Chapter 5. Integrated solution design and planning
5.4 Solution implementation and deploy sequence
If both e-mail archiving and records management requirements are being considered but are not being implemented at the same time, an organization should understand the implications in selecting a particular implementation sequence.
There are three approaches you could take to implement the solution:
Implement and deploy records management of e-mail first and then implement and deploy the e-mail archiving capability.
Implement and deploy the e-mail archiving solution first and then add the records control function into the solution.
Implement and deploy the complete, end-to-end e-mail archiving and records management solution at the same time.
5.4.1 Implement e-mail records control, then e-mail archiving
As part of implementing records control into an e-mail system, e-mail archiving may not have been considered as a prelude. If this is the case, some planning is required in the design of user mail templates. If you allow users to manually declare an e-mail as a record, the user interface must be modified. Records Manager provides the necessary tools and templates to accomplish these modifications.
When e-mail archiving is added after the records management solution has been implemented, further modifications must be made to the user e-mail database. Careful planning and management of these changes is required to ensure a smooth transition from a single solution that allows records declaration through an e-mail client, to an integrated solution where both records declaration and archiving can be performed.
Assuming that the records declaration (and classification) and e-mail archiving are performed manually by the user through their e-mail databases, we examine some advantages and disadvantages of implementing the system using this path.
Advantages
Reasons why you may want to implement the records management system prior to implementing the e-mail archiving capability include:
The need to do records management and the imposition on businesses to legally comply is ever increasing. Not being compliant is no longer an option. The sooner you implement the records management capability to the e-mail system, the better. There is no legislative penalty for not archiving e-mail.
Nothing is more admissible or can help an internal discovery requirement than to be able to demonstrate that an effective, internal records policy is in place.
Legal discovery is not restricted in scope to only information within the records management program. Therefore, having an effective and auditable disposition process can reduce risk and exposure to possible legal actions.
Disadvantages
Some of the reasons why you may not want to implement the system using this path are as follows:
The need to be records compliant is a relatively new imposition on businesses that are still grappling with the fundamentals.
Organizations have tended, for a records-defensive position, to use a disposal-is-suspended-indefinitely driver for information handling and
information preservation. While this has served as a legally defensive position historically, it is an unknown and is a risk for future discovery.
5.4.2 Implement e-mail archiving, then records management
It is common for organizations to implement e-mail archiving before records management. Typically this is because of the relative infancy of wide-scale adoption of electronic records management. As a result, large volumes of data (e-mail and their attachments) may already reside in the archive repository. Depending on how archiving is implemented, these already archived documents may not have stubs remaining in users’ e-mail databases. If this is the case, the options available for
locating
these documents and subsequently declaring and classifying them as records will be limited and affected by: What software clients are available to be used for searching.
What security is applied to the archived e-mail. This may limit who can access the documents.
If there are many archived e-mail messages stored in the repository, they may have to be declared as records as well. This declaration and classification load may be prohibitive, particularly if there are no stubs left in the users’ e-mail databases. The options for declaring and classifying records are:
Have each user manually declare each of the documents that have previously been archived (assuming that there are stubs left in the e-mail file).
Have the records administrator staff search for each archived document and declare and classify the document. The records administrator client can be used for this purpose but suitable search techniques will have to be employed.
Write an application to automatically declare them as records based on the metadata of the existing e-mail. This is probably the best way to go, as it will require minimum effort from users or records administrators and can ensure that all of the e-mail is declared as records.
Advantages
Some of the reasons why you may want to go with this sequence are as follows:
This path can be deployed quickly and deployed in stages if required.
From a transformational management perspective, archiving is more easily understood by users.
This adds immediate time, storage, and cost savings to the organization.
Some of the server software and infrastructure required for both archiving and records management can be implemented and tested in advance of a records management system (assuming common use of the backend repository by both systems).
Disadvantages
Some of the reasons why you may not want to go with this path are:
It is only 50% of the solution where appropriate records control is required.
Already archived e-mail and documents may have to be revisited for records-declaration and classification purposes.
You may later alter core mandatory corporate metadata needs.
5.4.3 Implement the end-to-end solution at the same time
Although planning for a joint e-mail archiving and records management system can be complex, the results may be worth the effort.
Advantages
Some of the reasons why you may want to implement the complete integrated system at the same time are as follows:
Jointly piloting and deploying an integrated e-mail archiving and records solution can reduce the impact, change, and pain for processes and users.
Prudently reuses much of the same information, which may save effort and cost overall.
An organization gets immediate benefit from archived e-mail that is also records-compliant.
Sets an integrated functional infrastructure that is less likely to need change and is extensible across the rest of the organization.
Utilizes a single repository for both archived e-mail and records.
Disadvantages
Disadvantages include:
This path can add to overall project risk as the combined effort can appear to have a longer startup duration.
Planning for an integrated solution can take longer and involves input from multiple disciplines.
Which implementation sequence you use to implement the solution depends on the intermediate needs of an organization. We recommend reviewing the business requirements and regulatory obligations, understanding all aspects of the e-mail archiving and records management solution planning and design, and then deciding which way to approach the implementation.