Records Management

Business Process Improvement, Document & Data Management and Records Management & Retention; all sounds the same doesn't it? Well that couldn't be farther from the truth.

There has always been confusion as to the difference of these activities, process, procedure, requirements, motivation and associated risk. This has only been exacerbated with the advent of Electronic Document Management (EDM) systems as many people on the business process or departmental side of the coin now assume that Records Management & Retention is "incorporated" into the new systems. People make a logical assumption that as I am using Imaging, Workflow, Data Management and other electronic mechanisms to facilitate my business process, that records management is "automatic". Au Contraire Mon Ami!

Image Information, Inc. has been in the business of improving efficiencies in major corporations & governments with the use of electronic means for over 13 years. By applying our concept of constraint management to the business process we have successfully doubled and quadrupled productivity and overall performance in dozens of major businesses, government and quasi-government environments. Simply stated, we drive down the cost of the transaction, greatly increase transactional throughput and improve the value of the human element in today's task intensive office environment.

Throughout our history we have had the opportunity to work with both document & data management people (The Business Process) and Records Information Management & Retention people (The Audit, Legal & Risk Mitigation Process) and we have learned that while the two are very different in nature, in the new electronic world Image Information, Inc. works to create, it is critical that the two entities work in concert and symbiotically with one another because if you don't properly address your records retention requirements, and you have them no matter who you are, a highly efficient electronically driven business process will only increase your overall corporate risk in terms of records availability, compliance and credibility in the event of a legal or other crisis.

We believe this occurs for a very simple reason. In the world of paper-based processes, you are forced to deal with physical volumes of information. You have to sort it, identify it, store it and destroy it in a timely manner based on your retention rules. For the most part people do this so they don't get covered up with mountains of paper, pay for the cost of storage on information that is no longer pertinent or to mitigate legal risk in the form of document production and due diligence. In other words, you can feel it, touch it and see it piling up around you and you have to do something with it.

In an electronic based business process you are able to process millions of pages of information and have it stored on high-volume storage mechanisms that provide easy access and fast retrieval. But - - - You can't see it anymore and it doesn't degrade, fade, get damaged or is otherwise rendered un-readable. Documents of all kinds can now be made available or retained for decades without undue cost or expense. This means that records management and retention is even more critical in an electronic environment than a manual one as the data is easier to keep, easier to forget about (Out of sight, out of mind) and easier to produce for a court of law. Most states operate under the premise that while you may not be required to keep records longer than "X" time frame, if you have them you are required to produce them. This issue is further complicated as today's modern Electronic Records (Document/Data) Systems are capable of addressing, storing and retrieving virtually all forms of communications. This includes, voice, electronic documents, photographs, virtually any type of file, and they all have to be addressed from a RIM standpoint. This now even extends to email and instant messenger content as well.

In our view there are two major components of Records Management & Retention: Rules/Definitions & Compliance.

In a paper based environment you established the rules, process & procedure to manage records and after the business process or transaction was complete, documents were categorized, sorted & stored according to the retention policy. This usually entailed a separate workforce to facilitate and accomplish this task. Compliance was tough as you had to constantly monitor (Audit) the business unit for consistency & accuracy and you had to deal with all the inevitable "Un-Authorized" copies that existed in everyone's personal filing system. Many electronic "tools" were created to assist in this process but it must be remembered that these tools were still manually keyed database applications applying retention rules tracking physical documents. They always pointed back to a Document Locater Number (DLN) or Microfilm Address Number (MAN) that was then cross-referenced to a storage location or media. While in the business process, documents were dealt with based on the rules of the business, when they completed the business task they had to be re-classified to encompass the retention process. This results in a lot of direct labor expense just to get the documents to a point they can be managed let alone have something done with them.

Along comes the Electronic process. Now we can store millions of pages on a single 51/4 optical platter. But wait, we don't want to put a 2 year document with a 7 year document and we certainly cant have lifetime documents being stored on the same media we have written an internal memo discussing the companies hiring strategies, internal demographic studies, safety & injury reports, accounting reports, etc.

What did the industry do? They created Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM).

HSM was supposed to provide the ability for an EDMS (Electronic Document Management) system to easily move data elements from one storage media to another, track retention cycles and identify those media items slated for destruction based on specified criteria. The problem is you still had to manage what documents went were and when based on the records retention rules and criteria. Where we had created electronic tools to track our physical documents, all HSM did was provide us a way to electronically track the media we now stored the physical (Or Electronic) documents in electronic format on.

We still had the issues of Rules & Definition and most importantly, - - Compliance, on the business process end. These "new" mechanisms still required two sets of management components and oversight to meet the letter and spirit of RIM requirements and proper handling of corporate intellectual property. This was further complicated as now that we had the storage capability; the basic mindset was to keep it all and at a much higher volume of information!

In the minds of Image Information, Inc., there had to be a better way.

In working with RIM experts in conjunction with a project for The City of Reno, Nevada, Image Information, Inc. has developed a methodology and EDMS application that facilitates records management and retention as a function of the business process itself.

Essentially, documents and data elements when captured in the system are married to established document categories & classes and retention policies by department and made available for the business process. This is accomplished by establishing appropriate record types for each department and incorporating them in the imaging system. The departmental user or capture department simply selects the appropriate document type for that department and proceeds as normal. From this point on, the system knows what document/department/date-time/last worked on/status, etc. automatically.

The Records Manager can then review the entire spectrum of data for the enterprise to determine which items he/she wishes to act on. The administrator can do this automatically or interactively.

The custom application from Image Information, Inc. allows the Administrator to determine when documents or data elements are moved from electronic storage to microfilm.

It should be noted that any back end storage component (Microfilm, Optical Disk, CD-ROM, WORM RAID, Etc) could be used. The City of Reno has elected microfilm as it is in concert with existing process & procedure, is very inexpensive, and is now easily incorporated to the process.

Documents can be kept in magnetic storage or sent to archive at any point in the process. Typically, items are kept in magnetic for the course of the business process and the immediate document life cycle. When selected, appropriate records are moved to film for permanent storage and either left in magnetic if they are still within their life cycle or the magnetic image is deleted from the store leaving the index information available.

When items are scheduled for filming the index information is retained and updated in the imaging system with the film Roll/Frame information. A separate but concurrent application contains the Location of the film based on the Roll/Frame ID. The imaging system used to facilitate the business process has now essentially become the equivalent of a CAR system and is updated automatically. A system user, by virtue of viewing the document, can tell where it is in the retention cycle. If it is on film, the Roll/Frame and storage information are available as part of the document index.

The custom application monitors the database to determine when documents should be deleted from magnetic storage, moved to film, indexes and references deleted and ultimately what microfilm is eligible for destruction and its location all based on rules and criteria established by the Records Management function.

The system streamlines the business process, improves efficiencies, lowers costs and provides long-term centralized storage with multiple user electronic access. More importantly, RIM policies are established within the system itself and compliance is automatic. By virtue of end users performing their normal business duties, records management and retention is facilitated consistently and is transparent to the user.

This provides high confidence on the records management side with significantly reduced cost associated with providing and administering this function.

Direct labor costs associated with records management are now reduced or eliminated depending on how you account for them. Records Management and Business Process Management come closer together and Retention is now easily defined and enforceable across the entire enterprise further amortizing the experience and function of Records Management over a greater number of transactions creating an even tighter Records Management environment.

Image Information, Inc. facilitated this capability using industry standard Customizable Off the Shelf (COTS) software products and creating an application layer that facilitates the movement of identified documents & records to various stages of retention and storage media. This environment and capability is now replicable and configurable to virtually any business process and records management requirement.

The components of the system are Imaging & Data software, Image & Data Capture and Scanning, and Post Process Microfilm storage deployed over a Windows NT environment. Thick Clients and Web Based clients can access information.

To our knowledge, it is the only Electronic Document & Data Management system in existence that facilitates both the business process and provides built in Records Management & Retention capability as part of the business function itself.

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