Protecting Corporate Memory
Although government, legal, and healthcare entities have been required to develop a comprehensive records management practice, the general management of corporate records across diverse industries has traditionally been poorly implemented. Records management was often viewed as a low priority administrative task and typically the responsibility of a small group of specialists. New statutes, scandals, and litigation preparedness are increasingly becoming issues that impact the boardroom. A successful records management system must suit the organization’s workflow, is easily adaptable by users and can be integrated into their daily activities, ideally transparently.
Many organizations that have implemented a records management solution have identified end user adoption as a key barrier to success. Difficult interfaces, complex processes, and disparate tools make it hard for users to embrace the records management process. End users are often reluctant to change their work habits which can pose a challenge in consistently maintaining accurate records. As a result, too many documents are never subjected to enterprise policies, resulting in widespread noncompliance issues.
Although not a new concept, metadata is a critical element of records management. In records management metadata has the primary purpose to define data so the system can properly apply rules for disposition. Over 67% of data loss in records management is due to end user error. The cost to recreate a document when it is not tagged correctly and can’t be found averages $180 per document.
- Governance issues – end users do not add the appropriate record retention code or meaningful metadata
- Reduce costs associated with the time to manage and identify records from documents, emails as well as diverse storage repositories (PC’s, thumb drives, file shares, etc.)
- Ensure that records are kept according to guidelines, archived, or discarded because they have no value
contentTypeUpdater for SharePoint 2010 and conceptTaxonomyWorkflow are used to improve records management processes. In addition to the core functionality of automatic semantic metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomy tools the definition of workflows that match the record plan can be created. Content can be automatically declared a record and routed to the appropriate repository.
