Implementation tactics
This refers to the way in which you as a project team need to ensure that the record keeping policies and systems you develop and procure and install are actually adopted and used by staff in your education organisation. No matter how well written your policies are and no matter how powerful your new EDRM system is, unless you have developed and promoted sound corporate record keeping procedures and practices and they have been accepted and followed by the staff then you may still fail to meet your education organisation's record keeping requirements and your other key business objectives.
Traditionally with paper-based registry systems you would have had an agreed procedure which called on staff to contact the registry when they needed to start a new folder on a new topic. Provided they did so then the registry staff would set up the folder and log it on the registry software and check it out to the user. Provided the user filed all their papers into the folder and checked the folder back in to the registry when it became inactive then the system worked and the policy was being implemented. In order to ensure it worked there was a need for training so that new staff understood how the system was designed to work and ideally there should have been sufficient resources so registry staff could proactively promote the service to staff and check on staff who were thought to be setting up their own folders and not getting them registered on the system.
Similarly with electronic document and records management systems there is a strong need for agreed practices and procedures and implementation tactics to ensure staff follow them. In certain transaction applications the application or the workflow software can be designed to enforce the agreed record keeping procedures. Staff are prompted to index the documents and carry out the required tasks and as a result the documents will be declared as records and placed in the relevant electronic folders and assigned retention schedules. Examples of such applications would include invoice processing, registering students and setting up database records and electronic folders for each student etc.
In other cases when dealing with more ad hoc people-centric processes there are more difficult system design and procedural issues to resolve. How do you ensure that staff file e-mails or Word documents into the right electronic folder on your EDRM system? Some education organisation s will train the users on how best to use the system and provide them with initial floor walking support while they are starting to use it but then will leave it up to the users to use the system how they see fit. There will be controls on who can set up new folders - usually the records management contact for that Department/unit and staff will be provided with procedures to follow to request that a new folder be set up for them or a folder part closed and a new folder part opened etc. However, it is then the user's responsibility to decide which documents and e-mails they file in which folders.
For some education organisations there is a need for tighter controls. They opt to configure their systems so that the only way a user can save a Word document is to save the document into a folder on the EDRM system. They close off local drives and they prevent users setting up personal folders and enforce a policy where all documents created in working hours have to be filed in a public folder on the system. While such a procedure might be acceptable in some administration departments in some education organisations it would clearly not be desirable to impose such a tight regime on all academic staff.
An excellent example of an area where policies need to be agreed and then systems and procedures adopted to support them is the management of e-mails. If the policy is that staff are responsible for deciding which e-mails and attachments comprise valuable records and for filing them in the correct electronic folders then they can use their client e-mail and EDRM solution to view incoming e-mails and either save them into the relevant folder on the EDRM system or mark them for deletion from their e-mail inbox. If the policy is that for corporate accountability reasons all e-mails must be archived and kept for a minimum period of time irrespective of the value which staff place on them then the education organisation may need to implement a dual approach where selected e-mails and attachments are saved into folders on the EDRM system by staff and fully indexed and assigned retention schedules and all remaining e-mails are archived on an e-mail archiving solution with minimal metadata for an agreed period.
Key implementation tactics include:
Change management procedures (see stage 2, step 3)
Published records management procedures to support published records management policy
Documented records management responsibilities built into job descriptions, induction training office procedures and business process guides
Records management training courses
Agreed corporate procedures for the capture and management of e-mails and attachments
Guidance on setting access controls to documents and records
Published functions based classification scheme
Published functions based retention schedules
Documented procedures for the management and control of access to paper record stores
