Managing Email - Best Practices

This information is intended to introduce to you several suggestions on how to be a “good citizen” in terms of using Duquesne email. Like any community, using email properly consists of avoiding certain behaviors. Below you will find a brief list of what to do and what to avoid:

DO:

• Visit our SPAM / PHISHING Resource page
• Report Spam/Phishing/Virus emails to the CTS Help Desk immediately and check www.duq.edu/cts to see if CTS is aware of the newest threat.
• Clean up your mail: Delete messages that you no longer need—some common practices include emptying your trash and outgoing mail folders. This applies especially to attachments that you may have, which fill up your mailbox far more quickly than standard messages.
• Attend to your mailbox quota: As a Duquesne University email user, you will be notified by email when you reach 75%, 90%, and 95% of your allocated storage space. Upon reaching 95%, you will be notified daily. See the document on “Account Over Quota” for specific instruction.
• Store large attachments locally: If you need to save attachments, or even large messages, download them to your hard drive. The average hard drive is about 10GB (=10000MB); this will give you plenty of space to store data that comes through email

DON’T:

• Respond to any email with confidential information (username, password, social security number, etc.). No legitimate business will ever ask for this information via email.
• Click on links or attachments in email unless you are expecting them.
• Send out mass mailings: SPAM taxes server and network resources unnecessarily, and most people delete the messages without reading them anyway.
• Send out large attachments: For dial-up users, big attachments take extended periods to download. Use good judgment before sending attachments.
• Leave your mail on the server: If you use a POP client like Eudora or Outlook, make sure that you are storing your email on your local hard drive instead of the server. See the document on leaving mail on the server for additional information.

Mass Mailing information:

When University departments need to send emails to a large group of people, (more than 300) please notify the help desk during your planning phase. Large mass emails can obstruct the flow of normal email during peak use hours. Do not send a large email via Outlook. We use Lyris distribution lists or our Student Mass Mailer application for these purposes because these methods are automatically delayed until 8 p.m. to avoid this conflict.

People that intend on sending mass mailings should abide by the chart below to not cause unnecessary Spam during peak use hours:

Call the CTS Help Desk at 412-396-4357 or 1-888-355-8226 or email help@duq.edu if you have any questions or comments on this information.