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Enterprise Email
Service Description
Category:
Computing Services
The BCCS Enterprise Email Network provides electronic capability and worldwide connectivity inside and outside State government. The network enables over 53,000 end users who work across multiple agencies, boards, and commissions under the authority of the Governor to send, receive and store email. Roughly 10 million electronic mail messages are delivered each month. BCCS processes an average of 240 requests for new accounts on a monthly basis.
An average of 62% of messages received per month is SPAM. One percent of the messages received per month are blocked for virus reasons. Both the SPAM and the virus email messages are prevented from entering the email system by an enterprise class filtering solution. A file exchange utility is also included as part of the service providing a secure method for sharing confidential data and larger files among email customers.
Calendaring is an essential component of the service allowing people to coordinate and plan events and meetings across this large and diverse population.
Personal Information Management (PIM) Standards provide a centralized and consolidated platform that enables a statewide common PIM architecture, establishes common service levels, provides for consistent provisioning of email accounts and enables administrative efficiencies.
The PIM Standards initiative includes the transition to a standard Illinois.gov email address (i.e., firstname.lastname@illinois.gov) for all state agencies, the creation of a Unified Directory as a SoftSwitch replacement, and the centralization of current email platforms. This statewide initiative has provided a number of benefits and features to customers: a platform for seamless inter-agency email collaboration; a common email address and directory; group and individual calendaring; and consistent service levels and email provisioning across all agencies. The PIM Standards initiative is ongoing. The process for the migration to illinois.gov email addresses and integration with the Unified Directory has been straightforward and is being assisted by BCCS employees.
For more information on the status of the statewide PIM Standards initiative please contact: cms.email.services@illinois.gov.
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What is Included?
Standard Features
- Mailboxes hosted by CMS-managed Microsoft Exchange high availability servers
- Enterprise mail routing, SPAM filtering, and virus protection
- Microsoft Outlook Client software
- Calendaring and scheduling
- Enterprise email archiving
- Webmail access
- Standard disaster recovery
- File transfer utility
- Email journaling (all email transmitted in the Enterprise Email System is kept for one year for investigative purposes)
- Illinois.gov email address and a Statewide Unified Directory
- As part of the centralized email environment, access is available through State-owned mobile devices.
Enterprise Email Archive Vault:
BCCS provides an Enterprise Email Archive Vault framework to manage email at no additional cost to the customer. Enterprise Email Archive Vault automatically archives items from your mailbox. Older email and their attachments and calendar item attachments are moved to the Vault, which can easily be searched to view or retrieve an item that has been archived. This solution keeps older items out of mailboxes in order to minimize and manage mailbox size. Some of the advantages of this solution are:
- Provides secure centralized storage and retrieval in a managed replicated environment
- Provides full indexing and search capability via robust search engines
- Eliminates the need for Microsoft legacy archiving methods
- Reduces Tier 1 storage costs by reducing the mailbox sizes and eliminating the archives stored on network servers
For more information on the Enterprise Email Vault, please see the “Supporting Documents” section at Resources.
Non-Standard Features
Enterprise Email service option for Priority Disaster Recovery:
Native Enterprise Exchange customers have the ability to select a priority disaster recovery option for individual staff. This option would provide those designated staff with the security of knowing that their respective access to email, mobile devices, and Enterprise Email archiving services will have a higher priority than standard Enterprise Email accounts for recovery and stabilization in the event of a disaster or other major problem affecting the Enterprise Email System. Please go to Enterprise Email service option for Priority Disaster Recovery for more information.
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What Should You Expect?
- This service is available to customers 24 x 7, excluding planned outages, maintenance windows and unavoidable events.
- Roughly ninety percent of email installations occur within one week. Placing requests at least two weeks in advance of a person reporting to work, where a PC is available, best ensures the email account, login, and storage will be established in a timely manner. Requests can also follow PC installation requests and become a sub-task of that service request (please see PC catalog for recommended installation notices).
- Email accounts are disabled immediately upon request. All such accounts are disabled in less than one working day, pre-notice of the effective end date to BCCS is recommended. These requests should be placed with an urgent priority to the BCCS Service Desk.
- Enterprise email support is available through the Service Desk Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
- Customer partnership migrating to a secure Exchange server environment engineered for high availability.
- Real-time blocking of email SPAM and viruses.
- Tracking of Customer email account changes.
- Notification of any scheduled maintenance or outages.
- Active assistance, partnership, and consulting blending business messaging needs with technological capabilities.
- Tracking of service costs and invoicing.
- On-going Customer Service Center, Service Desk enhancements and quality assurance efforts.
- Centralized email environment - The migration to a centralized email environment has begun and will continue with the goal of migrating all state agencies.
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How Can You Help?
You can help manage costs for Email Service by adopting the following practices:
- Clean out your mailbox on a regular basis - detach attachments to your personal network drive.
- Don't use email as a document storage solution.
- Archive your email on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis.
- Explore alternative ways (such as the File Transfer Utility) to transfer large files that require significant bandwidth to send and receive (movies, design files, etc.).
- Refrain from sending large files to multiple users if possible.
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Rates
| Item |
Unit of Measure |
Debit Code |
Prior Rates |
07.01.2012 Rates |
| Standard Usage Fee |
Per Email Box per Month |
403 |
$ 12.50
|
$ 12.50
|
| Option For Priority Disaster Recovery |
Per Email Box per Month in Addition to Standard Usage Fee |
TBD |
$ 3.00
|
$ 3.00
|
Enterprise Email Rates (July 2012)
FY2013 SSRF Rate Structure (PDF, 15KB)
* For more information on BCCS Service Rates please contact
Ted.Hasara@illinois.gov
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Service Order Information
To request a new or modify an existing Email account, please submit an
IT Service Modification Addendum [XLS, 1MB].To request the Enterprise Email service option for Priority Disaster Recovery, please submit an
Enterprise Service Request.
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Need More Information?
For questions contact a service representative by email:
cms.email.services@illinois.gov.
For more information on mobile messaging, please contact
cms.bessupport@illinois.gov.
For additional support information please see the following:
BlackBerry PKI Profile Microsoft Outlook Training
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