Record Management Archives - IT Glue https://www.itglue.com/blog/category/documentation/record-management/ Truly Powerful IT Documentation Software Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:44:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://www.itglue.com/wp-content/uploads/cropped-logomark-itglue-black@4x-32x32.png Record Management Archives - IT Glue https://www.itglue.com/blog/category/documentation/record-management/ 32 32 What Is Document Management (DMS)? Types of Systems, Best Practices and Benefits https://www.itglue.com/blog/document-management/ Mon, 04 Mar 2024 13:10:40 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?p=15891 In today’s dynamic digital landscape, organizations are rapidly embracing hybrid and multicloud environments to meet the demands of scalability, flexibility and innovation. However, this leads to complex IT environments, where critical IT information gets scattered across various applications, locations and vendors, making it challenging for IT teams to access the right information at the right […]

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In today’s dynamic digital landscape, organizations are rapidly embracing hybrid and multicloud environments to meet the demands of scalability, flexibility and innovation. However, this leads to complex IT environments, where critical IT information gets scattered across various applications, locations and vendors, making it challenging for IT teams to access the right information at the right time. Furthermore, as cyberthreats continue to increase, it is becoming more vital for organizations to secure this vast information. This is where document management comes into play as a critical tool in simplifying complex IT environments and enhancing their efficiency.

Document management is the process of organizing digital information in a well-structured manner so that you get complete visibility into your growing IT environment. Document management aids in building a single source of truth for an organization’s mission-critical IT data and knowledge.

If your organization is looking to leverage an efficient document management system that can simplify your IT environment and maximize its potential, check out IT Glue, an award-winning SOC 2 Type II compliant documentation management platform. IT Glue is purpose-built for IT teams and consolidates all mission-critical IT information in one place so that your IT team has easy access to all the information they need when they need it. Learn more about the IT Glue platform.

Let’s see in detail what document management is and how it can benefit your organization.

What is document management?

Document management, often synonymous with document management system (DMS), involves capturing, storing, tracking and sharing all the critical data of an organization, ranging from assets and passwords to mission-critical IT knowledge. It is like a digital librarian for your data, making sure that everything is in the right place, easily findable and safeguarded against potential chaos. In today’s fast-paced IT world where every second counts, having such a single source of truth is extremely crucial for organizations.

Document management encompasses three core functions:

  • Document capture: A document management system is designed to simplify the process of collecting different types of documents. It collects electronic documents that are created and managed digitally, as well as paper files that are digitized through scanning. In addition, external applications like customer relationship management (CRM) systems generate new information every day. The DMS should gather and store data from all these multiple sources.
  • Document storage: The document storage system also safeguards all this information in a centralized and organized repository for easy and secure access to all users. The data may be stored in the local servers or the cloud based on the system.
  • Document distribution: Another core purpose of document management is to enable smooth sharing and collaboration of information. In order to make information easily accessible, your document management system should utilize a robust search engine that can locate documents based on metadata. When creating documents, it is important to use different metadata to tag the files individually, as this will help to retrieve files much more quickly.

Why is document management important?

Poor document management can result in a significant waste of time, resources and money. The time and effort spent in finding information can be much more than expected, considering the volume of documents and data IT professionals deal with today. A document management system can considerably help on that front by providing a central repository for all essential information and knowledge, ensuring that IT teams can access the right information at the right time without any difficulty.

Find out how efficient document management via IT Glue helped Netsmart solve their client problems quickly and provide superior service.

Document management challenges and how to overcome them

Let’s explore some key hurdles in document management and how an efficient document management system overcomes them.

  • Time consumption: Tedious manual processes often consume valuable time and resources. It’s estimated that employees spend almost a third of their workday searching for information. However, modern document management systems leverage automation and user-intuitive interfaces, drastically reducing time spent on document-related tasks and enhancing overall productivity.
  • Multiple versions: IT pros often spend a lot of time and effort in figuring out the latest version of a document and in recovering previous versions when different revisions overwrite each other. However, advanced document management systems provide version tracking, ensuring that everyone is on the same page, reducing confusion and preventing errors stemming from outdated information.
  • Document and knowledge loss: Physical document storage risks loss or damage, leading to critical information gaps. While manually filing documents, human errors could also creep in. However, modern systems offer secure cloud storage, safeguarding data against loss, ensuring business continuity and preserving institutional knowledge.
  • Access and collaboration: Geographical constraints and rigid access controls in traditional setups hinder seamless collaboration. Modern systems ensure remote collaboration, real-time edits and fingertip access to information.
  • Privacy and security: With rising concerns about data privacy and integrity, traditional methods may fall short of ensuring robust privacy and security. Modern document management systems implement encryption techniques, access controls and compliance measures, securing data against unauthorized access and meeting privacy standards.
  • Compliance requirements: Managing documents comes with its own set of challenges and risks. One of the most crucial challenges is to ensure that your documents comply with the industry or organizational standards with respect to their creation, storage and disposal. You need to keep track of the lifecycle and status of your documents to make sure they are updated, archived or deleted as per the requirement. Failure to do so could result in hefty penalties or loss of important data. Modern document management systems integrate compliance features, aiding organizations in adhering to industry regulations and avoiding legal ramifications.

Common types of document management systems

Before implementing a document management system in your organization, you need to understand the different types of document management systems and how they cater to different organizational needs. Let’s delve into some key types of document management systems in this section.

Content management systems (CMS)

A content management system (CMS) focuses on creating, managing and organizing digital content. Widely used for web content, CMS systems simplify content creation and collaboration, empowering businesses to maintain a robust online presence. For instance, let’s say an organization wants to post some thought leadership articles. Then, it can use a CMS to publish them on its website or mobile app. Some examples of content management systems include WordPress, Joomla, etc.

Enterprise content management system (ECM)

Enterprise content management systems (ECM) are advanced systems that go beyond basic content and document management. ECMs capture, store, organize and share large volumes of data across an entire organization while also integrating business data. An ECM facilitates centralized control and compliance, which promotes efficient collaboration and information sharing. It’s important to note that an ECM is not a single tool or technology but rather a collection of content management tools that help businesses achieve their goals.

Records management system (RMS)

Records management systems (RMS) focus on the systematic control of records throughout their lifecycle, including their creation, maintenance and destruction. RMS provides a structured approach to document retention and disposal, ensuring long-term preservation of records and regulatory compliance. They are crucial for organizations that deal with sensitive data, such as healthcare, legal services and financial organizations.

Document imaging systems

Document imaging systems convert physical documents into digital formats, streamlining their storage and retrieval. They digitize paper documents to enhance accessibility, reduce physical storage costs and contribute to a more eco-friendly document management approach.

Workflow automation systems

Workflow automation systems optimize and streamline business workflows by automating redundant tasks, approvals and document routing. Through automation, these systems help free up the time of critical resources in an organization, enhance efficiency, reduce errors, and ensure a smooth, standardized flow of documents. In most cases, a workflow system is a unified platform of several discrete tools that work together to automate various tasks.

Collaboration platforms

As their name suggests, collaboration platforms focus on fostering collaboration and real-time communication. Integrating document sharing, editing and commenting features, these platforms enhance collaboration, allowing teams to work seamlessly across various projects and initiatives.

Knowledge management systems

Knowledge management systems centralize organizational information, making it easily accessible to all employees. These systems enable companies to capitalize on their intellectual properties for informed decision-making by facilitating knowledge creation, storage, sharing and retrieval.

Discover how IT Glue provides a comprehensive platform to effortlessly manage and secure your mission-critical IT information and knowledge.

Key document management system features

Now, let’s look at some essential features you need to look out for in your ideal document management system.

  • Intuitive user interface: An intuitive and simple user interface (UI) makes certain that even new users can easily navigate through the system without much of a learning curve. An intuitive UI enhances adoption rates and ensures that your team seamlessly transitions to the new system without extensive training, ultimately saving time and boosting productivity.
  • Powerful indexing and search: An ideal document management system should have robust indexing and search functionalities for swift document retrieval. The capability to add metadata and indexing to documents makes it easier for users to manage and search information. This allows users to effortlessly locate documents using metadata or keywords, minimizing the time spent on searching information and maximizing efficiency.
  • Cloud and mobile access: Having cloud and mobile access brings flexibility to document management. That way, users will be able to access their documents anywhere, anytime, fostering collaboration and ensuring information is readily available, whether they’re in the office or on the go.
  • Version control and audit history: Version control helps in tracking changes and ensures that everyone is working with the most recent document iteration. It is often helpful when multiple stakeholders are collaborating on the same file. Having versioning features with a history of the edits helps prevent duplication and makes sure users always access the updated version of a document. Similarly, audit history provides a transparent record or an audit trail of document activities, fostering accountability and compliance with regulatory standards.
  • Workflow automation: Workflow automation helps streamline processes and workflows by automating redundant tasks and document routing. It not only accelerates document processing with pre-defined workflows but also reduces errors with necessary approvals and reviews, ensuring a more efficient and standardized workflow across your organization.
  • Access permissions: Granular access permissions are critical in document management for protecting sensitive data. With customizable access controls, you can restrict any document’s access to authorized personnel, mitigating the risk of data breaches and confirming compliance with industry and privacy regulations.
  • Systems integration: It is necessary for your document management system to seamlessly integrate with other tools and platforms used within your organization, such as CRM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. This interoperability between systems ensures a cohesive digital ecosystem with seamless flow of data, preventing data silos and enhancing overall operational efficiency.

10 document management best practices

Here are some best practices to follow to realize the maximum potential of your document management.

  1. Standardize naming conventions: Establishing consistent naming conventions fosters collaboration and simplifies document retrieval. A standardized approach ensures that everyone in the organization can easily understand and locate documents, reducing confusion and enhancing efficiency.
  2. Maintain a simple user interface: As discussed earlier, maintaining a simple and intuitive user interface promotes user adoption. When the interface is user-friendly, employees can quickly grasp the system, reducing the learning curve and facilitating seamless integration into daily workflows.
  3. Automate when possible: Automation streamlines processes, reducing manual efforts and minimizing errors. By automating redundant and routine tasks, businesses can accomplish faster document processing and free up their valuable time and resources for more strategic initiatives.
  4. Establish goals and key metrics: It is important to define clear goals and metrics to measure the success of your document management strategy. This practice ensures that your efforts align with your organizational objectives, providing a framework for continuous improvement and optimization.
  5. Define access controls: Granular access controls are essential to restrict unwarranted access to sensitive information. By defining access control permissions, organizations can ensure that only authorized personnel have access to specific documents.
  6. Understand compliance and legal requirements: Stay aware of compliance and legal requirements relevant to your industry. Comprehending and adhering to these regulations ensures that your document management practices align with your industry standards, minimizing legal risks and fostering customer trust.
  7. Coordinate retention schedules: Establishing and coordinating retention schedules ensures that documents are retained for the appropriate duration. This practice not only supports compliance but also prevents the accumulation of unnecessary data, streamlining storage and enhancing efficiency.
  8. Utilize tags and metadata: Tags and metadata enhance document categorization and searchability. By adding metadata to documents, organizations can enhance retrieval speed and accuracy, facilitating a well-organized document management system.
  9. Prioritize document security: Prioritize and ensure complete security of your documents by leveraging encryption techniques, secure access controls and regular security audits. Robust document security practices secure your data against unauthorized access and security threats, maintaining data integrity.
  10. Designate roles and responsibilities: Clearly define roles and responsibilities for document management within your organization. Designating ownership ensures accountability, effective collaboration and a streamlined workflow, preventing ambiguity and promoting a well-organized document management structure.

IT environments are growing increasingly complex. Discover the biggest IT challenges of today and how you can future-proof your IT team with intelligent IT documentation. Download the eBook now.

How can a document management system benefit your business?

Here’s how your organization can benefit by implementing an efficient document management system.

  • Saves time: This is probably the most important benefit of a DMS. You can save a lot of time by organizing your files and making information easily accessible.
  • Low digital mess: Storing files online can get quite messy over time. With a centralized repository, you can clean up the digital mess and organize the way in which you store critical information.
  • Increases security: When you have a secure platform to store your critical files, your information automatically becomes safe. A documentation tool with features like MFA, version control, password protection, audit trail, etc., boosts the security of your IT infrastructure.
  • Fosters scalability: When your business grows, the number of documents you manage will grow as well. By decluttering your information with the help of a DMS, you can easily scale your business.
  • Enhances collaboration: Collaboration should be at the heart of a DMS. Cloud-based document management platforms allow easy collaboration from multiple stakeholders no matter where they are located.
  • Reduces physical storage: Having a big pile-up of paper documents is no way to run a modern business in this digital age. A DMS can significantly reduce your physical storage by digitizing all your paper documents.
  • Eases accessibility: A centralized repository of data is easy to access by anyone with the right access privilege. By ensuring easy access to business-critical data, you can make informed decisions that will convert to business success.
  • Promotes accountability: When you have proper versioning with an edit history, it improves transparency in your collaboration. This promotes accountability among the stakeholders working on the documents.
  • Supports compliance: Having a proper DMS is a legal requirement under many data privacy laws. When you have a robust documentation tool, you can adhere to all compliance regulations.

Download this eBook to learn how IT Glue can help you get started with smart documentation and document management.

How IT Glue can help with document management

Now, you understand the significance of effective document management and how it can help you enhance your organization’s overall operational efficiency. If you are looking for an IT document management solution that can help you realize the full potential of your growing IT environment, check out IT Glue.

IT Glue is an award-winning SOC 2 Type II compliant documentation management platform designed to make IT documentation efficient and effortless for IT teams. With IT Glue, all your mission-critical IT information can be consolidated in one place, including assets, passwords, users and SOPs, making it easy for your IT team to access the information they need when they need it — even when they’re on the go. This helps you streamline all business processes, including resolving tickets, building client relationships and managing projects as efficiently as possible.

See IT Glue in action with this short demo video.

IT Glue’s smart relationship mapping also helps your team rapidly define and understand relationships between various elements of your documentation, drastically reducing research time and providing all the information they need at their fingertips. Moreover, its out-of-the-box intelligence-driven templates help you get started with IT documentation from the get-go. The solution also supports dozens of integrations with major PSA, RMM, BDR and other platforms alongside its public API, making it the single source of truth for your IT team.

Learn more about IT Glue features and find out why IT Glue is considered the gold standard of IT documentation.

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Relationship Mapping: Get a Comprehensive Understanding of IT Environments https://www.itglue.com/blog/relationship-mapping/ Fri, 14 Oct 2022 20:02:18 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?p=12382 With modern-day IT environments becoming increasingly complex, understanding the relationships between various components often poses a great challenge for IT professionals. You can understand the entirety of an IT environment only if you have instant access to everything, and this is where relationship mapping comes in. In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of relationship […]

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With modern-day IT environments becoming increasingly complex, understanding the relationships between various components often poses a great challenge for IT professionals. You can understand the entirety of an IT environment only if you have instant access to everything, and this is where relationship mapping comes in.

In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of relationship mapping in today’s complex IT environments and how you can use it for effective information management.

What is relationship mapping?

Relationship mapping refers to how individual components are related to each other in an IT infrastructure. Here, you need to understand the logical relationships between various assets and their documentation. For instance, when you relate components like hardware devices and their configuration documents, you can instantly access the documents while working on understanding the hardware devices. Similarly, you can have easy access to all the information you need and use them whenever you want through relationship mapping.

What is the role of relationship mapping?

To start creating relationship mapping, you need to have building blocks. This includes your company’s technology assets such as desktops, servers, other infrastructure hardware and software applications.

You also need to build relationships with the rest of your IT, including software applications installed on devices, passwords to access the devices, and knowledge and how-to guides for troubleshooting the devices. This is what relationship mapping does. By linking your assets with the rest of your IT, you can have access to critical information at your fingertips.

In large organizations with complex IT environments, information often gets buried and can be extremely difficult to locate. Even when you have sophisticated documentation with multiple layers, relationship mapping makes everything easier to understand since you aren’t bouncing between different tools to find that one piece of information you need.

Why is relationship mapping important?

The most important aspect of relationship mapping is to provide you with a full picture of your clients’ IT environments. You can enter all assets in your relationship mapping tool and create logical, two-way relationships between them. Following that, you can check the dependencies and relationships for a single IT component. With this, you can easily understand what’s at stake whenever a new problem is identified within the network.

This logical structure ensures better information management and drives performance as a result. In other words, relationship mapping provides you with actionable insights into your IT assets and helps you connect the dots in the asset management process.

What are the benefits of relationship mapping?

The biggest benefit of relationship mapping is that it provides instant access to critical information even if you have a complex IT infrastructure. This drives performance and helps you make informed decisions. You can identify issues instantly and troubleshoot them or incorporate temporary fixes until a permanent solution is found.

Here is a list of reasons why relationship mapping is extremely important in IT environments.

Reduces research time

Let’s face it. Sifting through multiple Excel sheets or Word documents to gather information about a single endpoint isn’t just tedious but practically impossible in today’s age of complex networks. When you have a map of logical relationships between various pieces of information, you won’t have to search for everything manually. From ticket resolutions to project management, technicians save a significant amount of time every day with relationship mapping.

Accelerates troubleshooting

IT professionals receive tickets every day about workstations not functioning well. Also, MSP technicians receive complaints from their clients about issues in multiple workstations. When working on these fixes, you may need access to various information, including vendor info, hardware details, passwords, SOPs, etc. Imagine trying to search for this information through huge volumes of unstructured documentation. Sounds daunting, doesn’t it?

With relationship mapping, you can instantly isolate information pertaining to a specific device and get preliminary information like connected devices, software installed, firewalls, etc. This accelerates troubleshooting and helps resolve complicated issues instantly.

Promotes self-service culture

Having a documentation tool with relationship mapping features is a great way to empower your technicians. When technicians understand the relationships between various elements in the network, they can work on their own without waiting for information from multiple sources.

This helps you avoid issues arising from simple forgetfulness or misplaced information. With all the relevant information about the IT infrastructure right at their fingertips, technicians can be more independent and proceed to resolve issues on their own more confidently.

Comprehensive understanding of your IT environment

In many complex IT infrastructures, relevant information can get buried deep inside the environment without the possibility of instant access. As a result, network administrators have to painstakingly go through various documents and Excel sheets just to get an understanding of their network.

You can overcome this with a powerful documentation tool that has relationship mapping capabilities. By getting instant access to related items in your IT environment, you can get a complete understanding of how your devices are connected and how they interact with each other.

Speeds up onboarding

When onboarding a new technician to your team, you need to provide them with a full understanding of the devices you manage. However, providing a manual overview of the entire infrastructure can be overwhelming. Relationship mapping can come in handy during the onboarding process. By providing a glimpse of all the components in the network with the help of a relationship map, you can speed up your onboarding process and get your technicians accustomed to their work in no time.

What are relationship mapping tools?

Relationship mapping tools are software solutions that help you map relationships between assets, giving you a full picture of your clients’ IT environments. In a relationship mapping tool, you can enter all your assets and create two-way relationships between them. This provides you with information on the dependencies and relationships for all IT components.

When you get the relationship information between your assets through a relationship mapping solution, you can easily understand what’s at stake if you encounter a problem within your IT infrastructure. Robust tools like IT Glue also provide you with a logical structure to manage your information better. This drives performance and helps you identify permanent solutions whenever a new issue is encountered.

Understand IT relationships with IT Glue

IT Glue is a robust documentation solution that comes with powerful relationship mapping capabilities. You can link related items together and view all the required information anytime at your fingertips. IT Glue also helps you understand relationships between various elements of your documentation, dramatically reduces research time, and provides instant peripheral vision and awareness. You can also build new relationships on the fly to continuously deepen and improve the resolution of your documentation.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform also comes packed with an immutable audit trail, network discovery, diagramming and more. All these features are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To learn more about how IT Glue can help you understand IT relationships, request a demo of our industry-leading documentation platform.

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Records Management: What It Entails & How It Works https://www.itglue.com/blog/records-management/ Tue, 07 Sep 2021 14:57:15 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/?post_type=blog_posts&p=10555 Comprehensive records management can help organizations reach business goals. Explore aspects of records management and how to benefit from them.

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The business world is creating data at breakneck speed and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Despite the massive volumes of data generated every day, it is estimated that only 5% to 10% of the data has any enduring value for an organization. Extracting meaningful information from a massive stockpile of data requires proper data maintenance and organization. This is where records management comes into play.

A comprehensive records management program can go a long way in helping an organization reach its business goals. In this blog, we’ll discuss the different aspects of records management and how you can benefit from it.

What Is Records Management?

Records management refers to the process you can implement to control the creation, maintenance, receipt and disposal of information irrespective of the format. In other words, it refers to the management of a company’s valuable information throughout its lifecycle – from creation to disposal.

A record could be any information maintained as evidence or used for any business transactions. Some of the examples of records include final reports, budget documents, company balance sheets, emails referring to an action, maps of field missions, etc.

What is the purpose of records management?

The main goal of records management is to keep valuable information readily accessible for business requirements as well as compliance audits. For large organizations, it is impossible to track every piece of valuable information with the help of a simple spreadsheet. They need a strategy and proper recordkeeping to keep everything organized and readily available.

With a records management policy, you can create a taxonomy of your records and ensure retention at any preferable time. You can use software tools, such as IT documentation software, to organize your valuable information.

Why Is Records Management Important?

Managing the massive volumes of records being generated every day is impossible without records management. Just to give you a little perspective, we have created about 44 zettabytes of data in the global datasphere as of 2020, and this is expected to multiply four-fold to 175 zettabytes by 2025 (a zettabyte is one billion terabytes).

You need records management to control the growth of records and to extract valuable information from them. Even if you manage everything electronically, the sheer amount of costs and productivity involved could overwhelm any organization.

Besides the potential business losses, poor records management could also lead to hefty compliance penalties, loss of productivity, unnecessary audits, data overload and more. Records management is the best possible solution to address all these issues and maintain compliance with data privacy regulations.

What are the benefits of records management?

Some of the key benefits of records management are listed as follows:

  • Lower storage costs: Although your organization may have a huge volume of files, emails and business reports, only a small portion of them will be of significant value. When you have a strategy to manage these records, you can retain only valuable records and dispose of the rest. This ensures efficient allocation of data storage space and reduces the cost of storing information.
  • Ensure regulatory compliance: There are multiple regulatory laws governing how well records should be maintained in an organization. Noncompliance can result in severe legal actions and costly penalties. When you have proper records management in place, you can easily adhere to compliance laws and avoid penalties.
  • Protect vital information: Every organization has vital information to safeguard and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. If you can’t organize your vital information, you cannot preserve its integrity and confidentiality. Records management can help you organize data and protect you from data loss vulnerability.
  • Efficient retrieval of records: Your records are useful only when they can be efficiently retrieved. With a powerful document management platform, you can easily store and retrieve information whenever you want. Better accessibility to information helps organizations make better business decisions.
  • Easy automation of workflow: When your information is disorganized, your business will spend a lot of time storing and searching for records. With a records management system, you can make the entire process efficient and automate the workflow.

What Are the Types of Records?

Based on the functions they serve, records can be categorized into different types. Some of the common types are listed as follows:

Physical records

These are hard copies of information stored on various media like notes and papers. These records take up physical space.

Electronic records

A record created and stored via electronic means is called an electronic record. They can be stored digitally and don’t take much physical space.

Enterprise records

These are documents pertaining to a company’s operation. Agreements, contracts, payroll records, etc., are enterprise records.

Industry records

These are records that concern the operation of a particular industry. For instance, medical industry records have documents and research material related to the industry in general.

Legal hold records

These are mandated records legally enforced by law. Rules regarding compliance regulations can be considered as legal hold records.

What Is the Records Lifecycle?

All records go through a lifecycle, from stages of their creation to disposal. Knowing these stages helps you protect and organize your data properly. Each stage has its own importance in the lifecycle and the objectives of each stage must be appropriately fulfilled to ensure the lifecycle continuation.

What are the five phases of the records lifecycle?

The five phases are as follows:

1. Create/Receive: This concerns creating a record internally or receiving it from an external source. The record could be in any format including paper documents, digital forms, emails, reports, etc.

2. Use/Modify: Reports that are used frequently are stored internally to ensure quick retrieval. Other reports are secured off-site and used when appropriate.

3. Maintain/Protect: This stage identifies the duration for which a record must be maintained and protected. You need to make sure it is compliant with the data retention laws.

4. Dispose/Destroy: Once a record has served its purpose, it is faced with two options – dispose or archive. When you are absolutely sure of not needing a record anymore, you can securely destroy it.

5. Archive/Preserve: Following the disposal of non-essential records, you must identify records that have permanent retention value and archive them.

What are the Components of Records Management?

Although there are many components of records management, there are four foundational elements that form the crux of a records management program. The major components are:

  • Policies & Procedures: A records management program starts with defining the parameters of the program. You need policies to denote authority levels and responsibilities at various stages. There should also be specific instructions regarding how the policies will be implemented.
  • Records Retention Schedule: Some records have long retention times while some have short ones. This schedule indicates the minimum duration a record should last in an organization.
  • Records Filing System: There should be a strategy for filing and storage of records. You can classify records based on how they are stored – digital or physical. This also indicates the importance of a record.
  • Training & Auditing: Recordkeeping is not a one-man job. You need a team of qualified people to do the work. You need to train them regularly and conduct regular audits to ensure their effectiveness.

What Is an Electronic Records Management (ERM) System?

Electronic Records Management (ERM) refers to the management of files and documents stored electronically. It ensures an organization has access to the right records when they are needed. When records are stored electronically, it boosts efficiency through automation. An ERM software can help you automate the process, eliminate duplication and facilitate easy maintenance.

What are the benefits of electronic records management systems?

Some of the notable benefits of ERM systems are as follows:

  • ERM helps you automatically identify records, classify them, store them and retrieve them without much effort. You can also automatically capture document metadata and automate the entire process.
  • With electronic records, you can access the right information at the right time. The time spent searching physical records is eliminated when everything is stored electronically.
  • It is easy to refer to past data when records are stored electronically. You can easily understand past decisions and make new decisions based on them.
  • You can easily achieve compliance when using ERM systems. With automated storage and disposition of records, you can easily prove compliance and continue with your business operations.

Implement Superior Electronic Records Management with IT Glue

IT Glue is a leading, cloud-based documentation platform that can facilitate records management in your organization. The knowledge you and your team gather in your everyday tasks can be easily consolidated and related to hardware and software information. This means everything can be accessed from a single pane of glass, putting everything at your fingertips.

IT Glue’s SOC 2-compliant documentation platform features an immutable audit trail, multifactor authentication and next-generation password management engine, all of which are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To know more about how IT Glue can help with records management, request a demo.

Request a Demo!

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Record Site Summary for a Client Organization in IT Glue (VIDEO) https://www.itglue.com/blog/it-glue-site-summary/ Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:00:00 +0000 https://www.itglue.com/blog/it-glue-site-summary/ Use the site summary feature in IT Glue™ to document and organize critical information about your clients. With site summary, there is no need to waste time trying to figure out who the main points of contact are. Avoid poor service interactions by knowing quickly and easily what the past issues with the client have been -- they’ll appreciate not having to explain it all again as well.

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Use the site summary feature in IT Glue™ to document and organize critical information about your clients. With site summary, there is no need to waste time trying to figure out who the main points of contact are. Avoid poor service interactions by knowing quickly and easily what the past issues with the client have been — they’ll appreciate not having to explain it all again as well.

Watch #GlueCrew member, Support Analyst Travis Brittain, outline how to get started in this latest installment of the IT Glue Express.


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