Chapter 8 Records Management

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 2 Records Management Managing Paper Records Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules Understanding Electronic File Organization

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 3 Records Management (continued) Retention and Transfer Electronic Records Retention Ethical Issues in Records Management International Standards for Records Management

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 4 Records Management— Overview Information system details how organization plans, develops, and organizes its information Organized and secured information essential so information -- useful and immediately available at right time

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 5 Records Management—Its Importance Records, also called information assets, are maintained to maximize profit, control costs, and ensure vitality

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 6 Records Management—Responsibility Everyone plays important role in Protecting organization’s records and information by following established policies and executing its procedures

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 7 Records Management--What Are Records? (continued) Evidence of what organization does Represents its business activities and decisions or transactions Appears in many formats—paper, electronic mail, and databases

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 8 Records Management--Categories of Records Vital—records essential to operation Important—customer/personnel records Useful—correspondence and reports; kept on-site to conduct daily business Nonessential—not needed beyond current use, such as requests, acknowledgements, notices of meetings, duplicate copies

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 9 Records Management—Files Management Applies principles to both paper/electronic records created and used Ensures records can be retrieved efficiently when needed Identifies documents that should not be maintained Documents, such as duplicates of completed forms, extra copies of reports, and bulletins, announcements of meetings, requests for information or responses to requests Learn to distinguish between records and documents; follow established procedures for preserving records and discarding documents

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 10 Managing Paper Records—Developing Filing System Consider How will records be requested? How will records be retrieved?

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 11 Managing Paper Records (continued) Major classifications or systems are: Alphabetic Numeric Geographic Subject

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 12 Managing Paper Records—Location (continued) Answer following Who needs to have access? What types of records are stored? How frequently will records need to be accessed? What procedures are needed to protect records from loss, damage, theft, and unauthorized use?

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 13 Managing Paper Records—Location (continued) Centralized: One location convenient to many Files are checked out, so location is always known Decentralized: Files maintained at individual workstations

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 14 Managing Paper Records—Ordering Supplies Online Advantages Up-to-date catalog descriptions, prices Clear, simple indexes Great variety in products Fast delivery Costs may be less than in stores

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 15 Managing Paper Records—Basic Folder Design Folders, also referred to as manila folders Come with tabs or extensions at top Tab cuts include straight, one-half, one-third, and one-fifth Hanging folders Guides act as dividers

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 16 Managing Paper Records—Placement of Guides and Folders Primary Guides Individual Name Folders Miscellaneous Folders Special Guides

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 17 Managing Paper Records—Placement of Guides and Folders (continued) Primary guide Divides file into alphabetic sections Placed at beginning of each section Correspondence filed in individual or miscellaneous folders placed behind guides

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 18 Managing Paper Records—Placement of Guides and Folders (continued) Individual name folder Use when at least five papers are accumulated for one correspondent File folders in order immediately following primary guide File correspondence In chronological order Most recent date placed at front

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 19 Managing Paper Records—Placement of Guides and Folders (continued) Miscellaneous folder Filed behind individual folders Contains papers to and from all correspondents for whom you do not have individual name folders Within folder, arrange papers in alphabetical order by name If two or more papers for one correspondent, place most recent in front Staple related papers together

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 20 Managing Paper Records—Placement of Guides and Folders (continued) Special guide Directs eye to individual folders that are used frequently Use for subdivisions of alphabet Use to mark section of file containing individual folders for several correspondents with same surname

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 21 Managing Paper Records—File Labels (continued) Identifies folder and its contents Comes in variety of sizes, shapes, and colors Consider three levels of identification: drawer or shelf, file guide, and file folder Be consistent in labeling

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 22 Managing Paper Records--Equipment (continued) Consider Volume of records requiring storage Types of records being stored Space limitations

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 23 Managing Paper Records--Equipment (continued) Vertical drawer cabinets Lateral cabinets Open shelves Mobile aisle systems

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 24 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules Association of Information Management Professionals Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA International or ARMA) Recognized need for standardization and published first rules of alphabetic filing

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 25 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules—Order of Filing Units Unit—each part of name B. R. Grove—three units Indexing—unit in order for filing; always precedes alphabetizing Grove ( 1 st ), B. ( 2 nd ) R. ( 3 rd ) Alphabetic filing—organized in alpha sequence

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 26 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules— Principles (continued) Alphabetize by comparing names unit by unit and letter by letter Nothing comes before something Ignore all punctuation marks, special characters and diacritical marks when indexing All Arabic numbers precede roman numerals

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 27 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) Personal names Surname—first unit, followed by first name or initial, and then middle name or initial Prefixes in names

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 28 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) Personal names Titles and suffixes Hyphens in names Pseudonyms, royal, or religious titles Non-English names Nicknames

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 29 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) When two or more names are identical: Use geographical address to determine filing order Consider order shown at right Country State City/municipality Street name Compass point (N, S, E, W) Building number

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 30 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) Business and organization names As written Central (1 st ) Trust (2 nd ) Company (3 rd ) Geographic names Compass terms

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 31 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) Business and organization names Numeric names Only 1 st number is considered Ignore number following hyphen – (7-11 Store) Digit contains a suffix (st, d, th) Ignore suffix, index only number Number is spelled out Ignore hyphen and two numbers become one unit

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 32 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) Business and organization names Symbols in names Index way they are pronounced. One $ Store One (1 st ) Dollar (2 nd ) Store (3 rd ) Single letters in names File as written, spell out only when company spells out ARK Transport--ARK (1 st ) Transport (2 nd )

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 33 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) Federal Government United States Government = units 1-3 Followed by most distinctive name United (1 st ) States (2 nd ) Government (3 rd ) Social (4 th ) Security (5 th ) Administration (6 th ) State and Local Government Index by distinctive name Monroe (1 st ) County (2 nd ) Public (3 rd ) Works (4 th ) Department of (5 th )

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 34 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules (continued) Non-U.S. Governments Rule applies to non-U.S. government names filed in U.S.-based filing systems Distinctive English name—first filing unit

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 35 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules— Variations in Alphabetic Filing (continued) Individual names Businesses, institutions, and other group names

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 36 Indexing and Alphabetizing Rules— Variations (continued) Hyphenated business name may be made up of two surnames, might be indexed and not treated as one unit Geographic names or words involving compass point might be treated as two words Names beginning with numbers expressed as figures, might be filed in regular alphabetical order, rather than number sequence

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 37 Preparing Paper Records for Filing—Steps Examine Index Code Cross-reference Sort File

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 38 Preparing Paper Records—Steps (continued) Examine includes Should papers stapled together be filed together? Staple together related papers where one document refers to another Remove all paper clips and extra staples Remove unnecessary small slips of paper Keep routing slip with appropriate documents Are documents duplicates – can they be deleted/destroyed, or filed?

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 39 Preparing Paper Records—Steps (continued) Index includes Determine key word—name, subject, geographic location Incoming letters—use organization name on letterhead Outgoing letters—use organization name in inside address

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 40 Preparing Paper Records—Steps (continued) Code includes Mark indexing caption Underline name Highlight key words Identify number of indexing units according to highlight words Mr. Benjamin (2 nd ) Ross (1 st ) = 2 indexing units

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 41 Preparing Paper Records—Steps (continued) Cross-reference includes Use when document is apt to be called for by two different names at different times Make two copies of cross-reference sheet: One copy is filed in cross-reference folder; should be only piece of paper in folder; purpose is to send you to correct file Second copy filed with actual folder

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 42 Preparing Paper Records—Steps (continued) Cross-reference Avoid preparing unnecessary cross-references Some examples of when to use: When filed by subject instead of individual’s name (Temporary Employees) When difficult to determine individual’s surname (Kent Ross) When organizations are referred to by acronym—IAAP ( International Association of Administrative Professionals )

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 43 Preparing Paper Records—Steps (continued) Sort includes Prearrange documents in same order they will be filed First, divide documents into manageable groups--A-C, D-F, G-J, K-P, Q-T, and U-Z Next, arrange papers in each group When two pieces of correspondence share same name, place most recent on top

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 44 Preparing Paper Records—Steps (continued) File, actual placing of records in folders, includes When refiling existing records, name on caption in filing system should be same as record being refiled Records should be filed chronologically in folder with latest one in front New folder should agree with filing system and index should be updated to include new file

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 45 Tracking Paper Files Charge-out methods Manual charge-out guides include Guides with printed lines for writing description of materials removed, name of person who has removed materials and date removed Guides with slot or pocket to hold card with charge-out information Automated bar coding requires software, label printer, and scanning device

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 46 Understanding Electronic File Organization Helps to manage Files on local hard drive or network drive Files shared through attachments Files put on Web server

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 47 Understanding Electronic File Organization--File Cabinets contain folders with files, also called documents Any document created or received; has file name and at least three-letter extension

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 48 Understanding Electronic File Organization-- Folder Contains files/documents

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 49 Understanding Electronic File Organization—Drive Physical location where folders and files are located Drive A—floppy disk drive Drive C—hard disk drive Drives D through Z—designated as optional drives, such as network, flash drive, or CD-ROM or DVD-ROM

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 50 Understanding Electronic File Organization—Organizing Electronic Files Use My Documents folder to create structure Organize folders as in paper filing structure Determine sequence of folders—alpha, numeric, and so on Perform regular maintenance Print list of filing system

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 51 Understanding Electronic File Organization—Saving Files CDs Flash drives External hard drives

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 52 Retaining and Transferring Paper Records Factors determine how long records must be preserved: Nature of organization’s business operations State statute of limitations Regulations of federal government Never dispose of any record without clear knowledge of retention regulations

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 53 Retaining and Transferring Paper Records-- Retention If no guidelines exist, seek advice from either consultant or ARMA’s Web site Determining which records to keep and for how long is critical function

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 54 Retaining and Transferring Paper Records— Transfer Perpetual Transfer Method Continually transferring files to inactive storage, such as when project or case is completed Periodic Transfer Method Transferring files to inactive storage at predetermined intervals, such as 6 months, 1 year, or 18 months

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 55 Electronic Records Retention Inactive records are transferred Move records from computer onto company’s servers, or other electronic storage media

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 56 Ethical Issues Confidentiality of personal information Security of physical equipment Validity of information Disposal of records Improper use of PINs

Office Procedures for the 21 st Century, 8e Burton and Shelton © 2011 Pearson Higher Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ All Rights Reserved. 57 International Standards for Records Management Recognized worldwide, states records management includes Setting policies and standards Assigning responsibilities and authorities Establishing and sharing procedures and guidelines Providing range of services relating to management and use of records Designing, implementing, and administering specialized systems for managing records Integrating records management into business systems and processes