SharePoint Records Management

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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: , , |
[2] Comments 

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.

 

December 31, 2011

Records Management, SharePoint and Integrated Information Lifecycle Management

Posted by Don Lueders under Best Practicecs, Integrated Information Lifecycle Management, Methodology, SharePoint Records Management | Tags: , |
[3] Comments 

Change is good and the New Year brings a new focus for this blog.  As many of you know, I am a Certified Records Manager and I’ve spent the better part of my career promoting effective electronic records management practices.  None of that has changed.  I firmly believe that the role of a Records Manager is far more important today than it ever was and I will continue to fully support and promote what has traditionally been called ‘electronic records management’ until the last person stops listening to me. 

That said, I’ve reached a point where I don’t believe I can continue to speak in terms of records management as a separate notion from managing the lifecycle of all unstructured content.  As I’ve said in a number of interviews, I never fully bought into the idea that content can be divided into ‘records’ and ‘documents’.  This is a misleading concept that evolved almost by accident in the mid-90′s when document management applications (e.g. Documentum, OpenText, etc.) were developed separately from records management applications (e.g. TrueArc, Meridio, Tower TRIM, etc.), leading to the idea that is was perfectly acceptable to manage one but not the other. 

The fundamental flaw with this notion is that you can call one piece of content a ‘document’ and another piece of content a ‘record’, but none of that matters because in the eyes of the law it is all evidence.  Which, of course, means it is all discoverable and its unnecessary retention – or its premature disposition – can put an organization at tremendous risk.

So what does this mean to professional Records Managers?  It means our responsibilities have become much more far reaching than they have ever been before.  It means, quite simply, that we must take ownership of the entire lifecycle of our organization’s content.  We can no longer be content to sit back and let content come to us so we can manage it through its final end state.  Instead, we must be proactively involved in every phase of the information’s lifecycle.  From cradle to grave. 

This also means we should no longer speak in terms of ‘records management solutions’.  This term is simply no longer relevant.  We must now focus on information management solutions that address every phase of the information lifecycle.  And this must be done across the entire enterprise.  This is what I refer to as the Integrated Information Lifecycle Management (IILM) model and it includes all of the traditional records management functions, but also incorporates many features long considered outside standard records management responsibilities.  These include, but certainly aren’t limited to, the following:

  • eDiscovery and information preservation orders
  • Solution governance
  • Retention and disposition of transitory content
  • Email archiving policies
  • Shared drive management and cleanup
  • Enterprise taxonomy and metadata design
  • Workflows
  • Software obsolescence
  • Hardware obsolescence
  • Long term storage
  • Physical records management
  • Backup and recovery
  • Continuity of Operations, vital records and disaster recovery
  • Legacy solution integrations
  • Document template creation
  • Structured data lifecycle management
  • Information Rights Management
  • Privacy and security
  • Social media best practices
  • Web content management
  • Many, many more…

So you’re probably thinking, ‘Sure, Don, that’s great and all, but isn’t this a SharePoint records and information management blog?’  To which I reply, ‘Yes.  Yes, it is.  Thank you for keeping me focused.’

I have a great deal of experienced with a number of the major enterprise content and records management solutions and I can honestly say that, with a few exceptions, they are terrific applications.  I also believe that most of them could be leveraged to implement the IILM model with varying levels of effort.  But I honestly believe that no other existing platform is in a better position to manage enterprise content from its creation, through its retention and to its final disposition than SharePoint.  And going forward into the New Year it will be my goal to demonstrate to you why I believe this is true.

 

November 12, 2011

SharePoint Records Management, Office 365 and Hybrid Cloud Environments

Posted by Don Lueders under Best Practicecs, SharePoint in the Cloud, SharePoint Records Management | Tags: , , |
[3] Comments 

I’ve posted a number of articles on SharePoint records management and the ‘cloud’ and I’ve spoken at length on the subject with a whole host of people, both pro-cloud and anti-cloud.  I can honestly say both camps make strong arguments for or against managing records in a cloud environment. 

Personally, I’m a little torn by the whole ‘cloud’ thing, but it reminds me a lot of the transition from mainframe computers to the client/server model we all went through 20 years or so ago.  (Yes, I’m that old.)

I can remember a lot of people I worked with who resisted the change for a long time.  And they often did so with fairly compelling arguments.  But eventually the obvious benefits of the client/server model overwhelmed even the most ardent opponents of change and, in the end, the new way of doing things was almost universally accepted. 

I don’t think operating in the cloud is a whole lot different.  There are plenty of good reasons not to do it.  But my sense is, over time, vendors will devise ways to mitigate those risks to the point that the anti-cloud argument will become more and more difficult to make.

Easily the most compelling argument I hear against a cloud-based solution from a Records Manager’s perspective is this: How do I manage my records repository pursuant to location-based compliance requirements when it’s not completely clear where my records repository even is?  Records Managers are very reluctant to give up control of their record repository.  This shouldn’t be surprising given it’s their neck that gets choked if regulations get violated or data sovereignty is beached.

So how can this risk be mitigated?  Enter Office 365 and the hybrid cloud model.  In a nutshell, a hybrid cloud model allows you to combine your current on-premises SharePoint records repository (and all the compliance and security that goes with it) with the cloud-based efficiency of Office 365. 

If your organization is contemplating a cloud computing strategy (and it should be) and you have concerns about your SharePoint records repository, I encourage you to learn more about hybrid cloud environments.   A great place to start is a terrific whitepaper on the subject by Paul Robinson of Microsoft, UK.  You can find it here.

 

October 28, 2011

Gartner ECM Magic Quadrant 2011 Report

Posted by Don Lueders under Industry, SharePoint Records Management | Tags: |
[6] Comments 

Our friends at Gartner just released their annual Magic Quadrant report on Enterprise Content Management and it has some interesting things to say about the state of content and records management and SharePoint as a driving force in the market.

Interestingly, Gartner notes that even though the global economy has been in a prolonged recession the last few years, spending on enterprise content and records management actually grew on a year after year basis.  Spending was up 5.1% in 2009 and increased again by 7.6% last year.  Moreover, they predict growth will continue at an impressive compound annual rate of 11.4% through 2015.  (Hey, maybe my kids will go to college after all!)

Gartner says its clients use ECM solutions to meet a number of productivity objectives, including regulatory compliance and e-discovery goals.  One of the keys to reaching these goals, they say, is an ‘integration with Microsoft Office Suite for management of new and collaboratively authored content’.  This is apparently true regardless of the ECM solution being used.

As for SharePoint as an ECM solution, Gartner says that over half the inquiries they receive about ECM solutions include a discussion of SharePoint.  Also, fully one-third of their client base is using SharePoint as the core of their records and content management strategy. 

Gartner cautions that many organizations see a continued need to add third-party tools to SharePoint 2010 to realize an acceptably robust enterprise ECM solution. This may be true, but I would argue that this is also the case for most of the other major ECM solutions and Microsoft’s extensive partner ecosystem allows customers to chose the SharePoint features they would like to extend without paying for additional functionality that may provide them no additional value.

Some of the strengths Gartner found in SharePoint 2010 include features and functionality that directly affect its records management capabilities.  These strengths include greater content management, taxonomy, metadata and search capabilities.

As usual, this report makes for pretty compelling reading for anyone in the content and records management business.    If you aren’t a Gartner client, you might want to go here to get a full copy of the report.

 

September 28, 2011

SPRM Turns Three

Posted by Don Lueders under Industry, Introduction, SharePoint Records Management | Tags: |
1 Comment 

SPRM Turns ThreeThis month marks the third anniversary of the launch of this blog and those of us at SPRM want to take a moment to express our thanks to all of you who have been loyal readers and contributors. 

Looking forward, we are all very excited about the future of SharePoint-based records and information management, which has come a long way since we first started reporting on it three short years ago. 

With the release of SharePoint 2010 last year (and the subsequent release of a few key partner add-on applications), the ‘Holy Grail’ of enterprise records management – one solution providing true enterprise integrated information lifecycle management – is now a reality. 

We believe the next few years will prove to be a whirlwind of change throughout the industry.  One that will mark the transition from disorganized silos of valuable, desperate organizational content to an environment of effective and efficient information management that will help organizations grow and thrive for many years to come.

Again, thank you all for your support and we look forward to hearing from each of you…

Cheers,

Don

 

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