The electronic business environment today has experienced an evolution. The concept of a record has dramatically shifted from ‘paper' to information dynamically created in many formats using digital tools, including office business systems and mainstream Internet-based technologies. Integral to this evolution, successive generations of office tools and business systems are becoming the central information store.
Organisations are turning to a new generation of information management platform to respond to this change. At the same time they are exploring new ways of using these platforms: to interact with, and service, their customers; to support improved processes for knowledge management, collaboration and social networking; and to automate routine business processes. Archive agencies are responding to this shift, developing new guidelines that address the electronic business paradigm, such as the "Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments", now endorsed by the International Council on Archives (ICA).
Microsoft's SharePoint platform, first with MOSS 2007 and now SharePoint 2010, is being developed as a platform to support Web 2.0 and collaboration business activities. Also to provide the necessary tools for end users to manage information for improved search and retrieval, compliance and lifecycle management.
Why is SharePoint 2010 different? Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 offered real promise to organisations wanting to introduce collaboration tools and improved document management processes to replace the ubiquitous shared drives. While features such as content types, document libraries and default metadata capture using Office provided some benefits, MOSS 2007 had a number of limitations particularly in terms of records management.
SharePoint 2010 offers a solution to these limitations. Scaling issues are no longer a concern, and central services such as content type syndication and ‘term store' make large-scale deployments much easier. Search is improved with the FAST technology providing faceted results and metadata-driven browsing to filter and find information easily.
The Records Centre capability has been completely redeveloped with a function called Content Organiser which automatically moves records to the Record Centre, provides support for a records file plan, unique document IDs, and complex ongoing retention and disposal policies. These are linked to file plan locations or content types as needed.
Ease of use is enhanced with improved Office integration, easy metadata filtering of information, and simplified editing of wikis. SharePoint 2010 also provides a range of enhanced collaboration capabilities. For example using social networking on specific expertise and interests, and user ratings to simplify sharing of information and knowledge on areas of common interest.
Analysis results show the progress made We assessed both MOSS 2007 and SharePoint 2010 for compliance against the ICA Module 2 functional specifications in conjunction with Microsoft and National Archives of Australia. The overall analysis results are shown below:
With a 63% compliance result, MOSS 2007 Enterprise version is clearly only a partially compliant solution out of the box. It is difficult to achieve required compliance levels without complex configuration and add-ons.
With an 88% compliance result, SharePoint 2010 is shown to be largely compliant, albeit with configuration still required to address specific records management functions such as security classifications, physical record tracking and easy email capture. Key improvements significantly reduce the complexity of configuration compared with MOSS 2007, such as records declaration, compliance views, content organiser, document sets, file plan and location-based policies, and managed metadata terms.
The analysis concluded that SharePoint 2010 has the capability, subject to suitable configuration and support, to be a serious option for a compliant ERMS solution.
Going one step further - altering the records management paradigm While these analysis results clearly show significant progress they tell only part of the story.
The broader ICA ‘Module One: Overview and Statement of Principles' sets out overarching records and systems-related guiding principles that are equally important for a successful ERMS solution. One of the key principles is ‘systems should support good business information management as an organic part of the business process'. This principle is difficult for most ERMS solutions to achieve.
SharePoint 2010 allows a business to retain a business focused approach such as this while maintaining a separate, parallel records management and metadata structure, transparent to business users. As SharePoint 2010's information architecture shows, content organiser can automatically populate a second records and lifecycle management driven file plan using metadata and other rules.
Workflow can also be used to declare records and determine where records should be saved based on business process outcomes, such as approvals.
The guidelines require ‘standardised metadata across business and record keeping systems'. SharePoint 2010 supports this with content type and term store syndication between business sites and the Records Centre; business connectivity services for line of business metadata; and exposure of content type and term store metadata via Office's backstage and document information panel.
Integrating SharePoint with Office can achieve real end user benefits The guidelines also require that systems are easy to use and readily accepted by end users, with principles such as ‘as much metadata as possible should be system generated' and ‘it should be as easy as possible for users to create/capture records of business activity...it is necessary to design systems/software that automate recordkeeping in a way, ideally, that makes such recordkeeping largely ‘invisible' to the end-users'
SharePoint integrated with Office is able to make most recordkeeping invisible to end users by defaulting metadata based on location, content type, templates or actual content.
The Office XML file format is a key to this. The tight integration between Office and SharePoint makes it easy to default SharePoint data into Office and vice versa, simplifying the creation of documents, and eliminating the need for end users to have to enter metadata at time of saving.
Metadata can be also defaulted by setting up a specific content type for each retention policy or file plan record type.
At the time of creating a new document, or uploading a file to SharePoint, a user simply selects a content type to initiate this approach. This will then default the relevant records management metadata such as the Business Classification Scheme and disposal authority values as standard metadata, without further entry by the end user. In this diagram the user is selecting a relevant content type specific to the document library. In SharePoint 2010 this selection can also be done from Office directly.
Based on the content type selected metadata is then defaulted.
This simplified metadata capture allows ‘all information to be treated as a record', able to be managed through its lifecycle (even if the information is only retained temporarily), easily shared, and more easily searched given the default metadata properties.
Conclusion We believe SharePoint can be a viable records management solution, particularly where the majority of information is in an electronic form. SharePoint 2010 has a number of key advantages over traditional systems through improved ease of use, automated metadata capture, improved search and retrieval using this improved metadata, and coverage of Web 2.0 and other rich media formats.
Properly configured, it appears SharePoint 2010, integrated with Office 2010, will be able to deliver on the promise of providing business focused information and processes, while at the same time supporting transparent compliance and records management.
This article is based on best practice design documented in the guide: "How to Implement SharePoint as an Information Management platform" published on the Microsoft Australia website (http://digbig.com/5bbwxj)
Related Resources
'Principles and Functional Requirements for Records in Electronic Office Environments' from the International Council of Archives:
John Wise is the Managing Director of Wise Technology Management, an Australian-based management consultancy recognised as independent experts in the design and implementation of SharePoint as an Information Management platform. John has worked on developing IT and Information Management strategies for a wide range of clients including SA Water, Veolia Water, Vision Australia, Tower Insurance, Institute for Safety, Compensation, Recovery and Research, and InsuranceLine. The SA Water project resulted in SharePoint being implemented as a corporate information management platform. John has developed a follow-on paper on best practices to be followed in integrating SharePoint with an EDRMS, taking into account the approach taken by HP with TRIM 7. He has also just completed an update of the analysis of SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010 against National Archives of Australia ERMS functional specifications, metadata standards and the ADRI and ICA ERMS modules.
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The electronic business environment today has experienced an evolution. The concept of a record has dramatically shifted from ‘paper' to information dynamically created in many formats using digital tools, including office business systems and mainstream Internet-based technologies. Integral to this evolution, successive generations of office tools and business systems are becoming the central information store.
SharePoint 2010 offers a solution to these limitations. Scaling issues are no longer a concern, and central services such as content type syndication and ‘term store' make large-scale deployments much easier. Search is improved with the FAST technology providing faceted results and metadata-driven browsing to filter and find information easily.
SharePoint 2010 allows a business to retain a business focused approach such as this while maintaining a separate, parallel records management and metadata structure, transparent to business users. As SharePoint 2010's information architecture shows, content organiser can automatically populate a second records and lifecycle management driven file plan using metadata and other rules.
and the Records Centre; business connectivity services for line of business metadata; and exposure of content type and term store metadata via Office's backstage and document information panel. 
The guidelines also require that systems are easy to use and readily accepted by end users, with principles such as ‘as much metadata as possible should be system generated' and ‘it should be as easy as possible for users to create/capture records of business activity...it is necessary to design systems/software that automate recordkeeping in a way, ideally, that makes such recordkeeping largely ‘invisible' to the end-users'
The Office XML file format is a key to this. The tight integration between Office and SharePoint makes it easy to default SharePoint data into Office and vice versa, simplifying the creation of documents, and eliminating the need for end users to have to enter metadata at time of saving.
At the time of creating a new document, or uploading a file to SharePoint, a user simply selects a content type to initiate this approach. This will then default the relevant records management metadata such as the Business Classification Scheme and disposal authority values as standard metadata, without further entry by the end user. In this diagram the user is selecting a relevant content type specific to the document library. In SharePoint 2010 this selection can also be done from Office directly.
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