Mimecast Personal Portal - Archiving

The images in this article reflect the new MPP User Interface, which could differ from your end user experience. Please review this article for details on switching to the new UI.

This article provides information on using Mimecast Personal Portal for archiving, including mailbox storage management, GDPR compliance, browsing and searching archive folders, managing saved searches, and utilizing Smart tags.

Overview

Messages cannot be deleted or marked as read in Mimecast. This applies to Mimecast Personal Portal and other end-user applications (Mimecast for Outlook, Mimecast Mobile, Mimecast for Mac). The delete or mark as read option is not enabled on Mimecast because of the archiving feature, which displays all messages that are sent via Mimecast or copies of them sent to the Mimecast platform via journaling.

Mailbox Storage Management

As a view of your email archive, Mimecast displays all messages received for an end-user. This is regardless of whether these have been deleted from your corporate environment. Microsoft Exchange is the most common mail server used by Mimecast customers, and you can search for emails in Mimecast Personal Portal that have been archived or deleted by your organization.

Legal Obligations

Email won't be deleted from Mimecast, as your administrators may have legal requirements to fulfill around the retention of these items. If a message is accidentally deleted from your Outlook profile, Mimecast allows you to recover it into Outlook. Marking an email as read means Mimecast would need to update each message for each customer and send updates regarding email status back to the Microsoft Exchange server. 

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Compliance

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulatory requirement designed to:

• Harmonize data privacy laws across Europe.
• Protect and empower all EU citizens' data privacy.
• Reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy.

It isn't an end-user function. All GDPR requests must be directed to your administrator. See GDPR for full details.

Archive Folders 

Archive Folders allow you to access your messages in the same folders as you access them in your mailbox. This is true even if your mail server is unavailable or the message has been deleted. The Mimecast Personal Portal displays the current location for each message, or if a message has been deleted from your mail server, the last location before it was deleted.

Applies To:

• End users of the Mimecast Personal Portal.
• Accounts with Mimecast Synchronization Engine folder synchronization enabled.

Browsing Archive Folders

There is a known issue, where navigating to Archive Folders | Sent Items displays message details as From, Subject and date and time, and not as To, Subject and date and time.

You can browse Archive Folders, by using the following steps:

1. Select the Archive Folders icon from the main menu on the left-hand side.

2. Select a folder to browse the contents.

All emails that were ever present in the folder will be displayed if Mimecast has archived them. If your administrators have provided you with the permissions, you can switch to Live View using the drop-down menu above the folder tree. This will display only the messages and folder structure visible in Outlook as it was when synchronization last ran.

Including Deleted Folders

You can view folders that have been deleted, either because of your mailbox retention rules or your administrator undertaking some mailbox management.

Click on the Include Deleted Folders option to include archived folders deleted in your search. This enables you to see:

• Your current folder structure (i.e., you can see folders that have been deleted).
• All messages that exist in the folder.

This option offers an additional benefit to users who've accidentally deleted a folder. Switching between your current folder structure (which doesn't display the folder) to a view allows you to recover the deleted folder.

Searching Folders 

You can search your Mimecast Personal Portal folders for messages using a series of search criteria. This includes your Archived Folders, if this is enabled as part of your account package.

Searching a Folder

When an email is manually moved from one user’s mailbox to another, the recipient will be able to see the email in their mailbox but won’t be able to search for it in their Personal Portal Archive. Only emails where the user is the original sender or recipient will appear in Archive search results.

You can search a folder, by using the following steps:

1. Click in the Search Bar at the top of the folder's contents.
2. Either:

•  
  • Click on the icon.
  • Press the Enter key.

If you know the syntax used by the search tool, you can type it in directly into the search box. Each piece of search criteria is entered inside a parenthesis. In the example below, we're searching for messages:

• With a subject of "Sales Report".
• From [e-mail]
• To [e-mail]
• Containing the keywords "First Quarter".

You can refine a search query, by using the following steps:

1. Click on the Search Options icon.

2. Specify additional search criteria, including:

•  
  • Date Range
  • From Address
  • To Address
  • Subject
  • Keywords
  • Attachment

3. Click on the Search button.

Sorting the Search Results

When the search results are first displayed, they are in descending order (i.e. the newest message is at the top of the results). You can toggle the results to sort between the oldest or newest results.

• Click on the Newest icon to sort by the oldest results. The icon's wording changes to Oldest, to indicate that the messages are sorted with the oldest displayed first.
• Click on the Oldest icon to sort by the newest results. The icon's wording changes to Newest, to indicate that the messages are sorted with the newest displayed first.

Saving a Search

You can save a search query to use again, by using the following steps:

1. Click on the Search Options icon to the right of the search bar.
2. Click on the Save This Search link in the bottom left hand corner.
3. Specify a Name for the search. A name is automatically provided based on your search criteria, but you can change this. Our example shows "MFO 7.4, Archive, 1 Year" because the search searches the archive for messages less than a year old with a subject of "MFO 7.4".
4. Click on the Save button.

Deleting a Saved Search

You can delete a saved search by using the following steps:

1. Click in the Search Bar at the top of the folder's contents.
2. Hover over the Saved Search to be deleted.
3. Click on the Delete icon to the right of the saved search. The search is removed from your list of saved searches.

Smart Tags 

This section describes how Smart Tags can be utilized by end-users. Smart Tags are permission-based folders used to share email data that you are not the sender or recipient of. Using the Mimecast Personal Portal, you can browse and access the content of these emails, as well as forward the messages to additional recipients.

Messages in a Smart Tag cannot be deleted or modified, and permission to access them can only be assigned by your Administrator.

Usage Examples

There are many reasons why Smart Tags could be implemented. Consider the following examples:

• The Administrator may need to allow staff to access emails that were sent or received by another account or email address. For example, if your organization uses a generic address, such as [e-mail], it's possible to assign permission to other users in the business, to access the emails sent to or from this generic address.
• Project team members may need access to all emails relating to a specific project, regardless of which team member sent or received these emails. Smart Tags allow users to easily browse, view and forward email content linked to the project.

You can browse Smart Tags, by using the following steps:

1. Log in to the Mimecast Personal Portal.
2. Select the Smart Tags icon from the left-hand menu.

3. Select the required Smart Tag from the list. All tagged emails display.
4. Browse the Smart Tag as you would an online inbox by using the Search bar, or the Selection drop down menu at the top of the message list.
5. To further narrow your search, click on the Search Options icon to the right of the Search bar. A pop up dialog displays.
6. Select or enter your desired search criteria from the fields.
7. Click on the Search button; emails that meet your criteria are displayed.
8. Click on any message to view the desired content.
9. Forward selected messages to additional recipients if required.

Your Administrator can configure Mimecast to archive your files along with your emails. If enabled, files from your My Documents folders and Network Shared Drives repositories will be available in the Mimecast Personal Portal. These files will be available in a separate view in the portal, and are accessible from any of the user tools.