SP 2010 Records Management New Features
With all the talk about the new features in SharePoint 2010 one of the area’s that has really garnered some attention is that of the new Records Management capabilites wihin the platform.
So what are these new features and how can they be used to build comprehensive Records Management funtionality within SharePoint 2010?
Multi-Stage Retention Policies
Firstly we now have the ability to define retention policies ( at the Content Type, Site Collection or Folder/Library) level that have multiple triggers and actions. This is vastly different from the MOSS 2007 which only allowed you to define one action.
What this means is that items can now have retention policies that really model existing Records Management systems and can move through a retention lifecycle without any extra development. In addition we also have more actions that can be performed, so things like deleting previous versions, starting a workflow or even sending a piece of content to another location can be performed easily.
Multiple actions and stages can now be defined on items
Information Management Policy Source
Items can now inherit retention details from 2 different sources: At the Content Type or at the Folder Level. This allows for a traditional file plan to be created where the disposition on items is defined based on location making it much easier to create complex routing rules and policies.
Retention source can now be defined on Content Type or Library/Folder
Multiple Send To Locations
With MOSS 2007 only one send to location could be defined. Now with SharePoint 2010 you have a whole host of options that can be leveraged in a Records Management scenario including new options when an item is sent, multiple locations to send to and the ability to actually hide send to location from users to distinguish items that have been moved manually and items that have been moved as part of a policy.
Save To Location
Content Organiser
The Content Organizer now allows you to route documents to document libraries and folders inside of SharePoint. In addition it does a host of other things such as create folders when an item limit has been reached, make sure that folders are created when certain metadata values are attached and other features.
For a Records Management scenario the Content Organizer is the tool that will route content into the correct folders within the Records Centre, which can then define retention rules on the item.
There will be more detailed articles about the Content Organizer coming up since its a really great feature!
Unique Document ID’s
Another feature that will be leveraged will be the ability to assign unique identifiers to content stored within the records center. This provides several benefits such as being able to search for documents via ID, to not have to remember the location of a document and to be able to track a document via an identifier throughout the entire lifecycle.
For more information there is a more detailed article that I have written here.
In Place Records Management
Another new ability is to mix Records and Non Records within the same library. This is a really cool feature that does make it much easier to get users to use the records management features inside of SharePoint since its now part of the user interface.
There is some trade off’s though that you have to consider, even a pretty good article that examines the two!
Declaring an item in place
Compliance Details
Users can now view the compliance details on any item from within the context menu of the item. This not only encourages user participation but makes it easier for administrators to see any rules that are defined on content.
Compliance Details
Manged Metadata and Content Type Syndication
Although not strictly part of the Records Management toolkit the ability to centrally define metadata in one location and define content types and have them synchronized across Sites, Site Collections and even farms makes these two features indispensable to any Records Management solution.
Manged Metadata Service
Holds and EDiscovery
Finally there is the new EDiscovery feature that now ships with SharePoint 2010. This feature is vastly improved in SP2010 and you can now conduct holds and searches on any Site Collection within the system, have a great interface for managing various holds and you can even predefine searches that can be used to discover items.
There are also other great features liked improved reporting and a much better user experience!
Holds and EDiscovery Options
Links
There are some great articles out there about the new Records Management features so take a look:
- Overview of Records Management in SharePoint 2010: Good article on some of the new features.
- SharePointRecordsManagement.com: A great website with content specific to RM in SharePoint.
- Microsoft ECM Blog: The official blog of the ECM team at Microsoft which usually has a great deal of content and is really informative.
- Norway MCS Team Blog: Seems like the Norwegian Microsoft Consulting Services team has had a good look into Records Management and also has some good articles.
Category: Planning, Requirements and Analysis
