Functional requirements from the viewpoint of records
management
Dr. Peter Toebak, 27. Juni 2002; 30.04.2004
Toebak Dokumenten Management und Archivierung GmbH
www.toebak.ch
1. Introduction
2. Basic
distinctions between DMS and RMS
3. Records
management and daily business
4. Capture and creation of
incoming, internal and outgoing records
5. Records
indexing, profiling and searching (evidential and
information value)
6. Push and pull mechanisms for presentation and communication
7. Storage
and life-cycle management
Although there is some overlap between records management and document
management, it has become clear that document management in itself cannot
guarantee legal evidence, corporate accountability, internal and external
auditing, security management and archival obligation, nor can it (in the long
run) warrant for efficiency and innovation on a documentary basis. In fact, the
best IT suppliers have already reacted to this development. RMS and DMS nowadays
are converging more and more or add-ons for records management are delivered on
top of DMS.
Records have to be created while doing business. They cannot be created
afterwards or simply moved off-line onto less expensive storage media by a DMS
standard "archiving" function. For their whole life cycle they must remain
properly classified and organized. The most important feature of a RMS in fact
is the establishment and maintenance of a "controlled and structured environment" in order to
enable a company-wide life-cycle based management of all relevant
business-process bound documents. Records must keep up their authenticity,
reliabiltiy, integrity and usability as long as they are needed. Aspects such as business context,
content and structure of the records are crucial here. Actions on records and
files are to
be recorded by means of metadata, reports and audit trails, from the date of
creation until the date of disposal or archiving.
A company or administration must define which documents are considered as records.
Principally this is
a logical-organizational matter. It has to be clear which records are
"normal records", "vital records" and "archival"
or "non-archival records". "Vital records are those records that are absolutely
necessary to the organisation's ability to continue its business either in terms
of its ability to cope with emergency/disaster conditions or to protect its
financial and legal interests" (MoReq, 2002, page 24). Criteria for record, vital record
and archival record status have to be developed.
Some general remarks are produced in paragraphs 2 and 3. More specific
functional requirements are presented in paragraphs 4-7. They have been
categorized in four fields. A RMS must not be able to fulfil all mentioned
requirements by itself. In this case it may not hamper fulfilment, e.g. by not
supporting and incorporating the prescribed scanner soft- and hardware. Some
requirements can only be fulfilled by an adequate logical metadata structure
(the right metadata fields and references).
Typical requirements for electronic document management are:
- capture of incoming, internal and outgoing documents
- indexing and storage at the (individual) document level
- search and retrieval at the (individual) document level
- access management and security control
- off-line archiving for semi-active or inactive documents
- version control
- audit trails on access and changes to the (individual) document
- document profiles (information about the individual document).
- integration with document image processing, groupware and workflow systems
Additional typical requirements for electronic records management are:
- capturing, storing, indexing and retrieving all elements of the record as
a complex unit (content, context, structure).
- management of records within class categories, series or filing structures
to maintain the narrative and organizational links between them
- integration between electronic and paper records (hybrid solution), if
need be
- secure storage and management in a controlled environment to ensure authenticity and integrity,
including support for legal and regulatory requirements and preventing change
to content
- metadata on the basis of retention or disposition rules (life-cycle
management)
- management facilities for the systematic retention and disposal of records
- appraisal and selection of records for preservation and transfer to a
permanent company end archive
- migration and export of records for permanent preservation without loss of
information
Source: http://www.pro.gov.uk/recordsmanagement/ (Office of the e-Envoy)
It is important that the tools for records management permit a combination of
"help" and "control", e.g. through profile masks with pull-down menus and index
lists and by means of a business classification scheme with incorporated
retention or disposition schedule in the background. The RMS must be rigid
enough to standardize the business recording process, so that the electronic
records are well organized and can be discovered by a third party. On the other
hand it must remain flexible enough, so that the records need not be arranged or
labelled in a cumbersome way slowing down operational efficiency and
discrediting acceptance. The system must offer solutions to rectify data entry
mistakes (data consistency).
Ergonomically, it is significant that the interface between the RMS and the
desktop applications be easy to use and transparent. In fact, a fluid
integration will stimulate the case workers (action officers) and end users to accept the
unavoidable "negative" aspects of records management (discipline, time) as well
and helps to stimulate the capture, retrieval and (re)use of the records in
day-to-day business in a positive way.
Technically, one of the most important requirements deals with the necessity
of a stable, sustainable and explicit structure on behalf of the primary and secondary
objects of electronic records management. Metadata (secondary objects), records
(primary objects) and functionality of the software must physically (for the
first two objects not logically) remain separated in order to be able to respond
flexibly to new developments in the company information architecture. Hardware,
operation systems, software applications have a much shorter life cycle than the
data and records within the systems.
General mandatory requirements for RMS are the 4-digit century format, the
possibility of backward compatibility and the availability of extensive product
documentation (user guide, on-line help assistant, technical manual,
installation procedure). The implementation of identification and authentication
means for different roles and user groups (such as records manager, privileged
user, usual user, administrator) are necessary. Authorized persons need to have
more or less restricted or general access rights to the RM-system, to fulfil
those tasks they are entitled to.
- Scanning of analogue paper records (daily post, legacy files)
(at least 300 dpi) (TWAIN and/or Isis scanner interfaces)
- OCR / ICR of (selected) records
- Image compression (CCITT/TSS Group 4 TIFF 6.0 for bi-level
images; JPEG, PNG or GIF for colour or grey-scale images)
- Interfaces to office systems, such as MS Word, MS Excel, MS
Outlook, MS PowerPoint, MS FrontPage and MS Publisher, for document handling
- Capability of filing e-mails with their attachments as one record or of
filing selected e-mail items as separate records; extraction of transmission
and receipt data from the e-mail system
- Interfaces to workgroup computing systems, workflow systems for
processing documents and extracting data
- Interfaces to fax systems, modems, floppy discs, CD-ROMs for
capturing and sending of documents (records)
- Web capability, i.e. the possibility for the user to interface through
some browser software
- Defined standard APIs (Application Programming Interface)
according to the ODMA Group
- Version control, with default function to archive automatically
the last version of the document (record); avoidance of changes to the records,
once they have been filed
- Check-in and check-out procedures of simple and compound
documents (for editing a new version of the same document or to create a
completely new one)
- Templates for creating new documents and automated
extraction/transmission of metadata to the DMS/RMS; interface with forms
generating software
- Possibility of making electronic annotations on source documents
- Capture of all parts of a record (compound documents), which may
be in different formats, and maintain the link between them for record
integrity and authenticity
- Difference of read-only and read-modify mode (write protection)
- Possibility of dealing with documents with e-signatures and with
encoded or encrypted documents
- Optimal measures against computer virusses (virus checking,
quality controls)
- Free definition of metadata fields and types (independent from
vendor, supplier); capability for adding user-defined metadata fields and
modifying existing field names; customized arrangement of the metadata
fields on the data entry screens
- Incorporation of a business classification scheme and retention
schedule (hierarchical and systematic structure)
- Capability to designate metadata fields with selections or drop-down lists
to support and control the end user / case worker / action officer; users should be able to
create and maintain their own "quick-pick" lists for more
comfortable input
- Administration of changes and adjustments in the business
classification scheme and retention schedule
- Possibility of making only a subset of the classification scheme
accessible to a user or role
- Possibility of dossier building, subdossier building and series
building by an unique identifier (number) (at the time of capture), providing
complete recall of records within full business context by querying
- Storing for each user / case worker or user role a list of most recently used files
- Possibility of creating multiple entries (pointers) for records
belonging to several dossiers without the need of physical duplication (for
integrity purposes this linking must remain clear and manageable at the time
of appraisal, disposal or transfer)
- Capability to correct errors in metadata by the end users / case workers /
action officers before the record is filed; avoidance respectively allowance of changes /
additions to specific metadata, once the primary objects (records) have been
filed; possibility for correcting user errors and
entering metadata in a controlled way (on administrator's level); some
flexibility is needed here, as well as protection of integrity
and authenticity of the records
- Incorporation of thesaurus, controlled vocabularies (pull-down
menus; hierarchically organized, if need be)
- Language controls (English, French, German)
- Filling out of metadata fields automatically, by means of
default values, field relations / associations (e.g. individual records
inherit all the properties of a dossier/series and code within the business
classification scheme), manual keyboard entry and templates
- Automated extraction of metadata from incoming analogue scanned
documents (zoned OCR, interface with bar code system) and digital documents (e.g. e-mails)
- Plausibility, validity and consistency controls of the metadata input
- Differentiation between must (mandatory), should (non mandatory) and system metadata fields
- Warning mechanism if an attempt is made to
capture a record which is incomplete or inconsistent (e.g. no valid
e-signature, with dead links, with self-modifying features such as display of
"current date")
- Queries (QBE, SQL) on the basis of structured indexing (if need be with usual
Boolean and relational operators), presentation of the results in predefined reports and
hitlists, possible preservation of queries and query results by the end user
- Full-text retrieval on the basis of unstructured or free text
indexing (key words, wildcards, truncation, stop words, relevance ranking)
- Possibility of hyperlinks between documents (hypertext linking),
including link-checker to locate and reallocate dead links
- Capability for referencing and associating to specific records of
supporting and related notes, attachments, receipts, originally superseded
records
- Combination of mentioned search methods, refinement of concrete
search actions (e.g. firstly a query, than full-text retrieval within the
query result)
- Previewing records without launching the original software
application; accessing older available versions of a record, if necessary
- Access controll, security restrictions, user
and group profiles (regarding individual records, groups of records, functions
of the DMS / RMS, roles and responsabilities within the organization)
- Possibility of changing the security level
of already existing individual records, subdossiers, dossiers and series,
because personal, commercial and operational sensitivity will decrease over
time (on administrator's level)
- Automatic generation of system documentation
- Printing, e.g. of portions of the business classification scheme, the file
plan, lists of folders / dossiers being disposed off, a complete or partial
description of individual records by metadata; labels for boxing of
hard-copy counterparts or for labelling of tape reels, cartridges, cassettes,
diskettes, etc.
- COM (Computer Output to Microfilm) and/or COLD (Computer Output to Laser
Disc)
- Sending and receiving of faxes
- E-mail messaging, mailing lists, newsgroups
- Conversion to viewer format (inclusion of a multiformat document viewer)
- Conversion to browser format (Intranet, Extranet, Internet)
- Reproduction and routing of far-line and off-line records, closed subdossiers and dossiers
(folders) by making copies from the storage system
- Routing of documents in combination with a workflow engine (check-in,
check-out)
- Establishment of an integrated storage media hierarchy, e.g. faster
magnetic discs versus slower optical discs (on-line, near-line, far-line and
off-line) (hierarchical storage management)
- Establishment of an integrated logical hierarchy (in-tray, "personal"
documents, work group documents, sectional documents, controlled records
environment, back-office repository, end archive)
- Physical concentration of records belonging together to accelerate
near-line, far-line and off-line retrieval (clustering of dossiers and series)
- Closing (cutting off) automatically of volumes within a series on the basis of criteria to
be defined at configuration (e.g. annual cutoff date, timespan after an
event, maximum number of records)
- Possibility to close (cut off) and reopen files / folders (dossiers,
series), wenn authorized to do so, including possibility to unfreeze, move
or delete records under pre-defined conditions; some
flexibility is needed here, as well as protection of integrity
and authenticity of the records
- Separation of primary data (documents as objects), secondary data
(metadata as objects) and software functionality
- Indissoluble bond between primary data (documents as objects) and
secondary data (metadata)
- Scalability of the DMS / RMS and the necessity to deal with great amounts
of data
- Plattform interoperability (openness to the usual operating systems)
- History management and tracking of all document and metadata bound
activities; (selective) audit trail of capture, creating, editing, deleting,
searching, retrieving, disposal
etc.; periodic removal of the on-line audit trail to off-line storage,
deletion of audit trails after disposal of the relevant records
- Link-checking of URLs and directory paths of simple documents, compound
documents and annotations on source documents
- Replication and cache storage of documents and metadata (to deconcentrate
and accelerate retrieval); synchronization of multiple databases and
repositories
- Back-up routines supported by magnetic tape storage
- Recovery options after system falls, crashes (rollback capability, rebuild
capability)
- Export and import functions regarding records and metadata (primary and
secondary objects within the DMS/RMS)
- Conversion tool to standard archival formats for life-cycle management of
documents with long term record status (HTML, XML; PDF; TIFF)
- Conversion to standard archival formats for life-cycle management of
metadata having as well record status (ASCII; CSV; XML)
- Migration of documents and data to new media and systems
- Emulation and/or interpretation of software and hardware environment
(basic functionalities)
- Review and appraisal of records at pre-defined intervals (on the logical
basis of the retention schedule), recording taken decisions and actions
(metadata, reports, audit trails)
- Transfer and long-term preservation of records and metadata of vital or
enduring value, including removal of e-signatures, private keys and
encryptions; transfer must be possible to near-line, far-line and off-line
facilities
- Destruction of records and metadata, reformatting media (disposal of no
longer relevant documents and metadata; no physical reconstruction possible by use of
specialist data recovery facilities), e.g. also after acknowledgement of
successful transfer to an archives; documentation of destruction activities
(who, when, what, according to which)
- Possibility to retain (a selected subset of) metadata of records,
subdossiers, dossiers and series which are themselves destroyed (including
date of disposal)
Principal sources:
Design criteria standard for electronic records management software
applications (DoD 5015.2-STD), in: David O. Stephens und Roderick C. Wallace,
Electronic records retention. New strategies for data life cycle management
(Lenexa, 2003) (ARMA publication), Appendix, 101-116
Model requirements for the management of electronic records. MoReq
specification (Luxemburg, 2002) (EC publication), also on http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida;
http://www.dlmforum.eu.org; http://www.cornwell.co.uk/moreq.html.
International standard: information and documentation - records management (Geneva,
2001-2002) (ISO standard 15489-1 und 15489-2)