Way back in March of last year I posted a blog entry listing some of the new records management functionality I was hoping to see in SharePoint 2010 (referred to as Office 14 at the time).  Now that the new records management features have been made public, I wanted to take a quick look at how SharePoint 2010 compares to my original list:

Mulit-level file plan – definitely included in SharePoint 2010.

Unique expiration and disposition throughout each level of the file plan – also included.  Just like the file plans we are all used to seeing in the other major records management solutions. 

Significantly enhanced email records functionality – there are big improvements in e-mail records management functionality with out-of-the-box SharePoint 2010, partner add-ons and new Exchange 2010 archiving features.  I’ll post a separate entry on managing email records with SharePoint 2010 in the near future.

Expunge functionality – the jury’s still out on this one.  I want to be able to destroy a record in the Records Center (or wherever you manage it in SharePoint 2010) and know that it can’t be recovered.  I’m still not sure how I’ll manage this in SharePoint 2010, but I’ll keep investigating it and let you know what I discover. 

Hierarchical file plan representation – yep, it’s there.  You can view your full file plan hierarchy.   

Out-of-the-box metadata based classification – this is included and definitely out-of-the-box.  Should be a big help to Records Managers who are trying to minimize the records management burden they place to their end users.

Access to records from document workspaces – ‘in-place’ records management takes records management out of the Records Center and applies it anywhere within SharePoint.

Unique and persistent record identifiers – yep.

E-discovery beyond the Records Center – SharePoint 2010 provides for e-discovery all over the place.  E-discovery was one of the Microsoft’s biggest investment areas in SharePoint 2010.

There’s also a ton of other new records management features that I didn’t include in my original wishlist that will have a huge impact on managing records in SharePoint 2010.  I’ll be writing more about them as well as the features mentioned above in the months to come, so stay tuned.