standardizing how we, as a State, 
manage our email.   
 
 At its current pace, the State is creating enormous amounts of email data that is difficult 
to manage and interferes with operations.   
 The State Archives has determined that most email communication does not constitute 
records that must be preserved under the law.   
 Retaining only email that is directly relevant to operations and/or that is required by law 
to be retained will improve agency operations, knowledge transfer and succession 
planning. 
 Federal agencies and corporations have implemented email management policies 
wherein email messages are purged from their systems 30, 60, or 90 days from the date 
sent or received, for example.  Such a system will aid the State in improving its email 
management.  
 
Standard email management will also ease migration of State email systems to the cloud, 
something that, as you may know, will be taking place in the upcoming months.  Therefore, 
starting on June 30, 2013, email sent and received by persons working for State agencies, 
including ITS, will be subject to a 90‐day preservation period.  As described in more detail 
below, you will have at least 30 days (at least until July 30) to review and appropriately save 
email sent or received prior to June 30, 2013. 
 
Email boxes that are subject to a legal or litigation hold will not be subject to the 90‐day 
email preservation period.  You will never be required to delete email that you need to save.   
 
How the 90‐day Email Preservation Period Works: 
 
 The 90‐day email preservation period will be effective June 30, 2013.  
 Any email that you send or receive on or after June 30, 2013 will automatically be 
purged 90 days after it is sent or received, EXCEPT 
o Email content in ITS email boxes that are subject to a litigation hold (see FAQ 3 
below) or other legal hold, e.g., it may be responsive to a current FOIL request.   
o Email content that must be saved for longer than 90 days or is needed for 
ongoing operational purposes (it must be appropriately saved by the user, 

1 
 

ITS FOIL 2014-08
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otherwise the email will be subject to the 90‐day email preservation period, see 
FAQs 2, 4 & 5).  
    


You may have a significant amount of email in your ITS active mailbox that pre‐dates 
June 30, 2013.  You will have at least 30 days to review old email in your active mailbox.   
 
Date E‐mail Received/Sent 
Date Automatically Purged 
On or before 5/1/13 
7/30/13 
After 5/1/13 
90 days after email was sent or 
received.  Example: Email received 
on 5/2/13, will be purged 7/31/13 
 
o All email 60 or more days old on June 30, 2013 (i.e. all email from May 1, 2013, 
and earlier) will not be deleted until July 30, 2013, 30 days after the new 
schedule is implemented.  This is also the date on which it will be 90 or more 
days old.   
o All email less than 60 days old on June 30 will be purged when it reaches 90 days 
old (i.e. email from May 30, 2013 will be purged on August 28, 2013). 



This means you have until July 30, 2013, to: 
 
o Review  the email in your active mailbox that was sent or received by you on or 
before May 1, 2013; 
o Identify email that you are required to save and/or need to save for ongoing 
operational project purposes and appropriately save those emails. 
 

 

FAQs: 
 
1. What is the active mailbox?  Your active mailbox is what you would typically call your 
inbox and outbox or “sent mailbox,” as well as subfolders.  It contains the email you 
send or receive until it is deleted from your active mailbox. 
 
2. How do I identify email messages that are required to be saved for longer than 90 
days?  In addition to legal or litigation holds (see FAQ 3), email content may be required 
to be retained for certain periods of time pursuant to existing agency records retention 
schedules.  The records retention schedules applicable to you will not be changing at 
this time, so anything you would have saved pursuant to the schedule prior to 
implementation of the 90‐day email preservation period should still be saved.   
 
ITS records retention schedules are broken up by business function (finance, billing, 
procurement, IT systems, human resources, etc.).  It is a good time to review the 
schedules and the types of records you create – both in email and otherwise – so that 
you can retain these records appropriately and consistently.  ITS’s records retention 
2 
 

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000011

 
 

schedules are made up of two parts.  The first part of ITS’s records retention schedules 
are the same as NYS Archives’ “General Retention and Disposition Schedule for New 
York State Government Records” and are available at   
http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/records/mr_pub_genschedule_accessible.html.  The 
second part of ITS’s records retention schedules are attached to this memo.  If you have 
questions about the application of ITS’s records retention schedules to your records, 
please contact ITS’s Records Access Officer or Counsel’s Office.  
 
According to NYS Archives, most email communications are not records that must be 
retained and are therefore suitable for immediate destruction.  Some messages and 
attachments are records and should be maintained in appropriate electronic or paper 
files and disposed of consistent with applicable records retention schedules.  NYS 
Archives has material, resources and guidelines, much of which is available online, to 
help individuals identify records that must be retained for records retention purposes.  
Visit NYS Archives’ website for guidance and information on records retention:  
http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/records/index.shtml and      
http://www.archives.nysed.gov/a/workshops/workshops_handouts_email.shtml 
  
3. My email is subject to a legal or litigation hold.  How will the 90‐day email 
preservation period affect me?  The 90‐day email preservation period does not apply to 
ITS email that is subject to a litigation hold.  If an employee’s email is on legal or 
litigation hold, none of his/her email will be purged until the legal or litigation hold is 
released by ITS Counsel. The 90‐day email preservation period will go into effect for that 
email once the hold is released (the user will be given time to review contents), so it is 
still important that users retain any records received by email in an organized fashion in 
accordance with retention schedules.  If the contents of an employee’s email are 
potentially responsive to a FOIL request, the email account should be put on hold until 
all required documents have been produced to the FOIL officer. 
 

4. How do I identify email messages that need to be saved for longer than 90‐days for 
ongoing operational project purposes?  We recognize that some email is not required 
to be saved pursuant to records retention schedules but is highly relevant and useful to 
the execution and implementation of ongoing ITS work.  Email content that will enable 
the furtherance of ITS work should be retained.  Email content that is non‐essential to 
ITS work, outdated or related to resolved matters and serves no further purpose should 
not be saved, unless the email content is required to be saved for legal reasons. 
 
5. How do I appropriately save email content that is required or needs to be saved for 
longer than 90 days?  For ITS employees the appropriate way to save email content that 
must be saved for longer than 90 days is in a special type of folder within your active 
mailbox called “Retain.”  This folder will appear among the folders viewable in your ITS 
active mailbox and will be named in a way that reflects its purpose of saving email 
content for longer than 90 days.  The folder will count toward your maximum email box 
size limit so should be used only to save what is required or truly needed; otherwise you 
3 
 

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000012

 
 

will reach your mailbox size limit and will not be able to send or receive email until you 
free up space in your mailbox by deleting appropriate email.  You will be provided with 
more information about the Retain Folder shortly. 

4 
 

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000013

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000014

ITS FOIL 2014-08
000015