Shared Points for SharePoint : records management

Document Management in SharePoint 2010

Thomas Læhren — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:45:58 GMT

SharePoint 2010 has extended its Document Management (and Records Management) capabilities considerably. I have looked into the new capabilities and will give you a quick overview about some of them. This post explains the following functionality:

Document ID
Rating, Tag/Notes
Rule Based Submission

The functionality described in this blog post may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release of SharePoint 2010.

Document ID

At the Site Collection level you can enable use of Document ID’s:

Each document in the Site Collection will get their unique document number (see next screenshot). A document is addressable using the unique document id via a document redirector page (/DocIdRedir.aspx?ID=uniquedocid), and the unique document id can also be used as a property when searching.

Rating, Tag/Notes

I have enabled both versioning and forced check-out on my document library. Rating and adding Tag/Notes does not require a check-out, and users are able to easily rate and add notes to the document.

Just hover over the stars to add rating:

To add Notes, select the document and then click on the Ribbon:

Save the notes by clicking “Post”.

Rule Based Submission

SharePoint 2010 let you define rules on a folder for further routing of the document. Documents uploaded to the folder will be moved to the correct library/folder based on the rules you apply. The rules are depended on the metadata you have available on the document.

The Content Organizer feature must first be enabled on the Site:

The feature creates a document library named “Drop off Library”:

After enabling the feature, go to Site Administration and click on “Content Organizer Rules”. A form pop’s up and this is where you add the routing criteria. I made a rule called “Contracts” and it will move all documents with the Content Type “Dublin Core” to my Contracts document library.

Page 1:

Page 2:

Additional settings are available under Site Administration / Content Organizer Settings:

(Note: the screenshot above doesn’t list all settings)

When users add a document to the “Drop Off Library”, the routing rules kicks in and move the document to the correct location.

I have uploaded a document into the Drop Off Library and the metadata form is presented. I select Dublin Core and fill in necessary metadata:

Then I select “Check In”, and the following pop-up is presented:

The routing rule then moves the document into the correct folder.

Other DMS capabilities

I will blog about the following capabilities later:

Document Sets
In Place Records Management
Hold and eDiscovery
Library and Folder Based Retention
Validate meta data upon submission of documents
Column default value settings
Office Web Apps
Term Store and Managed Metadata

SharePoint 2010 – Records Management

Thomas Læhren — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:41:01 GMT

SharePoint 2010 introduces new capabilities regarding Records Management. The most interesting feature, I think, is In-Place Records management (info at the end of this post) which makes it possible to declare documents as records without moving them to a Records Center. Records and documents live side by side in the site they were created in, and SharePoint 2010 makes it possible to apply different policies (i.e. retention schedules) depending if the item is a record or a document.

The Record Center site template is still available. It utilizes some new functionality like the Content Organizer to route incoming documents to the libraries of your preference. A new “dashboard” gives a record manager faster access to common tasks and to-do actions.

Holds (with discovery), audit and file-plan reports are also new or improved functionality to better control your records.

Other items than documents can also be declared as records in SharePoint 2010; wiki pages, blog posts, article pages among others.

This post gives an overview of two capabilities; Records Center and In-place Record Management. Functionality like Holds, File-plan and other Records management features will be covered in later posts.

The functionality described in this blog post may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release of SharePoint 2010.

Create a Records Center site

Simply create a Records Center by selecting the correct site template:

When creating a Records Center in SharePoint 2010, the following features are enabled:

Content Organizer
E-mail Integration with Content Organizer
Hold and eDiscovery
Metadata Navigation and Filtering
Offline Synchronization for External Lists
SharePoint Server Enterprise Site features
SharePoint Server Standard Site features
Team Collaboration Lists

The new look of the SharePoint 2010 Records Center:

The “Submit a Record” button let users upload (and add metadata to) documents. The documents will be added to the “Drop Off Library” and then moved to the correct library/folder according to the rules added by the records manager.

Note: Activate the “In Place Records Management” feature on the Site Collection level to fully take advantage of the Records Center. The feature has to be activated to mark incoming documents as records:

Create / enable Content Types

The Content Organizer uses Content Types (and related metadata) as criteria for where to move incoming documents. Content Types must therefore be created (or enabled) before routing functionality are enabled.

Create libraries for storing Records

I created a document library; “Contracts 2009” and added a rule “Contract” to the Content Organizer. When documents are submitted, the Content Organizer will move any documents related to the Content Type “Document” into the “Contracts 2009” library. You can create as many libraries/folders and content organizer rules you need to best control your records.

In my “Contracts 2009” document library, I went to Library Settings and enabled “Automatically Declaration”. Now, all documents added to the library are automatically flagged as records.:

Create Content Organizer rules

I added rules by selecting: Site Settings / Site Settings / Site Administration / Content Organizer Rules:

What happens if my target library doesn’t have the necessary Content Type enabled? I tried to create a rule which is using the Content Type “Dublin Core” as a criteria. I wanted all documents related to “Dublin Core” to be moved to the “Contracts 2009” library. As you can see from the message below, all target libraries also need necessary Content Types enabled for the Content Organizer to be able to move documents into the library.

Retention Schedule

Retention Schedule is, per default, enforced on the Content Types, but it is possible to define retention schedules on library/folder level too.

Retention schedule using Content Types

I went to Site Action / Site Settings / Galleries / Site content types (on Site Collection level), then I clicked on the content type “Document”.

Then i clicked on “Information management policy settings”, checked the “Enable Retention” and was given the choice of running different retention schedules on Non-Records and Records:

I chose to use a different retention schedule, and clicked “Add a retention stage for records…”. I was given the choice of setting different actions when the event fires.

It’s possible to add multiple actions, and each stage will occur one after the other in the order they appear on the page:

Retention schedule using Library/folder

Retention schedules are possible to configure directly on a document library. I went to my “Contracts 2009” library and selected “Document Library Settings. Under “Permission and Management” I clicked “Information management policy settings”. Here, I changed the source of retention by clicking on the “Change source”.

When choosing a different source a message will pop up, that basically says that you’re overriding the retention schedule at the Content Type level:

Then a form was presented, where I added my retention events and actions.

In-Place Records Management

A new capability in SharePoint 2010 is In-Place Records management. Instead of moving a document to a specific Records Center, you declare the document as a record and it will be handled as a record in the site it was created in. After the the document is declared as a record, it can have policies and restrictions different than when it was a document. The policies are added to either the Content Types or directly on the document libraries (see the Retention Schedule paragraph above).

Documents can be declared as records either manually or automatically.

Manual record declaration can be configures on Site Collection level and overridden in each document library. In Site Collection settings you have the following options on how declarations of records should be done:

When Record Declaration Availability is set to “Available in all location by default”, a new icon appears on the Ribbon:

A document will get a padlock added to its icon when declared as a record:

Again, you can override the record declaration availability on the document library level:

Automatically declarations of records is possible by checking the “Automatic Declaration” option in the document library settings.

New and updated site for Microsoft Services

Jon Løken — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:19:47 GMT

Microsoft Services has launched a new and updated site where you can find information about services and offerings from Microsoft Services and a new career section. A partner section will soon be available

For information worker capabilities you will find the offerings in the Business Productivity Infrastructure Optimization (BPIO) section. Here you will find fact sheets for the capabilities Business Intelligence (BI), Collaboration, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Mobile Messaging, Search and Unified Communications (UC).

Here’s an overview of the MOSS 2007 deployment offerings (The offering Document & Records management decision accelerator, that’s part of ECM, is marked with orange here)

http://www.microsoft.com/microsoftservices/

Microsoft SharePoint Server Gets DoD Certification

Stian Kirkeberg — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:55:00 GMT

Wondered if MOSS records management solution is any good? Well, it just recieved the Department of Defense certification 5015.2! The certification is endorsed by the National Archives and Records Administration as the benchmark for government and corporate organizations that manage records and documents.

MOSS includes extended functions for record routing, central repository, records policy, hold and more. On top of this you can again put documents rights management, ie. restricting rights to read, print etc.

All in all MOSS is a complete records management solution! You just have got to start using it. :)