RECORDS MANAGEMENT WITH SHAREPOINT

CONTENTS
Introduction The Challenges Steps to a Successful Records Management Policy Steps to a Successful Records Management Implementation Records Management tools: Making plans a reality Conclusion 3 5 7 11 13 17

INTRODUCTION
Implementing a records management (RM) solution involves more than simply putting records into a system. To achieve cost-effective, streamlined and standards-compliant records management, an organisation needs to determine: What qualifies as a record When documents will be entered How they will appear When they will be removed. The aim is to store the right level of the right sort of documents: retaining too few or disposing of them too early may expose the organisation to risk, while retaining too many unnecessarily will become costly and cumbersome. In most organisations, the volume of documents generated on a daily basis is high, so retaining those with little legal or business value can significantly reduce an organisations operational agility. Whereas RM projects may once have languished as a lower priority, today the need for legal and regulatory compliance and the competitive advantage of having up-to-date information, drive organisations to adopt an RM solution that is highly functional, easy to adopt, and integrates a variety of structured and unstructured content. Yet it is clear that many organisations have not yet found a suitable RM solution. A recent survey of 2,100 records and information managers co-sponsored by Records Managers Association of Australia found that 43 per cent said their company does not include electronic records in retention and disposition schedules - despite the fact that the bulk of important business information is now produced electronically. In thousands of organisations across Australia, in industries as varied as health, education, finance, construction and utilities, employees making daily decisions about documents are given little guidance about which documents to keep and which to discard. In many organisations, electronic content remains largely unmanaged.

Involving employees in the implementation promotes use of the system and aids understanding of the benefits of effective records management to the business and to them.

Records management is not a function which can be implemented haphazardly. The more effort organisations put into developing a solid, comprehensive approach from the start, and the more they consult with employees about how best to integrate records management methods into daily work processes, the greater the opportunity to successfully implement an RM strategy that fits into the corporate culture. This white paper will provide insights into the two key phases of designing an effective records management strategy thats made to order and matches the organisations overall business goals, specifically: Developing a solid policy; and Following up with a smooth, well-planned implementation. Ensuring that policy is sound from the beginning gives a new RM strategy a much greater chance of long-term success and sustainability. Involving employees in the implementation promotes use of the system and the benefits effective records management. This context helps employees understand the value that RM adds to the overall business as well as their individual efforts. The following sections set out the critical steps that lead to cost-effective, streamlined and rigorous records management that instead of being a drain on resources - delivers a competitive advantage.

THE CHALLENGES
Creating a successful RM system starts with mapping your organisations RM goals. You can then anticipate the challenges your organisation may face in making that vision a reality, and work towards developing a policy and implementation that fits these needs. No one size fits all Its critical to identify your organisations current records -keeping needs, including: Content types (i.e. collections of common types of information that would benefit from grouping also called metadata) Media types (i.e. paper, electronic or other) Storage requirements Business processes Policies, legal and audit requirements. Your RM system needs to be extensible and flexible enough to accommodate future content types and retention requirements. Another important goal is to enhance information retrieval, which can help employees do their jobs more efficiently and give your organisation a competitive advantage. In developing the policy for an organisation, the challenge is to create a policy document that is comprehensive, concise and accompanied by actionable retention schedules that can be put to practical use. Importantly, your RM policy needs to be integrated with your organisations other enterprise content management policies and previous record-keeping efforts. Easy to action At the implementation stage, the major challenge is to create a system that suits the organisations workflow, so that it will be adopted by users and integrated into their daily activities. The implementation must be simple enough for employees to grasp quickly, easy enough to only require a few extra steps (or clicks), but rigorous enough to meet the higher level record-keeping goals set out in the policy. This balance between compliance with policy and useability for employees is often a difficult one. Ideally the policy should be invisible to employees, simply bolting onto their existing work processes, minimising the change management

Ideally, an RM system should integrate with an organisations electronic content management (ECM) system and be accessible from all key platform technologies used by the business.

effort and encouraging adoption. Furthermore, any technology rollout must be manageable for the organisation. Technology that talks An RM solution that is scalable, easy to use, integrated and interoperable with existing applications has the best chance of ultimate success. Ideally, an RM system should integrate with an organisations electronic content management (ECM) system and be accessible from all key platform technologies used by the business. For the many businesses that have made a commitment to Microsoft SharePoint as their ECM platform, RecordPoint is the only fully VERS 1 -5 certified & ISO15489 compliant Document and Records Management solution built exclusively on SharePoint.

STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL RECORDS MANAGEMENT POLICY

This section outlines the critical steps that will lead to a successful RM strategy, from knowing the regulations and the organisation, to building a team that will complete policy, to policy development and successful communication of the policy.
Step 1: Know the Regulations and Know the Organisation

Knowing the organisation also means knowing what retention policies will suit specific business needs and what records types are important to the organisation.

Since achieving legal compliance is often a primary goal for records management policies, the first important step in creating a policy and retention schedule is to know which regulations the organisation needs to comply with. An up-to-date awareness of the legal, compliance and audit framework for an organisation and its industry is important. Depending on the scope of your organisation, it may be doing business in several jurisdictions and be governed by different regulatory bodies. Establish a matrix that outlines each different regulation and retention requirement that applies. The most important part of the policy is the strategies to meet the requirements for documents your organisation must retain. In addition to identifying the records your organisation needs to keep, there are volumes of related requirements that also need to be researched, such as: Audit accessibility Accuracy and authenticity Privacy and confidentiality Security Many of these requirements require evaluation and assessment of their applicability to a business. By involving their legal department in policy development efforts, organisations can better ensure that they are addressing requirements adequately. Besides involving their legal team, some organisations consult other internal departments. An effective policy that meets legal requirements will be more valuable if it can be applied to the entire business. Involving stakeholders in retention decisions can help decision-makers gain insight into disparate business processes and usage needs. After all, document retention needs in Finance will likely differ from those in Information Technology. Obtaining stakeholder support from several internal groups is paramount for good policy development.

Knowing the organisation also means knowing what retention policies will suit specific business cycles and what records types are important to the organisation. The simple process of defining a record or deciding on the value of a document can be very specific to an organisation. Questions that may arise might include: Does a brainstorming session recorded on a white board constitute a record? What about an email that modifies a contract? In some organisations, the answer might be yes, but not in others. Who helps create these documents and who should be responsible for keeping them? Who is accountable for compliance? What defaults apply when no guidance is specified? Decision makers might also want employee input if they are expected to follow the policy. Asking these types of questions and having representatives at the table who can answer them is important. While the stakeholders can be essential to bringing different perspectives to the table, it is still important to have a single sponsor for a records management project. Often this will be someone from a legal department or a records manager whose specialised knowledge will be essential for guiding both policy and implementation. Step 2: Develop a Comprehensive Policy A comprehensive RM policy should be broad yet concise. More than one to two pages will become incomprehensible for most people and may not be followed. The policy should cover the full lifecycle of a document ideally no more than two pages. It should: Explain expectations in an executable way so employees know their responsibilities and can do what is expected; Create a compliance plan that outlines which guidelines are to be followed at which point in time; Be broad enough to accommodate new and evolving requirements; and Cover document creation, storage and retrieval, retention, expiration, and disposition.

To ensure that documents are properly managed, the policy needs to support protection, access control, and auditing, reporting and other relevant elements. Note that the policy should treat documents the same regardless of format . For retention purposes, it is usually not relevant whether the information is recorded on paper or electronically.

To ensure that documents are properly managed, the policy needs to support protection, access control, and auditing, reporting and other relevant elements.
Step 3: Plan Policy with Implementation in Mind Spending sufficient time consulting with the policy stakeholders is a smart investment which can foster consistency and enable easier training of employees as they implement and maintain policy automation. Even as decision-makers are creating broad policy, they should be thinking ahead to the practicalities of implementation. The realities of how a system will fit into employee workflow could have an impact on general statements about records management, so the policy discussion should be grounded in how the RM process will work in practice, including: How the system will integrate with the organisations other content management initiatives; The practicalities of integrating existing records repositories; The reality of an organisations storage capabilities; and Any additional tools and systems that may need to be implemented to manage records. While the policy is the general roadmap that will guide the organisation on the records management journey, other documents can help to translate that vision into a practical implementation. For instance, a policy document might outline the need for records to be consistently searchable, while more practical documentation might detail the specific document categories or metadata that will enable that feature.

A policy document may outline fundamental aspects of a plan for storage, whereas practical documents will define the storage allotted. Although these documents will only find practical use when the RM project is implemented, developing them alongside policy statements will enable a smoother deployment overall.

While the policy is the general roadmap that will guide the organisation on the records management journey, other documents can help to translate that vision into a practical implementation.

STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL RECORDS MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION

Once a records management policy has been established, an organisation can progress to implementation. This section outlines the steps for a successful implementation, from designing a solution based on knowledge about an organisation, to testing policies with a pilot project, to enlisting users as records managers.

Ask what improvements can be made to the system to make it integrate more easily with employees workdays.

Step 4: Start with a Proof of Concept One of the best ways to see if your policy document truly fits the needs of your organisation is to initiate the new records management capabilities within a small representative section of your organisation. Between half and one per cent of the employee population is usually ideal for the test pilot, and should include a cross section of roles, responsibilities and tenures. Also focus on certain types of documents and different business processes for the pilot project. Email archiving, for instance, can be a good test case because email is a common element in every employees working life, regardless of his or her position or seniority. It also includes a variety of different content. Establish success criteria for your pilot so you can objectively judge whether the solution meets the organisations needs. Use this time to solicit feedback on features, confirm the process, validate retention categories, and training and communication preferences. Ask what improvements can be made to the system to make it integrate more easily with employees workdays. If employees in the test group are valued as part of the project team, theyll be much more likely to champion the project to their co-workers during the full rollout. Communication is the absolute key: let them know what you are doing and why. This group can be your best ally, so use them wisely. Step 5: Enlist Users and Over-Communicate For an effective records management system implementation, turn your employees into records management champions. To achieve this, you need to show whats in it for them. Records management will often require more work for employees, so show them that it is relatively simple, and why it is worthwhile. Listen to their needs and make them realise the benefits they will gain in their own jobs. Emphasise the efficiencies they will gain such as:

 Finding and sharing information more easily; Letting go of the burden of keeping everything; and Retaining information which is more complete. In addition to representatives enlisted at the policy planning stage, implementation is the phase where you will engage all employees in setting the RM process in motion. One of the best ways to make them feel involved is to focus on communication about the entire process rather than just the technology. Find out their preferred method of communication, and take pains to over-inform about the processes and how it will affect their jobs. By making the responsibility for records management an extension of users existing workflow, an effective system can distribute the responsibility for ECM more evenly across the organisation, instead of burdening IT. Charging records keeping and document organisation to the users most familiar with the records also makes sense from the standpoint of users who will derive the greatest benefit from updated records. If decision makers fail to identify those end users, and fail to convince them of the ways that RM will personally benefit them, those users may not support the implementation.

By making the responsibility for records management an extension of users existing workflow, an effective system can distribute the responsibility for ECM more evenly across the organisation.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT TOOLS: MAKING PLANS A REALITY

Organisations often need specialised tools for records management implementations. A typical list of requirements that the records management solution should meet might include the following components: records creation records storage records collection and organisation of new records usage and retrieval of records protection of records integrity content categorisation for records and more collaborative content automated retention, expiration management, and policy automation verification and audit capabilities legal discovery integration of records that are both physical and electronic search and retrieval security features. Additionally, decision-makers should keep the organisational culture in mind, choosing tools that can enable implementation of records management in a manner appropriate to the business. An integrated solution that allows management of the entire lifecycle of your records can also help provide a solution that is manageable for employees. RecordPoint is a third generation platform that is the only records management solution that uniquely combines content, process and connectivity to automate and streamline all records-based activities. This eliminates unnecessary end user participation, enforces compliance, and creates business advantage whilst providing a compelling return on investment. RecordPoint is the only fully VERS 1-5 certified & ISO15489 compliant Document and Records Management solution built exclusively on the Microsoft SharePoint platform. The RM capabilities embedded into Microsoft Office SharePoint/ RecordPoint Server 2010 can enable implementation of an automated system that reflects specific RM policies and supports documents from creation right through to disposition.

RecordPoint is the only fully VERS 1-5 certified & ISO15489 compliant Document and Records Management solution built exclusively on the Microsoft SharePoint platform.

User acceptance User acceptance and uptake is enhanced by RecordPoints intuitive interface that integrates with common Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Office Word 2010, Microsoft Office Excel 2010, Microsoft Office Outlook 2010, and many types of Web browsers. This integration with familiar tools enables users to make RM and overall ECM an extension of their work process without significantly changing the way they work.

Categorise incoming records SharePoint + RecordPoint Server 2010 has ample tools to organise records once they are in the system. After defining a retention schedule for an organisation, records managers can specify metadata, workflow, and policies required to manage different content types. Document libraries define the organisation and hierarchy in which electronic information of all media types and formats (documents, email messages, pictures, and media files) can be stored. Records rules can also be used here to provide a consistent mechanism for describing the properties, policies and workflows for a specific type of content. To properly classify incoming records, records managers can add an item to the record routing list for each information type. Incoming records can be checked against this table and routed to the appropriate location. These records can also be checked for completeness of metadata, prompting the sender to enter this metadata if it is found missing. Protect business records The RecordPoint repository ensures the integrity of each file stored within it. First, records cannot be automatically modified by the system. This means that records uploaded to a records repository and downloaded later will always be identical.

Second, the records repository has default settings that can prevent direct tampering of records, however they remain fully usable documents and the document features are not disabled. For example, a user can open an email record in a SharePoint/RecordPoint repository and forward it, but the new email wont overwrite the recorded one. It will create another message that could be saved as a new record. Third, it enables records managers to add and maintain metadata on items separately from the records metadata, so information such as ownership can be changed without modifying the underlying record. Manage retention schedules for different media types Once the organisation determines the retention schedules for various business records, retention policies can be set within the repository to manage their lifecycles. An expiration formula calculates the length of time to retain a record and an expiration action describes what to do with the record when it reaches its expiration date. The time period can be calculated based on static dates, such as the documents creation date, or from dynamic events, using dates that can be added to document metadata manually or through workflows. An expiration action can trigger a workflow that enables human review of expired items to determine whether those items should be deleted. Extensibility mechanisms can be used to implement additional actions once a record retention period is reached. Policies can be configured for a specific storage location or media types can be used to manage each type of content in a consistent way, independent of storage location. For example, to help ensure that all contracts are retained uniformly in an organisation, their expiration dates can be based on a common property, such as the contract expiration date. This date can be added manually, or through an organisations contract renewal workflow.

Manage legal discovery The litigation hold features of Office SharePoint/RecordPoint Server 2010 are designed to respond to events such as litigation by superseding the expiration policy of specified records without losing the records original retention data. Hold policies can prevent expiration or manual deletion during the lifespan of the record. By default, the records repository is provided with a feature to create hold lists in which each item corresponds to single or multiple hold orders. The list provides tools for finding and holding relevant records, viewing the records that are currently on a hold, and releasing the hold after the hold order is no longer active. Records that are on multiple holds cannot be deleted or expired until the last hold is lifted. Audit and report on repository usage In Microsofts records management solution, an auditing policy is turned on by default, and incoming records sent from the document management repository bring in auditing history. Policy usage reports built using Office Excel 2010 summarise the current state of the records management program, including a list of the full set of content types as defined in a records repository and the number and relative percentage of items of each type. The records manager can review each report and verify whether the current usage aligns with expectations.

RecordPoint eliminates unnecessary end user participation, enforces compliance, and creates business advantage whilst providing a compelling return on investment.

CONCLUSION
The expanding volume of information within most organisations, in a context of increasing legal and regulatory awareness, has made records management a top priority for most companies today. Along with the immediate need to organise records, there is also a need for clear thinking in developing a comprehensive system that will meet an organisations long -term records management needs. Knowing your organisation and its information needs, and enlisting members from various departments is critical to devising a system that ensures the retention of records that are authentic, verifiable and trustworthy throughout their lifecycle. Microsoft provides products and technologies that not only engage users in records management, but also integrate the applications and workspaces with which they are already familiar. By including its effective records management system as an integral part of an overall ECM package featuring Office SharePoint/ RecordPoint Server 2010, Office Outlook 2010, Office Word 2010, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2010, and Office Excel 2010, Microsoft can provide companies with a more intuitive solution that integrates well with existing user workflow, resulting in less training time for users and a reduced burden on implementers. While records management might seem like a daunting initiative at first, these simple steps deliver an RM system that is geared to suit your organisations specific needs.

To find out how RecordPoint can help you deliver streamlined, automated, cost-effective and standards-compliant records management: visit www.recordpoint.com.au call +61 2 8001 7743 email info@recordpoint.com.au