How much is enough when it comes to document conversion?
Face it, we know the world is going digital. We know most content today is started in a digital footprint such as a word, power point or excel document. Long ago, these were yes, electronic but we all kept paper copies "just to be safe". Admit it, many of us probably still do. We all must face the reality of the digital world. There is a process we go through when making the transition to digital. Part of that process is deciding where to draw the lines? When do you start your digital process? How do we handle the stuff that is "in process" on go live day? How much of your back file should you convert to digital format to be used by your new software system?
Well the answer to each of these questions is "it depends". Does your organization have an updated and good information governance policy? Does your organization have a strong and followed record retention policy? This is where to start, at the beginning. If your organization does have a strong information governance policy then part of that policy should address retention, security and data access controls. I strongly recommend that you develop a comprehensive information governance policy if you do not already have one. If you want to start with the minimum make sure you have a strong document retention and destruction policy. Take the time to perform self audits to make sure that you are in compliance with your own policies in the paper world. Moving to digital will do nothing to make sure you are being compliant if you already are not following your own policies in the paper world. Take notice of deficiencies and action to correct any defined areas that need attention.
Once you have an information governance policy in place that addresses all points of information entering your organization then as you transition from the paper to the digital environment set up your digital processes and retention to coincide with the company policy that you just developed and improved. In a future post I will discuss the details of how to create an information governance policy and more importantly suggestions for how to make it work in your environment. Until then, think about all of your different points of entry, access and destruction for all information within your organization and make proactive decisions as to its worth, value, retention, and destruction paths. In other words develop an information life cycle for each type of information within your organization. Understands its source, purpose, retention and destruction path for each separate information type. (I find it easier to refer to these as "information types" as opposed to document types because it may not be in the traditional paper document format).
Until next time, think about how you should govern each of your information types. To efficiently govern this information think about how it is captured, processed, located, stored, retrieved and archived.
Consider the rule of one:
One Platform supporting unlimited content enabled applications
One Database and shared document repository
One Application to upgrade
One System to secure
One architecture to protect from disaster
One single point of integration for existing architecture
Contact us at Integra today www.integraecm.com to discuss how we can assist you transitioning from the manual world of information management to the consolidated one platform world utilizing our 42 years of expertise along with world recognized solutions from OnBase. www.onbase.com www.integraecm.com