The Art of Destruction
An Overlooked Key to Records Management and e-Discovery

Some additional points to consider:

• To eliminate the need for local copies, all employees should store emails, documents and records in an assigned archive as early as possible in the business process;
• Unstructured legacy archives must be organized and structured. All local, personal and backup copies of archived and non-relevant, non-archived local emails, paper and electronic files should be destroyed on a specific, realistic date;
• The most sensitive documents are confidential documents and (potentially) privileged documents that typically come from HR or are documents you receive from parties with whom you signed a nondisclosure agreement; and
• After the RMA system gets rolling, data retention must be enforced by the responsible officers.

Exchange server mailboxes and PST repositories are not designed for, and should not be used as, document archives. All relevant emails and documents must be archived in assigned repositories. Some tips to consider:

• Implement an appropriate email archiving tool;
• Set an automatic deletion date for all messages, calendar items, journals and tasks older than 90 days that still reside on your MS Exchange server in personal, shared, or functional mailboxes and in central repositories (public folders and the list server). This wholesale deletion will occur every three months; and
• Old email repositories (PST and server-based mailboxes) also need to be sorted out and cleaned up before a set date. Choose a group to help support this activity. Consider using the same group that works on electronic discovery projects because performing clean-up activities provides a good training environment for e-discovery team members.

The email archiving method can proceed as follows:

1. Create a copy of the filing plan in every user’s mailbox. Users can then drag and drop relevant emails into these folders and create subfolders where needed.

2. Make sure that software is in place that provides an option to automatically archive Sent messages to a designated location on a regular pre-defined basis.

Training and Enforcing your RMA Solution
Users need to be trained on how to file relevant emails, paper documents, faxes and electronic files when they become employees. HRM and the direct manager are responsible for conducting this training.

Although they can delegate enforcement of this policy, the responsible officer always has final responsibility. In addition, IT people must be trained on how to discover PSTs on the network and restrict the usage of memory sticks and CDs/DVDs. Any copies made must be registered.

Make sure that an authorized officer (ideally a board member) annually checks the responsible officers for execution of these procedures. RMA is useless without the proper training and enforcement to support it.

To sum up, filing plans are the drivers of effective electronic records management, and one of their critical components is their ability to instigate controlled, yet thorough, document destruction. To enhance user acceptance, consider starting with a manual system and then gradually automating relevant parts.

After a plan is in place, more advanced automatic filing systems, such as those with text analytics technology, can be used to automatically classify records into the filing system.

RM, E-Discovery and Knowledge Management ZyLAB’s Universal Approach
Since 1983, ZyLAB has worked alongside professionals in the auditing, legal and intelligence communities to develop the best tools for investigating and managing large sets of archived data. These award-winning technologies have been bundled into the ZyIMAGE Information Access Platform, an integrated document, content and records management solution that enables businesses, auditors and legal professionals to capture, investigate, structure and disclose information in an efficient and secure manner.

ZyLAB offers specific process functionality, relevancy modeling, and flexible content analytics, all supported by ZyIMAGE’s robust search capabilities and an XML-based archiving framework that is applied for a number of specific applications:

• Email archiving
• E-discovery and e-disclosure;
• Corporate compliance and contract management;
• Case management and litigation support;
• Back-office records management for organizations facing legal risk, such as construction, outsourcing, customer service, medical or HR environments;
• Federal and local government records management; and
• Historical files.

The ZyIMAGE Information Access Platform is optimized for these applications due to its combination of search technology, security and business-focused content-management functionality. ZyLAB can quickly deploy even the most complex installations of specialist solutions and provide all the necessary training, documentation, support and maintenance.

ZyLAB also offers text-analytics technology that supports more than 200 languages and can be easily deployed to scale. The ZyIMAGE Information Access platform enables organizations to bring knowledge management in house, take the mystery out of e-discovery and stabilize comprehensive records management initiatives.