While SharePoint Server 2013 can be used to underpin a successful records management program, out of the box, it lacks a number of important features a successful records management program will require. The missing features include:
- Support for building file plans. As John Holliday explains in a video tutorial titled Main Challenges for Records Management, the most important component of a successful effort to build file plans is to ” . . . identify a consistent methodology for specifying how different types of records should be managed.” This methodology is not included in SharePoint Server 2013 and must be built
- A method of declaring records, meaning a procedure to ” . . . identify incoming documents as records . . . “. As John Holliday notes, the best solution for this requirement is to set up a “mapping” procedure, which can be seamlessly enforced, ideally without user intervention, to control how different types of records are handled. At a minimum, this system must safeguard documents (declared as records) from being edited.
- Finally, a retention policy must also be included.
On the other hand, SharePoint Server 2013 does include some key features of a robust records management methodology, including:
- Document Identifiers
- Content Type Syndication
- Content Organizer for Routing
- and four other features presented by John Holliday in this video tutorial
The rest of this video tutorial is spent explaining how each of these 7 features operate, along with a rationale for using them within a records management program.
It’s worth noting John Holliday’s observation of some important improvements in SharePoint Server 2013, for example, better content type syndication across a farm.
Coincidentally, the type of successful records management program John Holliday presents, must include a centralized term store. This makes sense as a reliable method of ensuring a consistent, uniform set of tags for documents of the same type. Obviously the availability of the Term Store, Taxonomy, and metadata tagging make SharePoint Server 2013 particularly useful for this task.
© Rehmani Consulting, Inc. & Ira Michael Blonder, 2013 All Rights Reserved