Archiving giving you a headache? We have the answers

Archiving giving you a headache? We have the answers
By Elaine Murray, BDEE writer

No matter what country they are based in, all organisations must manage, store and dispose of their archives and records in compliance with contractual obligations, as well as any pertinent legal and regulatory requirements, such as tax or privacy laws.

During the last 15 years, the record-keeping practices in both public and private organisations have been completely transformed. New information technologies from PCs, laptops and servers to Local Area Networks (LANs), Wide Area Networks (WANs) and the internet have revolutionised the way companies create, use, distribute and gather information. However, even though all this technology has made life easier for everyone, one of the main challenges that organisations must now face is implementing a good electronic records management (ERM) system to enable them to deal with all of this information.

Record/document?
Before getting into the benefits of setting up an ERM system, it is best to distinguish between a record and a document. A document can be defined as information, that is either stored as paper, as a scanned image or electronically and subject to change. However, a record is defined as a document or any other data that is regarded as complete and unchangeable. It can exist in many ways such as a hard copy (i.e. paper) or a soft copy (scanned image or any other electronic form).

Similarly, the distinctions between an ERM system and an electronic document management (EDM) system are just as subtle. The main difference is that an ERM system must prevent accidental loss or deliberate tampering to maintain the evidential value of the records on the system. Therefore, any ERM system that is implemented must have a rigorous record structure and a distinct audit trail facility.

Advantages of electronic records management systems
The main advantages of implementing an electronic records management system are obvious.
There is a significant reduction in cost of paper storage and duplication. Also, as mentioned before, it is easier to meet compliance and legal requirements more economically.

Retrieval of information is faster too. In order for an ERM system to support various users with different job tasks, many of them provide many different ways of searching for information. Examples of these can include “fuzzy logic” (where the system compensates for misspelled words by looking for spelling alternatives); wildcard searches (where characters such as the asterisk or question mark are used to compensate for misspellings or unknown spellings); Boolean operators (such as ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘if’, etc., which help tweak searches) and proximity searches (which are used to find words that appear within a certain number of words, sentences or paragraphs of each other). ERM systems can also display search results in a way that is clear and user-friendly.

Organisations that have offices in different locations will also have the added benefit of being able to share records with various offices or clients. This is due to the fact that most ERM systems work with networking protocols so can be accessed from a remote server, no matter what part of the world the user is in. Additionally, companies can be happy in the knowledge that their records are secure in case of any disaster. This is because digital archiving simplifies disaster recovery planning by allowing backups of entire archives to be stored on resilient CDs, DVDs or other media.

Another area of security is added in the form of authentication. Most ERM systems have the facility that requires users to enter in some form of username or password in order to access the records. Access rights can then be added to the system and only allow certain users access to certain records.

Electronic records management systems requirements
When implementing an ERM system, there are a number of requirements that should be met as standard. For example, it is important to realise that technology is constantly changing. Therefore, for each format in your ERM system, you must have the software that is capable of reading that format. As formats are frequently changing and, normally, backwards compatibility only extends back a few versions, a plan for e-preservation is vital if records are to be kept for a long period of time. Some ERM systems provide this as an extension of the main system.

Web publishing is another item that should be taken into consideration. The internet is one of the foremost ways of accessing records within an organisation – particularly one that is geographically diverse. Therefore, the ERM system needs to provide for dynamic publishing of this information to the internet. Then, also, the need for archiving the data and the websites appearance needs to be taken into consideration.

As mentioned earlier, the ERM system should also offer the capability to produce audit trails and reports describe the activity of the system. It should also be able to log all users; documents looked at, what actions where carried out and the time at which the actions were executed. Audit trail abilities are very critical for all companies, in particular those that will have a lot of different users and documents of a confidential nature. They can also help in establishing compliance of regulatory standards.

Finally, it is also important to think about if records are going to be shared across partner organisations. If this is the case, then the partner organisations could be using different systems. Therefore, the records need to be able to be shared across these different systems.

Pitfalls
Of course, there are a number of pitfalls that organisations must be careful of when implementing an electronic records management system. Some of these include:

• Unexpected costs: There are a lot of activities involved in setting up an ERM system, some of which may not have been foreseen when the ERM system is first thought of, such as creating automated rules and procedures for getting content into the ERM system. This added work can take a lot of time and necessitate expensive contracted services. It is important to take this into consideration when planning the implementation of an ERM system.
• Conflicts of managerial opinion: As implementing an ERM system involves users and managers from different departments and/or groups within an organisation (i.e. IT, archives, training, departmental managers etc.), clashes of opinion and precedence among them can delay or shut down implementations.
• Time to implement: It can take a long time to fully deploy a complete ERM system. However, some organisations do not realise this and therefore can make promises that are too optimistic. This can result in users becoming disheartened and losing belief in the system.
• Lack of a super user: Sometimes top management can like the concept of an ERM system but not completely understand the intricacy of an enterprise wide ERM deployment. This can result in a failure to support or promote the ERM system when necessary.
• Slow acceptance: Employees can be averse to learn completely new procedures. This can slow down or stop the implementation of an ERM system before it even gets initiated.

Selecting an ERM system requires a lot of thought. Ideally, what you need is one that meets all your requirements at a low cost. Generic, off-the-shelf applications, such as Alliance’s Paperchase, are widely used but can be costly and can sometimes provide unnecessary functionalities. Also, at times, they can often fail to meet important organisational needs unless you customise it – which can add extra expense. Custom built products can often compete with generic solutions as well as offering extra benefits in terms of flexibility and savings in the costs of licenses.

Successfully implementing an ERM system
Once an application has been selected, there are a number of steps an organisation can take that can help with the successful deployment of an ERM system. The first of these is to start off small. Organisations should not attempt to implement an ERM system into the entire enterprise at once. It is best to start off with a small section, such as finance and accounting or legal. These groups usually have the most amount of funding and also are under the most amount of pressure to be in compliance with numerous regulations. This will help with an enterprise wide ERM system deployment as it will demonstrate to everyone how processes can be automated or records can be scanned and filed in a way that is useful to all users. It will be easier then to get funding for the next stage of implementing.

The next step is to carry out an evaluation of all hard copy records in existence. Most organisations retain records for longer periods than necessary. This can be at considerable expense and they could be at risk of legal consequences. Therefore, by pointing out these inadequacies, it will be easier to rationalise why an ERM system should be implemented as you will be able to display how it can lower the need (not to mention the cost) for storage and facilitate greater observance of regulated dates of when the record should be destroyed.

Once this step is completed, it is now necessary to break down the IT barrier. Often in large organisations, IT departments may be very reluctant to implement such a large system as it normally involves large amounts of work and cost. However, if managers from all departments work together to put the ERM system into practice and share the costs for implementation and configuration, then it will be easier to persuade the IT department heads that an ERM system is the best option.

Once this is done, the next stage is to select an ERM system that is easy to use. The most important thing about implementing an ERM system is to remember that if it is straightforward, user friendly and makes employees jobs easier, then it will increase interest in the new system. It’s hard enough to persuade someone to change from the old, familiar system but they are definitely not going to use something that will make their lives harder.

The final step is, when the system is ready for use, to promote (don’t force) adoption and offer access on a trial basis to the key users you identified in the first step. The best way to do this is to hold internal demos and develop internal success stories to drive interest beyond the initial installation. It is important to remember that the ERM system should not be shown to the users until it has progressed well past the testing phase. It must exhibit real process enhancements and improved productivity.

Case Studies
The National Library of Croatia has employed the help of Endeavor Information Systems to implement an integrated library management system, which will improve efficiency in library automation, resource sharing and customer access. The National and University Library acts as a base for study of Croatian society and is in charge of developing the collection of all Croatian publications and information provision about Croatia’s printed and written heritage. The director of the National and University Library, Josip Stipanov said: “Leveraging the flexibility and power of the Endeavor solution will not only enable our staff to become more efficient in their daily work, but it will also provide citizens with the enhanced ability to interact with a wealth of historical and contemporary resources."”

Governments are likewise beginning to realise the benefits of implementing electronic records management systems. In Estonia, the execution of the Public Information Act and the Digital Signatures Act initiated a complex set of measures which became known as the Records Management Program of government agencies. This program is aimed at reorganising and transferring records into an electronic format so that agencies can experience the benefits of having all public records organised electronically.

In conclusion, while there is a lot to think about when implementing an ERM system, it is clearly becoming an integral part of any modern organisation. Potential investors should remember that, while it is only part of the answer to the meeting legal requirements question, it is the broader advantages of an ERM system that can improve organisational effectiveness and also help cover the price of compliance.

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