| Your concern | Ad hoc filing | With Ideagen Mail Manager |
|---|---|---|
| “We can’t find the email that proves what was agreed if a client disputes it” | Filing is manual and inconsistent, reliant on individual habits | Every message is filed automatically to the project, so the evidence is there when you need it |
| “Finding an old email means asking around and hoping someone remembers” | Retrieval is slow and depends on who filed what and where | Retrieval is fast, from one central searchable record — anyone on the project can find it themselves |
| “We’d be exposed if a regulator or client ever audited our correspondence” | Compliance risk is high, with gaps in the correspondence record | Compliance risk is controlled, with a complete audit trail |
| “When someone leaves, their project knowledge leaves with them” | Continuity depends on individual habits — knowledge leaves when people do | Project email is retained regardless of staff changes, so the next person picks up exactly where the last one left off |
Email management: what it is, why it matters and how to get it right
Project decisions are usually agreed by email - and rarely filed anywhere a colleague, an auditor or a client could find them again.
Ideagen Mail Manager closes that gap inside Outlook, so your team keeps working the way it already does while every message becomes part of a searchable, dispute-ready project record. Nothing to migrate, no new inbox to learn.
Trusted by leading project-based firms for 20+ years
What is email management?
Email management means filing and storing business email so it's found, shared and relied on as a record - not left in one person's inbox.
For project-based, regulated firms, that record doubles as evidence: what was agreed, when and by whom. Get that right, and a client dispute becomes one search instead of five inboxes to chase.
Why email management matters
Most project information still lives in email. Filed inconsistently, or left in someone's personal inbox, it costs time to search for, adds risk if a dispute ever arises, and disappears the moment that person leaves the business.
Curious what good email management actually delivers? See the full benefits of managing it properly.
What changes when email is managed properly
4
hours saved per person/week
100%
filing compliance
3
second email discovery
What good email management software actually does
Email management software adds four things to Outlook that manual filing cannot deliver consistently: reliable filing, fast retrieval, connection to the systems where project work already happens, and no lock-in to where the data actually lives. It sits inside Outlook without replacing it, so there is nothing new for your team to learn.
Automatic filing
Stop chasing colleagues for messages they filed differently to everyone else. Every email is filed to a central project location as it's sent and received, with prompts and automation that make consistent filing the default, not an afterthought.
Advanced Search
Find the message that matters in seconds, not days. Every filed email becomes part of a searchable record, so anyone on the project can find it themselves - even from a colleague who has since left the business.
Works with your stack
Keep correspondence next to the rest of the project record. Ideagen Mail Manager connects to the tools project teams already rely on, including Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Teams and Procore, so nothing sits in a separate silo nobody thinks to check.
No vendor lock-in
Every email files directly into your own SharePoint, network drives or ProjectWise - Ideagen Mail Manager doesn't host or store any of it. Stop using it tomorrow, and everything already filed stays exactly where it was filed.
This is what it looks like on paper. See it in your own inbox.
Get a free, personalised demo at a time that works for you.
Get these six things right, and email stops being a liability
Consistent filing, evidence-ready email, ISO 19650 compliance, a BIM record you can rely on, a document system that actually covers email, and continuity when someone leaves - here's how to get each one right.
Getting filing right
Correspondence gets captured in the right place automatically, without relying on memory or manual effort: the foundation everything else on this list depends on.
Making email dispute-ready
Treat every message as evidence from the outset, and the organization is protected long before a dispute ever surfaces.
Closing the ISO 19650 gap
Bring project email inside the same information management discipline that already governs documents, and the correspondence gap ISO 19650 doesn't cover closes with it.
Building a BIM record you can rely on
A single source of truth only works if every part of it is managed, including the email that BIM processes usually leave out.
Covering what SharePoint doesn't
SharePoint and document management systems store files well. Pairing that with proper email management is what makes the project record complete.
Keeping knowledge when people leave
File correspondence to the project instead of the person, and the knowledge stays behind long after someone else has moved on.
Email management by industry: when a missing email becomes a real risk
If you have ever had to explain to a client why a decision can't be evidenced in writing, or lost a project's history when someone resigned, you already know the problem Ideagen Mail Manager solves. The correspondence risk looks slightly different by sector, but the underlying gap - email that lives in someone's personal inbox instead of the project record - is the same.
AEC and Enterprise are covered in detail below. Ideagen Mail Manager also supports consultancy, financial services, law firms, life sciences, logistics, mining and metals, oil and energy, property, defense and aerospace, government institutions and renewables.
Architecture, engineering and construction (AEC)
Design decisions and scope changes on a construction project often live only in email, and disputes about them can surface long after handover.
Ideagen Mail Manager turns that correspondence into a searchable project record, not a set of personal inboxes belonging to a team that may not even be there anymore.
Enterprise
At enterprise scale, filing habits vary team to team. Some rely on folders, some on memory, some on nothing at all.
Ideagen Mail Manager standardizes that across Outlook, SharePoint and Teams, so every team ends up filing the same way without learning a new tool.
What project-based businesses did to make email management work for them
Organizations including Arup, WSP and Nitsch Engineering use Ideagen Mail Manager to manage project email and protect their correspondence record.
Arup
Arup's BIM team built the confidence that any conversation can be found in seconds.
WSP
WSP kept a correspondence archive spanning years, working alongside SharePoint at enterprise scale.
Nitsch Engineering
Nitsch Engineering cut email storage from 222 GB to 35 GB in three months and saved over $10,000 in storage costs.
What changes when ad hoc email filing becomes a managed system
The difference between ad hoc email filing and a managed system shows up across every concern that matters to a project.
Frequently asked questions
Very little. Ideagen Mail Manager installs as an add-in inside the Outlook your team already uses - Classic, New or Outlook on the web. There is no new inbox to learn and no change to how people send or receive email; filing simply becomes automatic once it is set up.
No. Migration tools import historical project email from previous systems, or from a disorganized filing structure, so the project record does not start from zero. Older correspondence is filed, indexed and searchable alongside anything new. An automated Filing Assistant also catches anything left unfiled in a live inbox, scanning on a schedule and filing it against configurable rules.
Under 24 hours for a full organization rollout. Deployment is five steps: download the installer, configure license details, deploy to target machines, connect filing locations, and start filing, with training and implementation support included. There is no server infrastructure to provision, since it is a client-side Outlook add-in with no upfront data migration required.
Yes. Ideagen Mail Manager works as a filing and search layer on top of Microsoft 365 and connects to SharePoint, Teams and Procore, so correspondence sits alongside the rest of the project record without replacing any of the tools your team already uses.
***TO SUPPLY***
Your email stays on your own infrastructure. Ideagen Mail Manager files directly into your existing SharePoint, network drives or ProjectWise rather than hosting any data itself, so there is no separate copy sitting with Ideagen and no vendor lock-in. If you ever stopped using it, every filed email would remain exactly where it was filed.
Still have questions?
Visit our FAQs page for answers to further questions.
Ready to see how Ideagen Mail Manager can help?
Get a free, personalised demo at a time that works for you.