(^30) 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know
Document Your Process, Then Make Sure It Is Followed
Monte Davis, MCSE
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
DURIng An EMAIl MIgRATIon FRoM onE PlATFoRM To AnoThER, a
woman got married and brought our email system to its knees.
The email flow works like this:
- New emails coming in are delivered through the new email system.
- If the new email system can, it delivers the message to the appropriate
new system user. If not, the message is sent on to the old email system for
delivery. - Emails sent from someone still on the old system to someone still on the
old system are delivered to the appropriate mailbox. However, if the recip-
ient has already been migrated to the new system, the email is automati-
cally forwarded using a “migration” forwarding address created for each
user.
Here’s where the funny part comes in. Once Sally Single was migrated to the
new email system, she had two email addresses, [email protected],
as well as a forwarding email address, [email protected].
All email sent to her from users on the old system would automatically be
forwarded to the new mail system using her “migration” forwarding address.
When Sally got married and changed her name from “Sally Single” to “Sally
Married,” her email address changed as well. However, the person who
renamed Sally’s email address in the new system forgot to change her email
“migration” forwarding address on the old system. So, Sally ended up with the
following addresses.