Record Management System

Abimuktheeswaran Chidambaram
7 min readNov 11, 2023

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Records management is the control and maintenance of both digital and hard copy (paperwork) documentation in an organization throughout its lifecycle. Record management ensures that business or organizational records are identified, maintained, and stored securely to help achieve business objectives, provide context to business processes, and continuously improve systems.

Records are documents, such as paper files, electronic files, etc. Depending on the type of business, the job title like record Manager (or) records administrator is responsible for maintaining the records. It is based on the severity (importance) of the document. In this article, we see the following chapters

  1. From the ISO point-of-view
  2. Importance of Record Management System
  3. Types of Record Management System
  4. Records vs Documents
  5. Life-Cycle of record in RMS
  6. Retention Policy
  7. Impact of RMS in cloud vs on-premises

1. From the ISO point-of-view

“ISO 15489 is an international standard created by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for records management, recognized and adopted globally “.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed the 15489–1:2016 standard for Concepts and principles that provides a detailed description of the various elements (creation, capture, and management) of records management and Information and documentation. ISO 223610 standard for Guidelines guides how to establish and manage records management activities.

2. Importance of Record Management System

Records management is used to help an organization keep the necessary documentation accessible for both business operations and compliance audits. Records management ensures records are properly stored, accessed, and managed securely.

Historical knowledge — Proper record-keeping makes it easy to know about organizations and track their progress over time. It is also useful when planning for future strategies.

Security — Records management prevents the loss of documents due to improper storage, and digital records breaches, such as hacking attempts that could lead to confidential information being exposed online without authorization.

Better Workflows — Most organizations don’t analyze the time spent on storing or searching for records, so too much time is wasted in the process. But when documents are stored on-site (or) off-site in a correct format. We can save time and maintain a better workflow for immediate retrieval.

Compliance — businesses can protect themselves from fines and lawsuits resulting from mishandled documents.

Access control — Effective recordkeeping systems give organizations greater control over who has access to particular data types. This can limit certain access based on job roles and responsibilities while simultaneously enforcing security protocols across multiple departments.

3. Types of Record Management System

Paper records are often managed by a record management firm that keeps records on premises in an office filing cabinet. But as they grow, the number of records will increase so it is difficult to track — which leads to misplaced documents, slow processes, and confusion.

Electronic files are digital information that can be managed (created, stored, modified, archived, and distributed) by an electronic system. This includes text-based documents, digital images, audio files, emails, SMS messages, databases, and other electronic formats. Electronic records are protected through specific regulations. This means sensitive and confidential data must be preserved, maintained, and destroyed in compliance with these regulations.

4. Records vs Documents

Documents and Records means all of the files, books, receipts, and certificates in paper and electronic data format.

Documents describe how things should be done. They have a version history and they require a review process when updated. You can revise and change the document. It may be saved for a short period. Examples of documents are quality manuals, standard operating procedures (SOP), and address proof-oriented documents.

Records describe how things were done. They are proof of activities performed and they do not need a release process. You cannot revise and change the record. Document becomes a record when it is involved in legal purposes. It may be saved for a long time of period. Examples of records are Birth and Death certificates, studies-oriented certificates, training and calibration records, audit reports, customer complaints, corrective and preventive action (CAPA) records, and management review meeting minutes.

5. Life-Cycle of record in RMS

There are several reasons why the life cycle of a record is important. The reason is that it enables organizations to ensure the proper management and security of their records over time. Additionally, understanding and following a records life cycle helps organizations protect confidential information and comply with applicable laws or regulations. Having a proper records life cycle in place can also help reduce the risk of data breaches, legal liabilities, and other costly incidents. Finally, it helps to ensure that records are updated and available when needed.

Life-cycle of records is creating(capturing), distributing (classifying), storing (Active and Inactive), maintaining, retrieving, disposal (destroying), and permanently preserving records (Archive).

⁕ Creation means capturing the information and producing it as documentation. It may be based on an event. In this stage, every record is active.

Distribution (classification) means after the record is received or created, the record is arranged and distributed (segregated). The record gets frequently used and needs to be maintained in a location that can be accessed easily

Storing the store the information securely. Paper records are stored in physical boxes at a storage facility such as a safety locker (or) container in a dark environment. Electronic records are stored on storage media on site such as on-premise (or) off-site such as the cloud.

Active Records used in the organization should be easily accessible to users who need to quickly retrieve information from them. It is used in the following stages creation, identification, and storage.

Inactive Records are no longer frequently accessed in the organization’s everyday activities. You may need to retain for a specific period, to meet legal or audit requirements. It is used in the following stages disposal, and archive.

Destruction( Disposal) means destroying the record after its usage is finished. After finish, you have two options: destroy the record or archive it. If the record is never needed for any purpose, you can destroy it with safety measures.

Archive means moving the inactive records to the archive. In this stage, the record may be needed later (or) never needed but it may kept during the entire life cycle. If you want security and cost-cutting, store and move the documents and records to the archive, scan your documents, and add the features of versioning and multi-factor Authentication to avoid accidental deletion.

6. Retention Schedule

A records retention schedule is a policy that defines how long the content must be kept and provides guidelines for disposing of the content after the retention period. After the retention period, the user gets approval from the Record manager to destroy the files. Retention schedules outline the records managed by your organization and how long they need to be kept. Daily basis records should be updated as new documents get added, and old documents are redirected or discarded.

Retention Infrastructure makes the records accessible immediately upon request for both staff and clients through a public portal. Having a centralized digital records management system will make it easier when it comes time for an audit or changes to important documents need to be made. It is used to protect the information against theft and data breaches, and also to minimize the risk.

7. Impact of RMS in Cloud vs On-Premises

On-premises DMS involves storing digital data on your servers and paperwork in your organization area. So you have complete control over their data and the infrastructure it resides on.

The advantages of RMS on-premises are complete control, security, customization, and Internet Independence.

The disadvantages of RMS in on-premises maintenance costs (Infrastructure), scalable issues (additional resources like IT components, and electrical components), difficulty in deploying globally and rapidly.

In the cloud, your data is stored on servers managed by a third-party provider and accessed via the Internet. Nowadays, the cloud plays an important role in the business parts. It gives all the benefits of the traditional system. As well as it gives some disadvantages also…

The advantages of the cloud regarding this situation are high availability (In case of disaster recovery), Accessibility (access from anywhere), Security (complete control), cost-saving (no maintenance cost), agility (global deployment), and scalability (low latency inaccessible from various places).

The disadvantages of the cloud regarding this situation are lack of some control (customers are only responsible for their data), Difficulty in migrating (in case from cloud to cloud), and fully depending on the internet (in case the internet connection fails, you can’t do anything).

Now you decide to choose the best cloud provider depending upon your needs.

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