Managing Records in Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Overland Park, Kansas, ARMA International, 2012. vi + 93 pp. ISBN 978 1 936654 19 2. US$70.00
Records managers, in both public and private sectors, are increasingly required to participate in discussions about how recordkeeping will be factored into new or existing SharePoint implementations. For many records managers, this represents a challenge, as SharePoint differs significantly from traditional electronic document and records management systems (EDRMS) and does not offer a single model or approach to recordkeeping. Managing Records in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is aimed at ‘IT Managers who know very little about recordkeeping principles, practices, and methods’ (p. v). However, this book will also be of value to records managers who are seeking information about the recordkeeping capabilities and limitations of SharePoint 2010.
The author, Bruce Miller, is President of RIMtech – a Canadian electronic records consulting services firm. Miller has identified a subset of requirements from the US Department of Defense, Design Criteria Standard for Electronic Records Management Software Applications (DoD 5015.2-STD), which are applicable to most organisations (the ‘F1000 requirements’). Miller’s identification of SharePoint’s recordkeeping capabilities and limitations is based on this subset of requirements. SharePoint ‘out of the box’ will meet 72 of the 105 F1000 requirements. Miller details methods for customising and configuring SharePoint to achieve the remaining 33 requirements, based on the experiences of RIMtech projects.
Separate chapters examine how to implement a file plan, how to structure and manage folders, how to declare and classify records and how to dispose of records in SharePoint. Each of these chapters includes instructions for customising SharePoint to achieve particular functionality. Miller provides clear advice on using information management policies to define retention rules, methods for capturing email messages as records and configuring SharePoint to enable the review of disposal decisions before they are implemented. One of the key messages in the book is that, ideally, recordkeeping should be considered at the very beginning when planning the structure of a SharePoint implementation, as ‘the structure of the system has a profound effect on the ability to effectively do recordkeeping’ (p. 32).
Some of Miller’s advice may be of less relevance to records managers operating in an environment where records are classified and disposed of according to their business context. Miller distinguishes between ‘subject’ records (which document ongoing activity that never ends) and ‘case’ records (which document a person, event, project, and so on). Miller’s advice regarding the classification and disposal of case records is inconsistent with the use of functions and activities-based retention and disposal authorities, or schedules that specify disposal outcomes according to the business context in which a record was created or received. Interestingly, Miller makes no mention of using the ‘document sets’ functionality for managing aggregations of records.
Miller’s advice concerning the need to ‘declare’ records is also of less utility for records managers operating in an Australasian context, where the process of ‘recordisation’ does not need to occur before a document can be considered a record.
Miller’s assertion that ‘disposition is the “end game” [for successful electronic recordkeeping], where everything comes together in a way that allows us to accurately destroy massive quantities of recorded business records with full legal confidence’ (p. 72), suggests that the principle aim in configuring SharePoint’s recordkeeping capabilities is to enable the eventual destruction of records in a timely and appropriate way. While disposal in a digital environment is undoubtedly important, Miller does not address methods for facilitating the capture of records or structuring a SharePoint implementation to maximise the use of records in business processes in the same detail.
Managing Records in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 identifies some of the key recordkeeping limitations of SharePoint and details methods for overcoming them. Crucially, Miller notes that each organisation will likely have different recordkeeping requirements and should, therefore, assess the degree to which they need to customise SharePoint, with regard to their own situation. As such, this book does not provide a ‘one size fits all’ approach to recordkeeping in SharePoint, but rather describes particular customisations and configurations that can be used to achieve specific recordkeeping functionality.
Although SharePoint is an increasingly ubiquitous product and is, undoubtedly, being used by a range of organisations for capturing and keeping records, there is a dearth of clear, vendor-neutral information about configuring its recordkeeping functionality. This book is a useful resource for records managers wishing to understand some of the capabilities and limitations of SharePoint with regard to recordkeeping.
© 2012, Emma Harris