Email policy

Under the provisions of the City and County San Francisco administrative code, information resources are the strategic assets of the City and County of San Francisco that will be managed at the direction of the Committee on Information Technology (COIT).

Thus this policy is established to outline the standards for use and management of email systems in the City and County San Francisco (CCSF).

Purpose and scope

The purpose of the COIT e-mail policy is to establish technical standards, policies and operational processes that are applicable to all City and County of San Francisco departments. While not all departments currently adhere to this policy the purpose of this policy is to set the direction for the future direction for operations and technology in this area.

Policy statement

The technical software standard approved for the delivery of e-mail in the City is currently Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange. COIT approved that the CCSF now move to hosted Microsoft Exchange as the new city-wide email strategy for the City. The City started its conversion to hosted Exchange in Summer 2011.

The management of the primary Lotus Notes e-mail system for the City is considered a critical citywide business system that is managed for all City users by the Department of Technology (DT). DT will continue to manage the current primary Lotus Notes Mail environment through the fruition of the hosted Microsoft Exchange rollout. As the rollout progresses, DT e-mail admins…and other approved City agency admins…will continue to manage the e-mail services for the City, within the Microsoft Exchange cloud. For those agencies whom currently manage and support their own internal Exchange on-premise environments…they will continue to do so until an agreement to transition to the hosted Exchange model is reached.

• DT will provide this service to departments based on individual service level agreements.
• Exceptions to this standard can be granted by COIT upon request by department.

The use of the e-mail system is governed by the guidelines outlined in the City and County of San Francisco Employee Handbook and by Department policies.

The following departments are noted as currently maintaining their own e-mail systems:

• Public Utility Commission – MS Exchange
• Library – MS Exchange
• Public Works – MS Exchange
• SFMTA – MS Exchange
• Airport – MS Exchange
• Human Services Agency – Lotus Notes Mail
• City Attorney Office – Lotus Notes Mail

Approved July 1, 2012