SharePoint Server 2013 includes a powerful set of features for managing records. Because of the very nature of records, setting up a record-management solution requires a considerable amount of planning. A record is generally considered a piece of evidence that an organiza- tion performed an activity or transaction. In SharePoint, a record is considered active until it’s declared a record and can then be modified only if it meets certain policy requirements. You can make an item go from active to record in several ways:
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■ Manually declare an item as a record. ■
■ Use a workflow to send a document to the record center. ■
■ Define a policy that either declares an item a record or routes it to the record center. ■
■ Use custom code based on the SharePoint object model to declare an item a record or
route it to the record center.
Records generally have some sort of legal and/or archival nature to them, which means that as soon as an item becomes a record, it shouldn’t be altered (or if it is, the alteration is recorded) and should have a retention period as part of it. The retention period determines how long the record should remain with the record management system. When planning for a record-management system, you need to consider the following:
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■ What should be considered a record ■
■ The process of declaring an item a record and how it should be treated at that point ■
■ How legal, regulatory, and business requirements affect records ■
■ Retention policies for different record types ■
■ What to do with expired records ■
■ What types of records are managed ■
■ Whether record declaration should be voluntary or mandatory
Record management typically isn’t a single solution for most organizations. Various types of records could exist, such as print, audio, video, and even physical items such as art.
Although the exam focuses on SharePoint-specific solutions, including these other types in your overall plan is a beneficial exercise. You would first categorize the types of records that you need to manage and the details associated with them, such as kind of record, category, description, media, retention period, disposition, and a contact of the person(s) who oversees the records.
MORE INFO PLANNING FOR RECORD MANAGEMENT
See http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=179987&clcid=0x409 for an Excel worksheet to help plan for record management.
SharePoint 2013 has all the record-management features that existed in SharePoint 2010, plus the following additional capabilities:
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■ Site retention ■
■ Site mailbox ■
■ Record management in the cloud
Site retention is where the entire site is essentially treated as a record. In SharePoint 2013, a site can be “closed,” which means that it’s ignored by navigation and search crawls but can still be accessed via its URL. Closure of a site doesn’t prevent its use; closure just makes the site harder to get to. Closure of a site collection, however, can make the site collection and all subsites read-only depending on the policy chosen.
Site closure is enabled via Site Policy, a site collection feature that must be enabled before site collection policies can be implemented. After you activate this feature, you can imple- ment a site collection closure policy by following these steps:
1. Navigate to Site Settings at the site collection level (even policies applied to just a site are created at the site collection level), with a site collection administrator account. 2. Click Site Policies in the Site Collection Administrator section.
3. On the Site Policies page, click Create.
4. Enter a name and description for the policy in the Name And Description section. 5. Choose how to handle site deletion and closure (automatic or manual) in the Site
Closure And Deletion section. Choosing one of the automatic options requires entering times—in days, months, or years—in which the deletion and/or closure should happen. 6. In the Site Collection Closure section, choose whether to make the site collection and
all subsites read-only. 7. Click OK to create the policy.
After the policy is created, you can apply it at the site or site collection level for deletion policies and at the site collection level for closure policies. To apply site policies, click Site Closure And Deletion in the Site Administration section on the Site Settings page. You also can choose to close the site immediately if manual closure is desired.
Site mailboxes are integrated between Exchange Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013. In the past, documents and emails were usually kept into two distinct repositories. Site mail- boxes use shared storage in both the Exchange and SharePoint spaces to provide end users a single place to access emails and related documents. Now emails can be dragged directly from Microsoft Outlook into SharePoint and can be treated as records, just like regular documents residing in SharePoint. Configuration of site mailboxes is required on both the Exchange Server side as well as the SharePoint side. Knowing how to set up site mailboxes in detail isn’t required for the exam, but general knowledge of what is required might be. The following items are required in addition to SharePoint Server 2013:
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■ Exchange Server 2013 ■
■ Exchange Web Services API 2.0—and only version 2.0—installed on each WFE ■
■ A mutual trust between Exchange Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 ■
■ That the User Profile Synchronization service is configured on the SharePoint farm ■
■ That the App Management service application is configured on the SharePoint farm ■
■ That Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is configured for the default zone on the SharePoint
farm
MORE INFO CONFIGURING SITE MAILBOXES
See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj552524(office.15).aspx for more informa- tion on configuring site mailboxes in SharePoint Server 2013.
Site mailboxes should be configured and maintained on the SharePoint side. The lifecycle application can be used to automatically close and delete site mailboxes, giving users the chance to keep them open if needed. When a site mailbox is closed by the lifecycle appli- cation, it’s retained for a period of time specified by the lifecycle policy. You should delete mailboxes only via the SharePoint interface, because deleting them on the Exchange Server instance causes orphans on the SharePoint server. On the Exchange Server side, only the mailbox size and the maximum size of an individual email can be set. These are set with PowerShell commands on the Exchange Server node.
IMPORTANT DISASTER RECOVERY CONSIDERATIONS FOR SITE MAILBOXES Emails that are part of a site mailbox aren’t backed up as part of the usual SharePoint backup. The emails need to be backed up on the Exchange Server side.
EXAM TIP
Although SharePoint 2013 now supports record management in the cloud, it’s unlikely to be on the exam. Advanced solutions are geared toward on-premises solutions and often involve many connected servers. the 70-331 exam, “Core Solutions of SharePoint Server 2013,” covers the cloud in more detail.
A record center is a site that you can create anywhere inside a SharePoint environment by using the Records Center template. The key components of the record center are the Drop Off Library and the Record Library. Documents sent to the Drop Off Library (via routing or uploading or code) are processed and then sent to the proper record folder (such as the Record Library or similar library) depending on the document’s properties. This is known as document routing. Drop Off Libraries don’t just exist in record centers, but in other site templates as well, and they can be used to route documents. The Drop Off Library requires the site level feature Content Organizer to be activated (the default in a record center). This enables the two site settings pages located under the following Site Collection Administration settings, which need to be configured before document routing can occur:
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■ Content Organizer Settings ■
■ Content Organizer Rules
You need to consider a number of settings when planning for a record center or for sites using the Content Organizer:
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■ Redirect Users To The Drop Off Library Indicates whether users who are trying to
upload a document to a library in the site are redirected to the Drop Off Library. En- abling this setting allows for the Drop Off Library to be the sole source for determining which library receives the record and therefore centralizing the location for rules.
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■ Sending to Another Site Allows documents to be sent to another site or site collec-
tion if that location has the Content Organizer feature turned on. Using this setting is useful if you want to create a central record management hub.
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■ Folder Partitioning Enables records to be split into folders after a certain limit is
reached. Lowering the number of items per folder increases the display speed of the items in the browser.
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■ Duplicate Submissions Allows records with the same name to either be appended
or added with an additional unique character at the end.
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■ Preserving Context Allows the original audit log and properties of the submitted
content to be saved in an audit entry.
Another available option enables you to email role managers if a submission doesn’t match a rule and/or when content has been left in the Drop Off Library. This allows for unat- tended monitoring of record activity. Also, a submission point enables other sites or email- messaging software to send content to this site (it’s always the site URL followed by /_vti_bin/ OfficialFile.asmx).
Modifying the content organizer settings gets you ready to create rules. Content organizer rules route documents to the appropriate locations based on content types and property rules. To create a rule, follow these steps, using an account that has Full control:
1. Click Content Organizer Rules on the Site Settings page in the Site Administration section.
2. Click New Item on the Content Organizer Rules page. 3. Type a name that describes the rule in the Name text box.
4. In the Rule Status and Priority section, choose whether the rule is active and what pri- ority it has. If an item matches several rules, the one with the highest priority is applied. 5. In the Submission’s Content Type section, choose the content type that the rule is to
run on. You can also enter alternate names for the content type if it’s coming from other sites.
NOTE USING WILDCARD CHARACTERS
Adding a rule with the * makes the rule run for all items that don’t match another rule. Generally, you want to create as many record libraries as you think you will need before you start to create rules so that documents don’t get stuck in the Drop Off Library or in a document library specified by the * wildcard character.
6. In the Conditions section, add one or more property rules (for example, Department=Financial) to be used for rule matching.
7. In the Target Location section, choose the library or list to which the item will be routed. This section also includes an option to create folders based on unique proper- ties—for example, for a Word document library that had a department property, fold- ers would be created for each department that submitted records.
8. Click OK to create the rule.