EDRM using Sharepoint

Roger Smethurst's engaging look at how DEFRA brought in an EDRM system...well, how they harvested their electronic records...(geddit??) using customised Sharepoint applications.


They didn't want a onesizefitsall EDRM system because DEFRA is a diverse aggregation of government departments. People work in different ways, different parts of the organisation work differently, so they need to work with this difference and not force everyone to work in the same way. But there's also a big need to work collaboratively...so they looked at Sharepoint which they thought would meet their needs.


There are 3 building blocks within Sharepoint they worked with mysite, teamsite (workspace) and RM.


Roger pointed out that users aren't records managers...(where have I heard that before?) Users want their work to be easy, reusable and portable; records managers want to organise, to put stuff in one place, managing it with rich metadata....with lifecycle management. Users just want to get on with their work.


Users hate fileplans...RMs like them cos they add order. But web portals add urls which users do like and understand. If you can use automated record capture, the users will love you for it. Well, maybe love is too strong a word for it...but you get my drift.




They used Mysite to manage the appraisal (IPR) process.


Record declaration from teamsites, document libraries are declared and sent to a record repository, router sorts it via access controls, to a record centre.


Less burden for end users, but more responsibility for RMs. Not just about technology it's abt adapting to the change.


3 options for object type based on the level of its importance...high, medium, low. It's the only metadata users had to enter. There was a huge educaion programme with the roll out of this.

I'm fascinated with this approach and would love to see it in action. I do share TNA's reservations about it though. For one thing it still doesn't link well with email. What was Microsoft thinking? Access rights are difficult. And if you don't manage it properly you can, if you're not careful, end up with Sharepoint sprawl. A mass of unstructured unrelated data that's grown despite your best efforts to manage it.


Nevertheless, Roger's energetic presentation and his undoubted enthusiam for his subject created a lot of interest from the floor...delegates were really keen to understand how it works. As its based on Microsoft suite of tools we'll all be watching developments with great interest.