We are in the process of upgrading our extensive ‘out of the box’ SharePoint 2010 environment to SharePoint 2013 and, at the same time, setting up a limited SharePoint Online presence. So, what’s changed in relation to managing documents as records?
In SharePoint 2013, the short answer is ‘not much’. However, there are some new things that will change some parts of our technical design model. The things that have remain unchanged include:
- Document libraries as the primary ‘container’ to store documents, using folders, document sets, or metadata-based categorisation, to ‘group’ documents.
- Document IDs, set in the Site Collection Administration – Document ID settings section.
- Document versioning (major/minor, major, or none), set in the Library Settings – Versioning Settings. Other settings in this section, which we generally do not use, have also not changed: Content Approval, Draft Item Security, and Require Check Out.
- Use of Content Types (and disabling of Folders), enabled via Library Settings – Advanced Settings, and then added in the general Library Settings – Content Types area. All other options in this section, which again we rarely use, are still there: Custom Send to Destination, Search visibility, Offline Client Availability, Site Assets Library, and Dialogs. The old familiar ‘Datasheet view’, which we use to ‘bulk upload’ or update metadata has been renamed ‘Quick Edit’.
- Almost unlimited metadata options via pre-defined Content Types or library-specific columns, both of which can point to the centrally controlled metadata in the Managed Metadata Service or local ‘look-up’ lists.
- Multiple list views, each with their own linkable URL.
- The ability to copy documents, via drag and drop or copy/paste, using ‘Open with Explorer’. This, coupled with the ‘Quick Edit’ option, allows documents to be copied to SharePoint document libraries in bulk and metadata added easily.
- Access controls that can be applied right down to the document level.
- The ability, from a document-specific drop down menu, to view or edit the properties of a document, check it out or in, view the version history (and restore versions), run workflows, download a copy, share (the former ‘manage permissions’ – see below), and delete (where enabled).
- Out of the box simple workflows for Review and Approval.
- Site collection audit trails, accessed via the Site Collection Administration area. Unlike some other products, SharePoint audit trails are not ‘attached’ to individual documents, but are centralised in one place.
So, all in all, not much change really, except for the ‘Share’ option. In many respects, the way the simple ‘Share’ has been designed is a more intuitive process than ‘Manage Permissions’. When you add a user you decide if that person should have Edit or Read privileges. If you maintain the default Owner, Member and Visitor groups, then those with Edit rights are added to the Member group, those with Read rights are added to the Visitor group.
For more complex permission management, including to stop inheriting the default permissions (or to add them back, which is now called ‘Delete unique permissions’), or creating new groups, you need to select the ‘Shared With’ option from the drop down menu and then select Advanced.
What about disposal/disposition management?
Again, not much has changed in relation to document libraries or lists. Out of the box, your options are as follows:
- Using centrally defined, document-based, Content Types, using Information management policy settings. Not a bad idea if (a) you have a way to ensure that these Content Types are always added to libraries, and (b) you are happy to manage the disposal of documents one by one.
- Changing the default Information management policy settings option in document libraries from ‘By Content Types’ to ‘By Libraries and Folders’ and then applying retention policies on the folders you create. The main negatives of this option are that it means you have to use folders, and you have to manage disposal by document.
- Leaving documents in document libraries, and having a way to review these, across the farm, in a centralised manner. This requires some kind of script to be written to (a) list all libraries across the farm and (b) work on the basis that the ‘Last Modified Date’ is the last action on any document in the library, but it seems the more logical and simplest way to achieve the outcome you seek, and keeps all the documents in the same container.
It remains surprising to me why Microsoft does not provide the option to set a disposal period on an entire document library.
Of course, SharePoint 2013 now allows you to set a disposal period on a Site, but this isn’t likely to work for sites that contain a range of diverse content that may be useful over a long period of time.
So, what about SharePoint Online?
The first thing to remember about SharePoint Online (SPO) is that it’s not SharePoint On-Premises. Seems obvious, but the natural instinct is to wonder if or how the two environments can be connected. In most cases they can’t, so it’s not worth thinking along those lines. SPO is a way to manage content in the cloud in addition to, or instead of, on-premises.
SPO has all the same document management features you find in SharePoint On-Premises, described above – document IDs, versioning, content types, metadata, multiple list views, open with Explorer and Quick Edit, access controls, document-specific menu options, simple workflows and audit trails.
The options for disposal/disposition management using SPO ‘out of the box’ (should that be ‘out of the cloud’?) is the same as for the on-premises version.
You didn’t mention Records Centers …
Records Centers (or in Australia, Centres) were in many respects designed to be the ‘send to’ archival repository for other sites. Great idea if it works in your world, it doesn’t work in ours. The main drawbacks are that documents ‘sent’ to a Records Centre are in fact copied. Custom metadata is lost, versions are lost, audit trails are lost. And, you can retrieve the document.
But Records Centres (or in the US, Centers) can be useful on their own as a repository of specific types of records that aren’t accessed too much. We have several Records Centres and we use them in a separate web application for specific purposes, including to store scanned documents. We don’t use them as they were originally intended for the reasons stated above.
And yes, you can create Record Centers in SPO, too!
Records about the world 
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