Julia Urquijo Reguera
1. introducción y oBJetivo
How the declaration and classification process is carried out is one of the key design decisions for a records management solution.
Within any records management system, there are two types of users:
Those users who fully understand the concepts
Those users for whom records management is a task that someone else performs
It remains a goal of many records management systems to streamline the entire process, particularly for users because many users have little or no
understanding of what constitutes a record and they do not want to take time away from their work to understand how to classify a document as a record. For these users, the greater the automation involved in records declaration, the better.
At the other end of the records management spectrum lie the professionals whose job it is to establish, own, and maintain an effective records management system whether they are paper-based or electronic-based. These users fully understand what constitute records as well as the importance of why records need to be effectively managed. Classification of documents as records is a straightforward process to records professionals.
A major challenge in the adoption of effective records management is how to manage the declaration and classification of records for all users, not just records professionals. The IBM Records Manager–based solution enables declaration and classification techniques from auto-declare and auto-classify to a very manual declare and classification process. Figure 3-1 shows the
records
management continuum
. Whatever level of automation is applied, the goal is theaccurate
,repeatable
,consistent
application of retention rules to captured records.Figure 3-1 Records management continuum
The more manual the process of record declaration and classification, the less planning is required, yet more user interaction is involved. The more automated the process of record declaration and classification, the more planning is required beforehand for the entire system, yet less user interaction is involved. The more manual the process also requires more records knowledge from users and potentially more prone to introduce human errors.
In general, automated declaration (and classification) should be the
goal
of the organization. It should only be the exception that a small subset of records is manually declared. Organizations need to aim fortouchless records capture and
keeping
and aim wherever practical to deploy auto declaration features for documents.3.2.1 Auto classification design consideration
Auto classification
eliminates the need for users to assign retention rules manually. IBM Records Manager offers metadata-based auto classification, whereby the records administrator can define classification rules based on metadata of a document. If you plan on using auto classification, you should understand the lack (or potential lack) of suitable metadata. To have successful auto classification, the metadata must contain sufficient information for the system to auto-classify. Auto-Declare & Classify Drop into Records-enabled Folders Quick Lists / Profiles More Planning / Less User Interaction Less Planning /More User Interaction
Manual Declaration & Classification
Chapter 3. Declaration and classification 37
Auto classification requires planning and configuration ahead of time. You need to decide:
The auto classification rules to establish
The metadata that will be used in the classification process
How to handle documents that cannot be classified because either no single rule satisfies a match or insufficient metadata is available
3.2.2 Manual declaration and classification design consideration
The other end of the implementation scale is where the declaration and classification are both manual operations. An assumption here is that the classification of a record is performed by users rather than the records administrator.
If your organization allows or requires users to perform manual declaration and classification, you need to consider carefully the responsibilities placed on users. Users might have no previous experience or skills in this area. Your organization must define and publish retention policies relating to the importance of
documents and records within your organization.
To streamline and ensure effective and accurate ways of performing manual declaration and classification, we provide the following recommendations:
Minimize the subset of the file plan components and data fields that users have to select and enter at the declaration and classification time
Provide adequate and relevant user training
When auto classification or manual classification are not suitable for an organization, you can set up alternatives where users who want to declare documents as records can do so using a combination of manual and auto classification.
3.2.3 Semi-auto declaration and classification options
With IBM Records Manager, there are options which are in between the manual and automatic process. For simplification, we call them
semi-auto declaration
and classification. You can set up these options through system configuration or custom programming.Figure 3-2 shows the declaration options available in Enterprise Content Management products.
Figure 3-2 Declaration options from Enterprise Content Management products
In Figure 3-2:
DM stands for IBM Document Manager.
CS stands for IBM CommonStore solutions, which include both IBM CommonStore for Lotus Domino and IBM CommonStore for Exchange Server.
CM stands for IBM Content Manager.
Table 3-1 summarizes the available declaration options.
Table 3-1 Available declaration options in different product and solutions
Manual Declaration (CM, CS, DM) DM Quick Declaration By Selection Auto Declaration (CM, CS, DM)
Manual Declaration Auto Declaration
DM Quick Declaration By Property
CS Drag&Drop Declaration
Product and solution Auto
declare
Quick declare
Foldering (drag and drop)
Manual declare
IBM Document Manager Yes Yes Yes
IBM CommonStore solutions (IBM CommonStore for Lotus Domino and IBM CommonStore for Exchange Server)
Yes Yes Yes
Chapter 3. Declaration and classification 39