Having SharePoint and Records Management, Too

Conventional wisdom says that collaboration and records management exist at polar opposites of the enterprise management spectrum. On the side of collaboration are systems such as Microsoft SharePoint, which allow enterprises to create and manage content in a free-form way. Using SharePoint 2010, workers share ideas and expertise, create custom solutions for specific needs and find the right business information to make better decisions. On the side of records management are systems which provide for rigorous control and authority of information, organized, managed and controlled for life according to a defined set of rules involving retention and disposition. The question then becomes, can a system which promotes free-form content management and creation co-exist with a system that applies management rigor and rules once content is created? And if co-existence is possible, can the two seemingly polar opposite systems work together in a seamless and transparent manner to provide a best of both worlds solution?

This article explores the best practice framework needed to optimize the benefits of an integrated enterprise content and records management (RM) system.

The Notion of Transparency
The key issue to providing an optimized integration of any two solutions is to ensure the notion of transparency. Without transparency, integration will result in creating more work combined than is currently done on each individual system, obviating the true benefits of any integration. Transparency must really mean transparency. An integrated enterprise content and records management system should not require alteration of established business or work processes that have been enabled to promote collaboration. Transparency is the critical design element that must underlie all integrations with SharePoint and other systems to truly enable organizations to create, declare and manage records without burdening the users.

Here are some general framework rules that should guide successful records management system integration with Microsoft SharePoint:

1. A SharePoint user should be unaware that content is being managed by an RM system;

2. All content in SharePoint must be able to be managed, not just documents;

3. Anything you can do normally with information in SharePoint, you can continue to do when it is managed by the RM system, i.e. a user must be able to continue to use all the features of SharePoint; and

4. The integration must be completely configurable to allow satisfying the varying requirements of different organizations.

It is widely recognized that records management “falls down” when there is a reliance on users to follow manual steps. While some RM/SharePoint integrations can be used to manually manage content, there are better results if the RM system has the ability to automate these processes.

An example of this is how a records management system can extend its policies for retention and disposition into SharePoint. Unless the records policy can be implemented into SharePoint, the integration will not be successful due to the work that will be required to ensure faithful compliance with an external policy. This is especially important with the “non-document” features of SharePoint. For example:

• Archive the site when a document workspace has not had any content added or modified for six months;
• Manage announcements immediately. When announcements are added to the announcement list, two hours after they are created, they should become managed  in the RM system. Three days after creation they should be finalized; and
• Whenever a user fills in a form in this forms library, the content should become managed by the RM system immediately.

Because of SharePoint’s strong workflow capabilities, a records management system should utilize SharePoint workflow to facilitate implementing the complex and differing business rules that are required by particular organizations. By automating the records management process, the ability for users to ignore the process or implement it incorrectly is eliminated.

With true, transparent integration, an organization will see the following advantages:

• SharePoint users don’t need to know an external records management solution is operating “under the covers” and typically aren’t even aware it is being used;
  
• The ability to automate the records management process and remove the inaccuracies of user involvement;
• The Office integration to SharePoint is unaffected, providing essentially an integration between Office and the records management system; and
• The integration allows bridging these two models so that SharePoint can be used how it should be, and records managers administratively manage records throughout the enterprise according to policy and in an easy, effective and efficient manner.  

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To learn about how HP TRIM enterprise records management provides transparent records management for SharePoint, visit: www.hp.com/go/hptrimsharepoint.