Journaling is a process where you setup an Exchange process where you send out a copy of every email into one or more journal mailboxes. This process is used to comply with email retention policies or to organize emails and ensure that they’re stored securely.
A lot of businesses have built a large journal archive. Take note that you need to familiarize yourself in using the In-Place Archive and Litigation folder to access the archived or hidden emails.
How to create journal rules
Before you begin working on Office 365 journaling, you must understand the rules used in this procedure. Also, it’s crucial to create an alternative journaling mailbox for some of the undeliverable reports. Once you get these two things completed, you can start journaling.
- First, you need to generate the alternate mailbox. Then, you can proceed to create the rules using Windows PowerShell or the Microsoft Exchange admin center or EAC.
- To create an alternate journal using the EAC, make sure that you log-in using your Office 365 account. Then, look for a button that says “Admin”. Click that to find a menu. You’ll find Exchange on the upper portion of the menu. Select that option to access the EAC.
- If you’re going to use Windows PowerShell, you need to learn about the code that you need to run in the program.
- Once you have access to the Online PowerShell, key in the following, $UserCredential = Get-Credential. Then, check the credential report. Type your school or work position and then the password. After that, you can click OK.
- Again, you must run another prompt: $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic –AllowRedirection
- To check if it worked, you should look for the Exchange Online cmdlets in the PowerShell session. There should be a progress bar denoting the success of the instruction.
Why should you care about journaling?
Unlike in email archiving, journaling may not be included in the compliance policies and regulations. However, corporate officers might still need it in case they want to hold someone liable for a claim made by an employee to one or two of the company’s customers.
Through journaling, the company can verify the veracity of the claims. A corporate officer can create a system where the manager can check the communication between the client and the employee on a regular basis. Then, every quarter, the manager can verify if the employee complies with the rules and regulations set by the company.
Through journaling, the regulating body of the company can sift through the thread of emails sent by the employee to the client. The regulating body might also check other communication lines such as phone calls and fax records.
Journaling is indeed one of the most important IT processes in a company that wants to streamline its processes. It’s an advanced feature that you can find in the Office 365 interface. If you’re not sure how to set it up, there are third-party companies which can readily assist you. This way, you can focus on dealing with other matters in your company.
