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March 2007
 DID YOU KNOW?Research shows that unstructured content, such as emails and instant messaging, is increasing at a compound annual rate of 92 per cent. (Source: SecurityPark.net) |
In this issue:
Dear Records Manager:With the cost of increasingly scarce office real estate skyrocketing in major markets across North America, space is rapidly becoming a pressing concern for many organizations. The need to store the ever expanding volume of records produced in the course of business is only adding to this problem, and space planning has become a very challenging task. Records Management has a huge role to play in space planning, and this month we bring you a white paper on how you can make RM work for you in the quest for space maximization. As "smoking gun" and "lost" emails continue to figure prominently in a number of high profile legal cases, the question of what to do with email remains a hot topic. If you are wondering how to approach this particular challenge, this month we’ve got an article on introductory best practices for email archiving. And this month we've got all the details on the new TABQUIK® 7 in our Featured Product section. This update for our highly successful TABQUIK software makes color-coding files and other media even easier, so you can organize and retrieve the information you need more efficiently. We are always interested in what our readers think, so if you have any feedback, please let us know! Regards, TAB White Paper - Space Planning in Records Management: Doing More with Less
A good Records Management program is part of the solution to this space issue, in ways that may surprise you. After all, two of the main goals of an effective Records Management program are to make optimal use of available storage space while keeping records long enough to support business and minimize risk. In fact, Records Management best practices offer a wide range of options which can impact both the volume of organizational file collections and the space required to store those collections. In order for these options to support business efficiency, legal compliance, and cost reduction, organizations must take the right actions in the right order and apply clear metrics for measuring success. In this TAB Whitepaper, we’ll show you how you can make your RM program a valuable asset as you tackle your space management issues, with comprehensive analysis and tips on:
You can download the whitepaper here. TAB Email Archiving Best Practices: An Introduction
Start with a good Records Management programFrom an RM perspective, a record is a record, whether it’s a paper or an electronic document. Any good RM program will contain provisions for document classification and retention which can be extended to handling electronic documents, including an email retention policy. Applying the program’s retention schedule to e-mail reduces storage and discovery costs and mitigates the risks of litigation and spoliation. If this is not in place, you need to design an email retention policy that is in line with regulatory and compliance requirements as well as your organizations culture and philosophy. To be effective, the policy must outline exactly what is covered, as well as responsibilities and procedures. This process includes defining defensible policies which map the governing regulations and internal requirements to the process. Define Your TermsAs part of your RM program, the importance of a clear organizational policy of what defines a proper e-mail business record cannot be overstated. At TAB, we recommend the following definition of a record: "Any master or primary source of information which is evidence of business activity within your organization." This includes the large majority of original source business e-mail! Get Everyone InvolvedBecause everyone in your organization uses email, getting input from as many key stakeholders as possible is part of creating a successful email archiving policy. Once you know how and why your people create documents, and how they use and store them, you are better able to create a retention policy that won’t be counterproductive and undermine daily operations. AutomationAutomated processes for e-mail archiving should only be used at a back-end storage management level to bulk migrate e-mail folder sets to lower cost electronic storage. Automation should not be used for individual record retention indexing. Automated "classification" systems for electronic content still do not understand the true business context of the information they process and can only be used for subject keyword indexing. While this can be helpful for information search & retrieval applications, this is insufficient for RM compliance purposes. Buying software? See the big picture!Often an organization is galvanized into buying into e-mail archiving software by a specific event or concern, such as the threat of litigation and e-discovery, or compliance concerns. Focusing on one specific problem can lead to purchasing technology which does not address all of your organizations needs, such as productivity and storage. Four key factors to look for in an email archiving solution:
E-mail classification: Keep it simpleIn a manual environment, simplifying the classification scheme for electronic records makes it easy for end users to classify e-mails within their native e-mail application and increases the likelihood that end users will consistently classify their messages. Most data retention requirements are for minimum retention periods. Create "high water marks" for similar types of documents. In other words, it is easier to follow one retention period that covers all retention periods than it is remember a lot of separate retention periods. Discourage Personal ArchivesMany people in organizations without e-mail archiving automation will create their own email archives, for reference or re-use. This is a drain on productivity, and if your organization is capturing e-mail traffic then there is no need for personnel to spend time trying to find, access and create archives. Review regularlyThe regulations, laws and judicial rules of evidence pertaining to e-mail change regularly, so it is critical that you review your email retention policy on a regular basis. TAB recommends doing so on an annual basis at a minimum. In the eyes of the courts and regulatory bodies, being aware of new regulations and laws is part of compliance. EducateWhether you are creating a new policy or have an existing one, you must ensure that everyone knows about it and has access to it. If it is a new policy, all personnel must be trained on it. TrainingThis is absolutely essential and the most important part of any archiving initiative. Training is most effective when it teaches the reasons behind policy creation, how to use any new technology, and the consequences of not following the policy. Training refreshers should be offered on an annual basis. Depending upon the size of your organization, you may want to consider a pilot group before rolling out email management across the enterprise. Remember, when you embark on such a program, you are changing the everyday habits and culture of your people. They are accustomed to creating their own “inbox” structure and keeping things for any particular length of time. The organization will be changing all of those rules so a pilot group from “very receptive” to “most difficult” adopters allows your organization to anticipate how to best to rollout to the entire organization over time. Whatever your approach, email retention training should be conducted using real email in the real world during the training process, so that users will understand the exact extent of daily work process change they are being asked to undertake. Email do’s and don’tsEven with an email or data retention policy in place, you should have an email use policy as well. This outlines what people should and shouldn’t do with emails, privacy expectations, and consequences for system misuse. For more information on how TAB can help you with your email archiving, call 1-888-466-8228 or complete our online response form. Feature Product ALERT: TABQUIK 7 Has Arrived!
On-Demand Color Coding Has Never Been Easier!A new version of TABQUIK, our labeling software that allows you to produce color-coded labels on demand, is ready to ship. TABQUIK 7 provides you with an even easier and more efficient way to color-code files and other media for timely organization and retrieval. The Total SolutionTABQUIK 7 is a scalable, Windows-based software solution that allows you to set a color-coded and labeling standard across your entire enterprise. To meet individual and multi-user requirements, TABQUIK 7 is available in Standalone, Network, and Enterprise versions. What’s New?Helpful Documents Module-Less hands-on for you! Dictionary (.dct) file editor-No need to send designs in for revision! Whether your labeling system requires you to modify the color palette to match existing color schemes or should it require customized configuration of the data entry screen, TABQUIK 7 provides you with end-to-end control. The editing tools allow you to manage and configure your label data. You have complete control of the following design elements:
Export data (.dat) file to Microsoft Excel Enhanced Advance Project Setup Settings
For more information on the TABQUIK 7, call 1-888-466-8228 or complete our online response form. Rising E-discovery Costs Put E-mail Archiving in the SpotlightWith electronic discovery consultant fees starting at $275 an hour, and costs of collecting, reviewing and producing a single e-mail running between $2.70 and $4, experts in this market estimate that in 2007, litigants will spend more than $2.4 billion on electronic discovery services, with no end in sight to this growth. This is having a profound effect on companies at risk, and the rush to get all electronic records properly archived and stored is on. Read more about the rising cost of e-discovery and how that is playing out for litigants and court cases. 38 Billion Reasons Why Paper Records Still MatterWhen a techie at the Alaska Department of Revenue was reformatting a disk drive, he accidentally deleted a hard drive (and the back up drive!) for an oil funded account worth $38 billion. There was still hope, until the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable. What saved them? 300 Boxes of paper records containing all the original account information. Read the full story on why paper still matters! RM: Beyond Dollars and Cents ROIThe growth in volume and importance of records has pushed the pure “dollar and cents” considerations of records management into the background, with the focus increasingly on the less traditional benefits of good records management such as legal and regulatory compliance, risk management, and more efficient business operations. Read more on why traditional ROI calculations for RM are becoming irrelevant.
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These days, office space is at a premium: it’s expensive, it’s limited, and demand is high. With organizations growing all the time, and producing more records as they do so, storing your information assets is fast becoming a major space issue. 