Pro Juventute, a leading child welfare organization in Austria, dedicates itself to providing neglected children with a protective and nurturing home. Established in 1947 primarily to assist war orphans, Pro Juventute has since expanded its reach across nearly all of Austria. Today, it operates group homes, street work projects, and child day care facilities, creating a vast network of support for children in need. Funded by donations and public funds, Pro Juventute has made a monumental difference in the lives of over 5,000 children throughout its history.

Meeting Legal Requirements for Archiving

With around 300 staff members primarily using standard office solutions for management and everyday office tasks, Pro Juventute needed a way to easily access older email. Before adopting a dedicated email archiving solution, the organization used a tool that sped up searches by indexing, searching locally across individual mailboxes. However, this method didn't offer a long-term solution to the legal challenges of email archiving in Austria, challenges underscored by specific guidelines in the Commercial Code (UGB) and the Federal Fiscal Code (BAO). Reinhard Pachler, the IT director at Pro Juventute, outlines the situation as follows:

Our data volume was growing steadily, and the legal mandates for compliant archiving were increasing. This applied to both email and other documents and files. In our search for a solution that could handle this, several factors were crucial. The system needed to integrate with our existing IT infrastructure – not the other way around. We also valued support in English that could quickly assist us with any issues. Furthermore, we were looking for a solution that could be flexibly expanded to archive not just email but also documents. Our market analysis identified EMA by ARTEC IT Solutions as the clear winner. A decisive factor was also that EMA utilizes Trusted Computing technology, allowing us to meet all our security requirements without compromise.

As a nonprofit dedicated to helping those in need, Pro Juventute was able to tap into ARTEC's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program. This initiative provides eligible organizations with special discounts on various solutions, tailored to each project's specific requirements. The deployment of the ARTEC appliance was swift and efficient. Due to Pro Juventute's unique network infrastructure, some custom adjustments were necessary during the EMA implementation, particularly to ensure compatibility with the organization's multiple firewall systems. Working closely with ARTEC support, these challenges were quickly and satisfactorily addressed, ensuring a seamless integration into Pro Juventute's operations.

Since then, Pro Juventute has further expanded its system, leveraging an EMA S400 appliance not just for email archiving but also incorporating modules for the secure storage of documents and files. By automating the archiving process and preserving information in its unaltered original formats, the organization meets all legal requirements. Full-text indexing ensures that archived data remains searchable and accessible at all times, providing peace of mind and compliance with ease.

Huge Time Savings for Administrators

Exclusive access to the archive has been a game-changer for administrators who now enjoy significant time savings thanks to the EMA system. "For instance, when our staff need to find an email, they simply send a quick request to an administrator," explains Pachler. What used to turn into a time-consuming and elaborate search process is now straightforward, fast, and effortless. Thanks to EMA's full-text search capabilities, finding the necessary information is incredibly swift. This efficiency boost has been a major win not only for our IT department but also for our colleagues across various facilities, who are all thoroughly impressed with the system's performance.