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Question

Releasing retention hold if Legal Hold comes up...

asked on September 2, 2022

What do you all do if a Legal Hold situation comes up and there are records in Record Series folders that have been cut off for their retention years, but you need to place them on Legal Hold?  Do you have to un-cut-off the whole folder in order to remove them and then re-cut-off the folder?

Is there anything else I should be considering? 

Is there another way to make them marked so that there is no way they can accidentally get destroyed upon the end of their normal life cycle?

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Replies

replied on September 6, 2022 Show version history
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replied on September 6, 2022

After re-reading your question... I believe that you can place a hold on an individual record document in a folder and the hold will only apply to that record document.

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replied on September 7, 2022

Thanks, James.  None of the responses so far touch on the original question, however, I am really just trying to get a handle on the bigger topic so all answers are helpful!  I did more testing today and came up with some notes for people following in my footsteps when I retire, but... I really wish there was more training on just this topic.  I haven't found anything yet.

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replied on September 6, 2022

New current employer does not have RME like I have in the past. But, my first thought is, can't you simply tag the docs?

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replied on September 7, 2022

Yes, that is what I was originally doing, however, a tagged document can get put into a Record Series folder and deleted if no one notices the tag.

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replied on September 7, 2022 Show version history

So, in trying to get an overview of options and put together a training document for my replacement after I retire, could you review this and see if there is anything that should be added?  or changed?

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Legal Hold procedure options explored:

 

  1. Placing a tag on folders or entries by adding a Legal Hold tag. 

Pros:  You can use the tags’ watermark feature so that all those records clearly show up as Legal Hold any time someone views them.

Pros:  Searching by Legal Hold tag is easy.

Cons:  A record with a Legal Hold tag can still be placed in the usual Record Series folders and eventually deleted even if the Legal Hold has not been released.  Someone needs to be watching for these tags as entries get sent to the Record Series folders and sorted out before they end up in the RM Disposition folders.

Cons:  Every entry coming in that might apply to an existing Legal Hold situation needs to have the tag manually added.  Yes, you can have a Workflow set up to add the tag to any entries landing in a specific folder, but what if they don’t end up in that folder?  Someone needs to be aware to do it.  Too much room for human error.  Creating a workflow to watch out for key words does help.

  1. Placing the records into Record Series folders marked as Legal Hold folders. 

Pros:  Once you freeze the Record Series folders, the entries are very secure.

Cons:  Every entry coming in that might apply to an existing Legal Hold situation needs to be manually moved into the right RS folder.  Someone needs to be aware to do it.  Too much room for human error.  Creating a workflow to watch out for key words does help.

Cons:  You have to unfreeze then refreeze every time you need to add records into these folders.

  1. Using the Web Access “Hold Actions” option, you can freeze folders or records.

Pros:  Placing a hold this way on a folder is a quick and easy way of handling holds.

Pros:  You can lock down any folder anywhere in the repository this way.  You can add entries to the folder after the Hold is applied, but you cannot remove any entries from the folder.

Cons:  Cannot make any changes (or rename entries or shortcuts) in a folder frozen this way.  If someone templates before naming their entry and a workflow is triggered to create a shortcut into this folder, the shortcut will not be named properly and you cannot change it!

Cons:  There seems to be some differences between shortcuts and entries in these folders, such as:

  • If it is the actual entry in the frozen folder, you cannot add/delete pages.
  • If it is a shortcut, you can add/delete pages to the actual entry that is located outside the frozen folder.  THIS IS A CRITICAL DIFFERENCE!

Cons:  Every entry coming in that might apply to an existing Legal Hold situation needs to end up in this folder.  Someone needs to be aware to do it.  Too much room for human error.  Creating a workflow to watch out for key words does help.

Cons:  Automated folder retention controls (watched by Workflow) cannot be used if someone decides to place all records into one folder regardless of retention expectations. Someone needs to be aware of this problem and be ready to manually review the retentions on each and every entry before the Legal Hold is released.    

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