Fundementals

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February 18, 2012

On Why Retention Based on Content Types Isn’t Enough

Posted by Don Lueders under Best Practicecs, Fundementals, SharePoint Records Management | Tags: , , |
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I’ve spoken to two different groups over the last couple of days and both groups asked me the same question about Content Types and SharePoint Information Management Polices.  Essentially, they wanted to understand why simply applying a retention and disposition schedule directly to each unique Content Type wouldn’t meet their records management requirements. 

This is an excellent question that addresses a fundamental understanding of SharePoint records mangement and is vital to a successful solution implementation, so I thought it might be a good idea to post my response here. 

Many retention and disposition requirements (indeed, most retention and disposition requirements at some organizations) are determined by an event rather than the type of record being managed, so a record’s Content Type is usually not enough information to accurately apply the correct Information Management Policy to it. 

This is probably best explained by an example.  Suppose you manage mortgages at a large financial institution.  With each new mortgage a new corresponding folder is created in your records repository.  Over the life of the mortgage, hundreds of records with dozens of different record types – Mortgage Agreements, Property Assessments, etc., etc. – will be added to the folder.  And most (or more likely, all) of these records will have their own Content Type.  Internal corporate policy and outside regulations require that these records are maintained for 10 years after the mortgage is paid off, at which point all the records in the folder, as well as the folder itself, are destroyed. 

From this example – known as case based records retention – it is easy to see why a record’s Content Type alone  wouldn’t provide adequate information for applying the appropriate retention and disposition schedule.  If you were to simply apply a 10-year expiration to, say, all Mortgage Agreement Content Types, SharePoint wouldn’t have any way of knowing when the record’s mortgage was paid off, so it wouldn’t ever trigger the record’s 10 year expiration period.   

This example also explains why the addition of Content Organizer was so critical to successful records management in SharePoint 2010.  Using Content Organizer, we can configure SharePoint to route a record to a folder in the Records Center based on its Content Type (e.g. ‘Mortgage Agreement’) and one or more metadata values (e.g. ‘Mortgage #12345′).  Once the records are properly classified into the correct folder, an Event Date can be applied to all the records it contains upon payoff of the mortgage and the 10 year expiration period can begin in compliance with corporate and external requirements.

 

February 13, 2012

Email Records Management, SharePoint and the IILM Model – Part 1

Posted by Don Lueders under Best Practicecs, Fundementals, Integrated Information Lifecycle Management | Tags: |
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There’s probably no single issue in this industry more heavily debated, more overly analyzed and generally more misunderstood than email records management.  And this is terribly unfortunate because an effective email records management solution is a critical component of integrated information lifecycle management.

Easily the biggest source of confusion is the definition of email records management itself.  Frankly, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had someone tell me they already have an email records management solution and it works just fine, thank you very much for asking…  These folks usually describe their ‘email records management solution’ like this:  ‘We store all our emails for two years from date of creation or receipt.’ 

This may be a very valid policy – particularly from a e-discovery perspective – but it is not email records management.  This is email archiving. 

Email is a format.  It’s a method of delivering the information the email contains.  In the paper world this would be equivalent to a policy that states, ‘Store all correspondence that comes in white, rectangular envelopes for two years from the date they were received.’  These types of policies give no consideration to the value of the information the emails contain. 

True email records management means evaluating the content of the email (and, potentially, its attachments) and classifying it into a repository that renders it immutable and applies business rules that make it compliant with your organization’s information management requirements.  One of those business rules should apply the appropriate retention and disposition.

Here’s an example.  Suppose you are the Project Manager on a large solution deployment.  Your customer sends you an email indicating she has accepted the new project scope changes and has attached a copy of the revised Project Plan.  Your email archiving policy will maintain a copy of this email for two years, after which it will be destroyed.  Forever.  But, from a legal perspective, all project records (regardless of their media) must be maintained for 10 years after the project is completed and then destroyed.  So that email, like all the other content critical to the success of the project, must be declared a record and managed throughout the life of the project. 

So hopefully that clarifies email records management a little bit.  In my next post I will explain not only one way to manage your email records, but frankly, I think the only way it can be done successfully.

 

August 27, 2011

The SharePoint 2010 Hold and eDiscovery Feature – Part 3

Posted by Don Lueders under Best Practicecs, Fundementals | Tags: |
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Applying  a Hold in SharePoint 2010

There are a number of ways to apply holds in SharePoint 2010.  We’ll try to address each of them before this series is through, but I’ll show you the ‘standard’ (manual) process here.

(Just a note.  Our friends at Microsoft kinda dropped the ball on applying holds in one respect.  The idea that you would have to apply a hold to each individual record you want to preserve really doesn’t make a lot of sense.  Discovery orders can produce thousands of items that must be preserved.  Sometimes more.  There should really be a mechanism to apply holds to records aggregates – entire libraries, folders, etc. – along with a means to apply them to individual records.)      

To apply a hold, navigate to the record you wish to perserve and open its Compliance Details dialog box. 

In the Compliance Details dialog box click on ‘Add/Remove from hold’ and the ‘Item Hold Status’ window opens.

Select the ‘Add to a hold’ option and use the drop-down selection box to choose the relevant hold to apply to this record.  The ‘Comments’ field is not required, however, I strongly encourage its use.  For litigation purposes, it is a good idea to explain the purpose for the hold and add any other information that might provide value in a legal or regulatory investigation.

Click on ‘Save‘ and the hold will be applied.  The record cannot be deleted and will not be destroyed through its Information Management Policy until the new hold is removed.

It also worth noting that SharePoint 2010 allows you to apply multiple holds to the same record.  Sadly, given our litigious society, multiple holds on the same record is not terribly uncommon.  If a record has multiple holds applied to it, SharePoint 2010 will not allow the record to be destroyed until all the holds are removed.

 

July 17, 2011

The SharePoint 2010 Hold and eDiscovery Feature – Part 2

Posted by Don Lueders under Best Practicecs, Fundementals | Tags: |
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Creating a Hold

Creating a hold in SharePoint 2010 is a simple process and hasn’t changed much from MOSS 07.  Login to SharePoint as a user with administrator privileges.  Click on Site Actions and select Site Settings.  From the ‘Hold and eDiscovery’ category, click on ‘Holds’. 

Click on ‘Add new item’ and the ‘Holds – New Item’ dialog opens.

Enter a Title for the hold.  (This is the only required field.)  The Title should be brief, but connect the hold to the reason for preserving the records.

The Description should expand on the information provided in the Title.  If your organization is in a particularly litigious industry (and who’s isn’t?), the Description field is a good place to clarify some of the legal issues that might be relevant to the reason for applying the hold. 

For Managed By, enter a user or group responsible for managing the hold.

Click on ‘Save’ and the new hold is created and available to be applied to records.

The next post in this series will describe how holds are applied to records.

 

June 22, 2011

The SharePoint 2010 Hold and eDiscovery Feature – Part 1

Posted by Don Lueders under Fundementals, SharePoint Records Management | Tags: |
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Microsoft has made some fairly substantial improvements to SharePoint 2010 holds and electronic discovery functionality over the features that were first available in MOSS 07.  Perhaps the biggest change is making SharePoint 2010 holds available beyond the confines of the Records Center.  Unlike the feature in MOSS 07, holds in SharePoint 2010 can be managed across libraries, sites and site collections. 

In my next series of posts, I’ll describe how the SharePoint 2010 holds feature is activated, how holds are created and applied to content, out-of-the-box Hold Reports and holds discovery functionality.

Activating the Hold and eDiscovery Feature

SharePoint 2010 Hold and eDiscovery is a site level feature that can be activated on any site.  To activate this feature, log into SharePoint as a user with administrator privileges and click on ‘Site Actions’.  Select ‘Site Settings’ from the Site Action list and click on ‘Manage site features’ under the ‘Site Actions’ category.  Next to the Hold and eDiscovery feature, click the ‘Activate’ button.

 

When this feature is activated a new category is created in Site Settings called – not surprisingly – ‘Hold and eDiscovery’.  This category provides links to create and manage holds, run hold reports and search for content and add the search results to a hold.

The next post in this series will describe how holds are created and applied to SharePoint content.

 

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