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Discussion

When to Send a Document To an RM Folder

Records Management Administration
Updated February 2, 2015
posted on January 19, 2015

A.K.A. When does a document become a record?...

or When should an information asset be managed by RME?...

or...

I was chatting about this with two ladies after Cathy Lee's "Transparent Records Management Folders" presentation. This isn't a technical discussion but I thought I'd give it some air-time on Answers anyway.

 

It would be especially great if one or both of the ladies could reply!

Issues we discussed, effecting the decision to move information to an RME folder included:

  • Desire to manage all information in a uniform manner
  • Using a security model different to the presentation (allowing edits when in an RM folder and employing alternative triggers for determining a close action)
  • Given the requirements of information to meet the criteria to be considered a record, the definition of a record for every company and/or document type could be different
  • Available metadata to make classification practical (especially when importing information from legacy systems and folder structures)

 

What other issues might be important when deciding the moment to classify a record? What's your opinion on the issues above? 

I'd love to hear about your experience and opinions!

-Ben

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replied on February 2, 2015

My two test users were deleting shortcuts thinking they were deleting the documents.  They were also doing a copy/paste and then renaming at the new location, thinking that they were creating a whole new document to use to revise for a new purpose.  In actual fact, they were creating another shortcut and renaming the shortcut, and when they opened that new shortcut it would take them back to the original document on which they would make all their changes.  The confusion this created and the loss of the original document thru unintended alterations became very problematic!!!

Even simple things like scanning in a signed document, then realizing there was an error so they had to delete it and rescan the corrected document was a problem.  WF was grabbing all new documents and taking them to hidden Record Series folders, leaving behind the shortcuts.  So the test pilots were deleting the shortcuts, thinking the scan with the error was now gone, and then bringing in a second scan and naming it the same as the first scan.  Again, problematic. 

Repeated reminders that they were working with shortcuts just did not work, so we determined that if my two test pilots (who were good workers with positive attitudes) could not get past this hurdle, we had to rethink the whole transparent records policy we had begun working with.

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replied on January 30, 2015

Connie,

Thanks for sharing. If you don't mind following up, I'm curious why users found shortcuts problematic?

Regards,

Barry

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replied on January 23, 2015

Well, here's my experience after a year of working on implementation of our new LF program (Note:  I have not taken formal RM courses, so this is only our RM committee's understanding after having worked at this for a year):

Scans of incoming mail are immediately a Record, however, we have decided NOT to send them to RM folders right away as our staff seem to find working with the shortcuts problematic.  Now, we are set to Archive all document from 2015 on December 31st, 2015, leaving behind shortcuts where we know staff will still want access to those documents.  Every Dec 31st will be Archive day and completed by WF!  Then the RM Clerk and the retentions on the RM folders will take over those documents.

Working Documents - Any document that requires a signature is a Record once signed and any versions prior to the signature are not the official record.  Those initial versions should never be sent to the RM folders. 

  • Example:  2015 Budget, once approved, will be saved as the official Record and set elsewhere for Archiving.  Any working documents used to prepare that budget will then be changed again for the next year's approval stages, etc.
  • Example:  Formal Agreements and Contracts are controlled by a WF-BP.  Once approved, the WF will file the original (approved) draft in one place for monitoring of expiry dates and the scanned signed copy in the folders for all agreements/contracts. and will be archived at the end of the year by our automated Archive WF.
  • Example:  Outgoing Correspondence - we have decided that all outgoing correspondence will be printed, then signed and scanned back in.  The signed version, of course, is immediately considered the Record.  The original Word doc will not be kept.  Again, these Records will be Archived at the end of the year.

 

Things immediately considered Records - Maps, incoming mail, some emails are a record of business, all Accts Payable/Accts Receivable records, anything for the auditors (anything regarding transactions), anything approved by our Councillors is immediately a formal record never to be changed and must be kept as is!

Not all documents become Records.  Here is a copy of something that was shared with me from another municipality when I first started working on this LF project:

 

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replied on January 23, 2015

I should add, anything presented to our Council becomes a Record as part of the Agenda package and is kept as one pdf document.  Not just Approved documents.  Again, in our office, these pdf's will not move to the RM folders until Dec 31st when they are pulled out by the Archiving WF.

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