Future Proof – Protecting our digital future

At the end of 2012, State Records published some guidance on the recordkeeping capabilities of SharePoint 2010. This guidance describes recordkeeping features and functionality that can be enabled or configured in SharePoint, and identifies where additional configuration and/or add-on software are needed to meet particular recordkeeping requirements.

We have recently received a few queries from agencies, asking us if we intend to update this guidance for SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online.

The answer is ‘no’. We don’t generally assess the recordkeeping capabilities of particular products, as the technology environment is ever changing and it would be impossible for us to keep up to date. (Obviously, the above-mentioned guidance on the recordkeeping capabilities of SharePoint 2010 is an exception!)

The recordkeeping capabilities of particular products are also so dependent upon individual organisations’ identified requirements for records and information, their business, and the ways in which the products are implemented, that it is difficult to provide generally-useful assessments. In the above-mentioned guidance, one of the most useful parts of it are the case studies describing the different ways in which different organisations designed, configured and used SharePoint 2010.

So where can you find more information?

We have published a couple of blog posts on the recordkeeping capabilities of SharePoint 2013. While not formal assessments of the capabilities of SharePoint 2013, they do identify some things to think about when implementing SharePoint:

• Managing information in collaborative tools – 10 tips to consider when implementing SharePoint OOTB
  This is a guest post by Janet Villata, formerly working at Austrade, now at the City of Sydney. Janet gave a presentation on the work she was involved in to assess the recordkeeping functionality of SharePoint 2013 out of the box. This post summarises her presentation.
• SharePoint 2013: new functionality and what it might mean for recordkeeping
  Although written before the widespread release of SharePoint 2013, this post identifies a few differences between 2010 and 2013 that may impact on an organisation’s recordkeeping.

And Andrew Warland has published some information about what has changed between SharePoint 2010, and SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online.

We are always very keen to speak to agencies and develop case studies describing the implementation of particular systems. If you would like to share your organisation’s experiences in implementing SharePoint, please contact us.