To meet legal and organizational requirements, an organization must store records and information for specific time periods and protect it from unauthorized access. Records include documents, e-mail messages, videos, instant messages, Web pages, and more. The legal department in an organization usually manages which records must be retained, for how long, and who has access to them and works with the IT department worked to ensure the required records, such as contracts, are secure and retained for the necessary time periods.
The records management capabilities in SharePoint 2007 can help an organization consolidate diverse content from multiple file shares and personal drives into a centrally managed repository, known as a Records Center site. For example, the Legal department in the example company below, consolidates and categorizes records on the Lease and License Records site as contracts, leases, and license agreements. Integrated search capabilities help people find and share this information. The content in a Records Center site can be protected from unauthorized access.
The records management capabilities in SharePoint 2007 can help organizations to store and protect business records in their final state for auditing and legal purposes. You can apply site collection policies to these records to ensure that the records are retained for the required time period to comply with legal requirements or organizational needs, thereby mitigating legal risk to your organization. In the below example the company retains contracts for three years after they expire. Audit logs provide proof to internal and external auditors that records have been retained appropriately. Holds can be placed on specific records under legal discovery to prevent their deletion.
SharePoint integrates records management capabilities with
collaboration features, such as workflow, to help people work together to create, review, and approve documents in a more structured way. People no longer have to rely solely on e-mail to share documents. Mobile workers can also use these documents when they are not connected to the network. SharePoint Server integrates with other familiar Microsoft Office products, such as Microsoft Word 2007, to make collaboration and records management features available to everyone in your organization.
