Records Management

Overview

For those of you that are new to the concept, records management is fundamentally a system for “tagging” your internal electronic documents so they can be managed more easily.

Just as all electronic documents already have tags indicating their size in kilobytes and the date they were last modified, records management allows you to create additional tags. It's easy to see how having a standardized tag for your department names, client names, document categories, etc. would allow you to quickly identify all of the contracts for a given client regardless of where they were across your intranet.

Records management also typically includes the application of "retention periods" to categories of documents. Reaching the trigger point on a retention period can automatically archive or even dispose of documents while creating a legal audit file documenting what was done.

It's great that just as content and records management are becoming requirements that the software to implement these systems is becoming easier to configure.

5 Key Benefits of Records Management Development

1. You Can Find ANYTHING, Fast

The implementation of a records management system typically results in the application of standardized metadata to all of the documents in an intranets libraries. With metadata terms for a documents category, originating department, date last modified, client name, etc., Search is easily able to find any document you're looking for because it has so much more information about the documents to work with.

2. Self Cleaning

Most organizations that apply records management to their environment create approximately 100 document "categories". They then (working with their attorney) attach the legally required retention periods to these document categories. Documents reaching the end of their retention periods can be automatically routed for permanent archive or legal destruction. These dispositions that occur at the end of a retention. Are able to be reviewed and approved by management. SharePoint also automatically creates legally defensible audit reports documenting what was destroyed and when.

3. Lowers Liability

Coding documents with metadata makes it much easier to create security policies that ensure that the wrong individuals are not able to access confidential documents. Implementing the records management normally involves configuring the document libraries to retain a new version of the document each time it is edited. This allows managers to review all previous versions of the document if there is a dispute or a discrepancy.

4. Smaller (much less to store)

An effective records management system typically results in there being a single instance of each document. Members of an intranet all use the same instance of each document when needed. Microsoft calls this "a single version of the truth". People that need to use the document open it "in place" in a library. When they are through using it they close it and it continues to remain in the library. This results in dramatically smaller overall storage requirements because you don't have multiple copies of the document (and even different versions) spread throughout the organization.

Can SharePoint Online and Office 365 be used as a Records Management System?

Yes it can. And, it's nice that just as records management is becoming indispensable, Microsoft has made it substantially simpler to implement.

Here is a link to a blog article that describes how a complete records management system can be implemented in SharePoint 2016. The article is still valuable. What has changed for 2020 is the need to consider the impact of people passing documents through Microsoft Teams.