Vanity Be Thy Email Name

As every experienced network administrator knows, standardization lowers the total cost of ownership. Creating standards lowers helpdesk support calls and facilitates easier maintenance. Companies establish standards for everyone using the same software and hardware. Server hardware configurations are standard for every new application implementation. Each server uses the same hard drive configuration, same memory chips and all software service packs are all the same version. So issues encountered with any server around the world can be easily resolved.

Change management committees ensure there are standards in system modification procedures. Other administrative committees keep company operating procedures standard. There is much long term value in standardization. This results in efficient company operations that directly impact the company bottom line.

Something as simple as creating an email address should not be exempt from company standardization. Often times this is not the case. I’ve seen companies that allow employees to pick their own email address, use only their first name in the address or change their email address whenever it suits them. The end result makes life very easy for spammers and creates support nightmares for email administrators. Helpdesk calls increase with people complaining about the spam filter not working, because they are receiving tons of spam.

As an email administrator, your role dictates fearlessly stepping up to the plate. Ignoring objections, champion email address naming standards that:

• Maintain a professional company image
• Provides a naming convention everyone follows
• Prevents vanity email addresses from being created by employees
• Are unique, but make it extremely difficult for spam machines to guess
• Makes it easy for current and future administrators to maintain uniformity in creating email addresses

Certainly you have more control if you have the opportunity to implement an email system from the beginning. If you inherit administration of an email system, it’s more difficult to change email addresses. There are ways you can build a case for getting management authorization. Your spam filter logs are excellent tools for presenting reasons why email addresses need to be changed.

Your job is many times harder, if email address naming standards are not implemented and enforced by senior management. It is definitely worth the extra effort.