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What is a record? AIIM defines a record as ‘evidence’ that has been derived from a ‘business action or decision’. So if we think about that definition for a minute, we can safely assume that records can take the form of both electronic and physical evidence within a corporate entity. Some examples of what constitutes physical records could be: paper invoices, a working prototype/invention, core soil sampling and memos. Organizations today struggle to gain both corporate and government compliance; the two common questions that are always asked: “Where do we start?” and “How do we know if we are in compliance?” The answer to both of those questions is to get thought leadership from an outside compliance organization, which specializes in both ECM and ERM compliance. These organizations will leverage templates and tools that are designed to perform the up-front work in creating a file plan, record series, groups, and update processes in declaring records to name a few.
Archive for August, 2009
Why do I need a Taxonomy?
by Alan Weintraub on August 25th, 2009
I was in a customer presentation the other day and was asked about the importance of a taxonomy to the successful implementation of an ECM solution. Why do you need a taxonomy and what value does it bring to the project? Taxonomy provides the structure to the ECM solution that enables the users to easily find the information that they need to make a business decision. There are two basic components to a good taxonomy, a well defined and intuitive folder structure and a set of content types and associated attributes. I usually break the taxonomy into these two components to best address two distinctly different audiences; the “experts” and the “novices”. The “experts” are the group that uses the system on a daily basis and thus will use the advance features to find information. The “novices” are the group that may only use the system once a month or once a year to find that one critical item they need to make a decision.
When is Email a Record?
by Omar Koudsi on August 23rd, 2009
One of the tasks that I typically get involved in, is helping clients define their records. This process can be tedious, but also very educational for the client. During this process we are normally asked two questions, The first being, ” What about email, That is a record type right? The answer to that question is “No, email is not specifically a record type, but a media”. Which then leads to the second question “So When is Email a Record?”
Email is a record when the content contained in the email can be classified as record, according to the company’s retention schedules. A simple email to discuss lunch plans with a co-worker is not a record, but an email that discusses the extension of a contract would be considered a record. Understanding the value of the information contained in an e-mail is critical to the records determination process. This means that companies must depend on their staff to understand the value of the content contained in an email and appropriately classify that email as a record.
To protect themselves companies need to make sure they do two things, first educate their staff on their definition of a record and the records plan and then show them how to store or preserve emails that are determined to be records.
Post a comment telling us what your company does to addresses email as a record.
SharePoint and ECM, a Peaceful Coexistence
by Alan Weintraub on August 12th, 2009
Almost all of my current discussions with clients find their way to SharePoint and ECM. Many times I am presenting to a group that included the SharePoint advocates on one side of the room and ECM advocates on the other. Depending who you are listening to in the industry will lead you to sit on one side of the table or the other. The industry analysts, i.e. Forrester or Gartner, will point out that SharePoint is not an ‘Enterprise’ Content Management solution as it lacks Records Management and Workflow functionality as well as its scalability limitations to meet an enterprise’s needs. On the other side of the table, Microsoft is whispering in the user’s ear that SharePoint is an ECM solution and provides all the functionality to meet their needs. So who is right. On the surface, SharePoint does provide a core set of functionality to meet the ECM requirements, but lacks some of the flexility and robust capabilities of the leading traditional ECM solutions. When you dig in deeper into the SharePoint capabilities you do find some holes that are better filled by the traditional ECM vendors. These include: