Book Image

Alfresco 3 Records Management

Book Image

Alfresco 3 Records Management

Overview of this book

The Alfresco Records Management feature set is so complete that it is one of the very limited number of systems, and the only Open Source solution, that has been fully certified for Records Management use by the US Department of Defense. Record keeping is important because accurate records are really the only way that organizations can demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements. The amount of regulation that organizations must comply with has gone up dramatically over the last decade, and the complexity of record management has increased proportionally.Alfresco 3 Records Management is a complete guide for setting up records programs within organizations. The book is the first and only one that describes Alfresco's implementation of Records Management. It not only teaches the technology for implementing Records Management, but also discusses the important roles that both processes and people play in the building of a successful records program.Alfresco 3 Records Management starts with a description of the importance of record keeping, especially from a regulatory compliance perspective. It then discusses Records Management best practices and standards, and goes on to describe step by step how to identify documents that need to be managed as records, how to use Alfresco Records Management software to set up the File Plan structure for organizing the storage of records, and then how to manage the lifecycle of the records.The book provides detailed instructions for installing and configuring Alfresco Records Management. The topics covered include setting up a record File Plan, filing records, establishing record retention schedules, setting up security and permissions, assigning metadata, extending the content model, using advanced search techniques, and creating system activity audit reports. The book also provides "deep-dive" information from a developer's perspective about how the Records Management module was implemented within the Alfresco Share platform.Alfresco 3 Records Management covers features available in both the Community and Enterprise versions of Alfresco software. By the end of this book, you will be able to successfully develop a records policy and implement it within Alfresco Records Management.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Alfresco 3 Records Management
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Records Management

Filing by scanning


While paper is being increasingly replaced by the use of electronic files and forms, many organizations must still deal with large amounts of new paper records on a day-to-day basis. Many organizations must also deal with large volumes of historical paper documents and records. Paper is still very much a reality today for organizations, but there are compelling reasons to convert paper documents and records into electronic ones.

Being able to bring paper documents into the records system can both improve work efficiencies and save a tremendous amount of physical space. The costs for scanning have also been dropping. Both scanner hardware and imaging software over the last decade have become cheap, fast, and reliable. Because of those benefits, many organizations use scanning on a regular basis to digitize their paper documents and records.

Scanning can either be centralized or distributed. The type of approach that is best for an organization is often a function of the...