Last modified on:06/11/2010

Business Class E-mail

Description

Business Class E-mail service through Lotus Notes (aka Notes) provides a full range of secure e-mail and calendaring options plus connectivity to a wide range of collaboration tools for agencies that rely heavily on e-mail and automation in their daily business.

Functionality includes:

• Room and resource reservations
• Meeting scheduling
• Encrypted transmission capability
• Archiving of old mail
• Backup and recovery
• Secure transmission of e-mail between all users in the system
• A common directory of all State e-mail addresses
• Gateway spam blocking and virus protection
• Failover and recoverability
• Integration with applications such as online forms, workflow software, and e-fax
• Connectivity to collaboration tools such as secure instant messaging, document management, software applications, wireless devices, etc.
• 24x7 system service with on-call pager support

Business Value

The Business Class E-Mail package allows customers to focus on their core mission, freeing staff from the technical requirements to provide feature-rich e-mail at a constant high-quality level. Secure transmission of e-mail ensures confidentiality. Gateway-based blocking of viruses reduces downtime due to virus infestations. Integration with applications can improve productivity and accountability.

By consolidating e-mail systems to the Basic E-Mail and Business Class E-Mail packages, the State of Nebraska is reducing support costs and ensuring secure communications.

Customer Profile

State agencies, boards, and commissions; political subdivisions (e.g., cities, counties, community colleges and school districts); and federal agencies whose business relies heavily on e-mail and automation

Service Cost

Monthly hosting includes user ID administration, backup, and recovery support.
Lotus Notes Software License is not included.

CIO Services Catalog (pdf)
Section: Email, Efax and Collaboration Services

Major Cost Drivers/Cost-Saving Tips

• Size of Mail Files – Larger files take up more disk space which increases customer costs. Very large mail files are more prone to corruption thus increasing need for assistance and loss of productivity to the customer. Larger mail files have slower response time and cause lag time for the customer.
• Archiving – Archiving reduces your disk space cost. In addition to the items under size of mail files, archiving removes older, less used items from the active mail file, which is clustered and thus takes up twice as much disk space as an archived file.
• Mail File Maintenance - Customers should always delete unneeded mail as soon as possible while still adhering to a retention policy. Less mail, less disk space, less cost.
• Tip Databases – If customers use the help files and the tips databases and rely less on the help desk and Notes administrators, the cost of Lotus Notes is reduced.

How to Order Service

The Office of the CIO Help Desk may be reached at 1-800-982-2468 or 471-4636 or 471-INFO or by e-mailing GWI.Support@nebraska.gov . 

Responsibilities for Service Delivery

Customer Responsibilities

• Provide information necessary to authorize a new e-mail account and desktop software setup (see below).
• Provide information necessary to authorize a change to an e-mail account such as transfer, name change, termination.
• If training is desired, provide information on the specific training desired, the number of students, and location.
• Maintain network-connected computer(s) for agency users.
• Purchase appropriate licensing for the Lotus Notes service required under ELA.
• If Notes installation service is desired which would include the following, contact Desktop Support through the Office of the CIO IT Services Help Desk rather than the Lotus Notes team:
• New workstation
• Notes software upgrades
• Corrupted files
• User relocations
• Multiple user locations

• Communicate options involved with Business Class E-mail.
• Communicate upgrades, maintenance, or other disruptions in service.
• Communicate upgrades, maintenance, or other disruptions in service.
• Maintain enterprise license agreement (ELA) with IBM to provide the most economical purchase arrangement.
• Coordinate with other Office of the CIO teams to maintain current policies and procedures.
• Provide spam and virus blocking.
• Provider user support during normal business hours.
• Provide training upon request on a time and materials basis.

Service Goals

• Business Class E-Mail servers are available 24 hours per day 7 days a week.
• Redundant fail-over capability provides uninterrupted service plus full backup and recovery functionality.
• Scheduled downtimes occasionally are needed for system maintenance and upgrade but are planned to not interrupt service. From January 2004 thru December 2005, service was interrupted 0 times by Business Class E-mail server downtime.

• All attachments within the Business Class E-mail environment are checked.
• Viruses are addressed immediately with updates and available methods.
• Office of the CIO IT Services sends out security notices to customers including virus notifications.

Customer Prerequisites (For Quality Service)

Lotus Notes users may not share common e-mail accounts or passwords. A mail-in database can be created for workgroups needing a shared mailbox. There is a hosting and storage fee for mail-in databases; however, no license is required. The mail-in database can be used by licensed Lotus Notes users who have been authorized access.

Agencies should follow State recommendations for upgrading to new Lotus Notes versions. Desktop Support can provide workstation installation support when the agency does not have technical staff in the office.

Business Class E-mail is not recommended for users using a dedicated 56K line or dial-up connection.

Users should read and understand the State’s Network Acceptable Use Policy.

Useful E-mail Links:

Unsolicited Bulk E-mail (UBE)/Spam
http://its.ne.gov/tech_serv/email/ube/index.html

Secure E-Mail for State Government Agencies
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/secure_email_20021113.pdf (PDF 103k)

E-mail Standard for State Government Agencies
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/email/emailstandard_20050614.pdf (PDF 36k)

Blocking Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail / "Spam"
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/spam_20031113.pdf (PDF 104k)

Blocking E-mail Attachments
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/attachment_blocking_20031113.pdf (PDF 100k)

Lotus Notes Guidelines for State Government Agencies
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/Lotus_Notes_Guidelines_20050315.pdf (PDF 87k)

Lotus Notes Standards for State Government Agencies
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/Lotus_Notes_Standards_20050315.pdf (PDF 94k)

Use of Computer-based Fax Services by State Government Agencies
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/efax.pdf (PDF 103k)

Best Practices for Management of Lotus Notes E-mail Records
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/lotus_notes_20031211.pdf (PDF 106k)

Support

We encourage agencies to have an agency contact who can serve as an onsite liaison for their office. The liaison would assist agency users to discern problems and report them to the Office of the CIO Help Desk. The Help Desk staff may recommend solutions to common, easily-solved issues. They will escalate calls to the appropriate Lotus Notes team if not resolved by a common solution.

The Notes team will work with the person reporting the problem when necessary. An example would be when a mail file needs to be restored. Other requests not requiring coordination may be completed and an e-mail will notify the customer of completion. An example would be when a mail list is updated.

Related Products

Basic E-Mail (A comparison (PDF 175k) of Business Class E-Mail and Basic E-Mail is available.)
Workflow Automation – Lotus Notes Applications
Wireless Services - Blackberry
E-fax
Also ask us about Sametime

Glossary/Expanded Definitions

Archiving – Lotus Notes e-mail can be archived for clients who need to keep important items for extended periods of time but would like the items kept separate from current e-mail. One current policy is to archive unused mail after 6 months. The client is responsible for maintaining/deleting items in their e-mail archives.

Collaboration tools – Lotus Notes provides connectivity to a number of tools that help people work together. These can be databases, online forms with workflow, discussion and tracking databases, calendaring applications, instant messaging, e-fax, electronic document management, interaction with wireless devices, etc. Some solutions are readily available to users, while some may be custom solutions for your agency.

E-fax – E-fax is a faxing service interconnected to Lotus Notes. Faxes can be sent and received from a Lotus Notes e-mail ID. Outgoing faxes are routed from your workstation through a Notes fax server to the recipient’s fax machine. Incoming faxes are received by the Notes fax server and delivered to your Notes e-mail.

Encrypted transmission – The encryption or “scrambling” of an e-mail message to prevent people other than the intended receiver from reading it. The recipient normally uses a “public key“ to decipher the message.

Failover – When a server suffers a slowdown or outage, Lotus Notes is configured to redirect the user to a failover server so that service is not interrupted.

User Account Information – User Account Information includes full name, agency name/organizational unit, phone number, agency Lotus Notes contact, Job Code/Work Order number, and effective date.

Quotas – Quotas refer to the upper storage limitations for e-mail inboxes.

Recoverability – Lotus Notes is routinely backed up. Recoverability addresses the individual user, the agency, or all Notes users—assuring that business recovery is possible whether it is a user’s mail file or the Lotus Notes e-mail system.

Retention Period - The state's retention policy is in Schedule 124 if the agency does not have its own unique policy - http://www.sos.state.ne.us/admin/record_manage/

Workers Compensation Court is a good example of an agency retention policy.
WCC's Schedule - http://www.sos.state.ne.us/admin/record_manage/pdf/schedule_20.pdf (PDF 114k)

Best Practices for Management of Lotus Notes E-mail Records -
http://www.nitc.state.ne.us/standards/groupware/lotus_notes_20031211.pdf (PDF 106k)

Sametime – Lotus Sametime is a secure, business-class instant messaging (IM) service that works in conjunction with Lotus Notes. With online awareness, instant messaging, application sharing, and virtual meetings, Lotus Sametime helps your organization be more responsive and more efficient by enabling your employees, customers, partners and suppliers to easily interact with one another online in real-time. Real-time collaboration is a natural extension to e-mail. It’s not just about chat; it’s about using the Web to improve customer service, reduce travel costs, and create communities among your employees, customers, partners and suppliers.

Secure e-mail – E-mail exchanged within a system behind a firewall. This e-mail does not go out of the system through the SMTP servers where is can be exposed to hacking.

Spam – Unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE) is the electronic version of junk mail that is sent to a large group of people who have not requested the information or solicitation.

User ID administration – User ID administration involves the creation of new e-mail accounts for newly hired staff, termination of IDs for staff who are leaving, changing of staff names, etc. Coordination will include determining options for new IDs and terminating.

Virus - A virus is malicious computer code that may be sent to you as an e-mail or attachment. If activated, the virus can cause unexpected and/or harmful activity on your computer.

Wireless device - A wireless device can communicate with other devices, in this case Lotus Notes, without being physically attached to the network. Blackberries, Palm Pilots, pagers, etc. are used in conjunction with Lotus Notes e-mail.