SaveMe: a system for archiving electronic documents using messaging groupware

Today, organizations deal with an ever-increasing number of documents that have to be archived because they are either related to their core business (e.g., product designs) or needed to meet corporate or legal retention requirements (e.g., voucher). In this paper, we present the architecture and prototype implementation of SaveMe, a document archival system that is based on network-centric groupware such as Internet standards-based messaging systems. In SaveMe, the actions of archiving, retrieving, and classifying documents are similar to the actions of sending, retrieving, and classifying email into folders. SaveMe leverages existing messaging infrastructures - the one common denominator sitting on every computer is email - and, thus, it does not require individual users and IT personnel to learn a new technology. The resulting environment is not intrusive, easier to administer, and a lot easier to deploy.