Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects

The challenge

VLA had developed their own in-house plugin for email filing. The core problem was that it sat outside the natural email workflow and required a deliberate separate action. Emails accumulated in personal Outlook folders. The intention to file on Friday rarely became reality. 

Limited Outlook storage compounded this. Staff archived emails into PST files, but only one person could access a PST file at a time. When someone needed an old email, they had to open the archive, search manually and close it again before anyone else could look. Outlook's own search was inadequate. Correspondence on projects was hard to access if the person responsible had not filed correctly and in time. 

Kenneth Hansen, ICT and BIM Manager at VLA, recognized the core failure: the system existed but people were not using it.

The solution

VLA initially looked for an all-in-one tool. After evaluating several vendors, they changed approach. A tool that handled email alone and did it properly would outperform one that tried to do everything at 90%. As Kenneth puts it: "I think we had to go for something that could handle the mail alone, because that could be done 100 percent, and not 90 percent." 

The firm piloted Ideagen's Mail Manager on the JOYN Hotel Copenhagen project with around five users. The COVID-19 pandemic extended the trial period, with staff working remotely across Copenhagen. The transition was painless and effortless despite the circumstances. VLA also simplified their filing approach, moving from complex folder hierarchies to a single bucket per project and relying on Ideagen's Mail Manager search to find what was needed. 

Once the decision was made to roll out fully, Kenneth presented the business case to the CEO and senior leadership. Licenses were purchased, onboarding was divided into smaller groups with sessions delivered by the Ideagen's Mail Manager team and recorded for new starters. Project managers received separate training on migrating historical emails from Outlook. Administration staff onboarding was planned as a subsequent phase. 

The results

VLA now has approximately 100 users actively filing emails across more than 60 projects, with new users and projects added regularly. Of those 100 users, only around five questioned the transition, and mostly before they had used the system. Once people started using it, resistance evaporated. 

Staff feedback from VLA's own onboarding slide captures the shift: "With Mail Manager it's a lot easier to put more time and effort into the projects and not in the filing process." Another team member noted: "It's simple and quick. A very powerful search function." 

For Kenneth personally, the biggest change is in how he finds project correspondence. As he describes it:

Key outcomes

• ~100 users across 60+ projects, growing daily 
• Only 5 out of 100 users questioned the transition, mostly before using the system 
• PST file bottleneck eliminated: project emails accessible to all relevant staff simultaneously 
• Emails archived with the full project folder at completion, unified with drawings and documentation 
• Access controls mirror project assignments: staff can only see and file to their own projects 
• New staff onboarded through pre-recorded training sessions as standard 

What this means for firms like yours

For architecture firms managing dozens of live projects, the question is not whether you will eventually need to find an old email. It is whether you will be able to find it when that moment arrives: when a client disputes what was agreed, when a decision needs defending or when a project team needs to understand what happened years earlier. 

Kenneth's advice to firms considering the move is pragmatic: calculate how many hours are spent searching for emails, consider where those emails actually are right now, then decide whether the status quo is sustainable.