Need some record keeping pointers for extensive records at local government
95% of these records need to be maintained for their minimum retention period ranging from 3 years to 6 years on average. There are over 7 filing cabinets full of folders/binders/files that have very little to no correlation to each other or how to find what you are looking for.
I am trying to figure out how best to attack them...because this means WAR! Hopefully the file cabinets don't win.
I thought I was good at organization, but this amount of files out of order kind of overwhelms me. Not to mention that most of these records are available for public disclosure and right now there is no way to find anything in under a month!
I don't want to reinvent the wheel and any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Brandy
Good Answers (2)
John M
AVP Operations Mumbai at Jones Lang LaSalle
Best Answers in: Facilities Management (4), Purchasing (1), Personnel Policies (1), Staffing and Recruiting (1), Business Development (1), Quality Management and Standards (1), Computers and Software (1)
We could start by having a tracking system put in place.
Documents/Files to be named based on the following
Company/Location/Dept/Section/File Number/Date
Eg
Viox/NY/Engg/Inv Details/01/02072008
Viox – company name
NY- New York – Site Location (especially for multiple sites)
Engg- Dept (could be Finance, Admin etc)
Inv Details- Type of Engg file
01 – First file in the series (the following files could be numbered 02, 03
and so on)
02072008 – Date and year
Step 1
Sort all the documents
Step 2
Number each file based on above agreed criteria. So that each file has a unique number and is easily identifiable.
Step 3
3a:
Scan each document number wise using an office scanner and store on the disk. The numbering of the soft copy will be similar to the hard copies. This will save space and you will have all the documents online at your finger tips.
But a lot of effort will be required to initiate and complete the process of transition from Hard copies to soft copies
3b:
Outsource the filing and documentation activity. There are currently many players in the market who provide services of offsite document storage, Long term preservation of assets, Digitization of documents etc
Recall is one such company that provides Document Management Solutions
Links:
You should consider investing in a microfiche machine or a high quality and efficient scanner. Does your Clerk of Courts have any equipment that you can use? If not, the ROI will become evident if you compare the manpower needed to organize and scan the documents with the amount of money that your government would have to pay out during a lawsuit should the requested documents be unavailable. Try to shy away from hiring temporary employees to go through the documents because (1) if they come and go, you will need to continually retrain the new person, and (2) they don't have the expertise that your in-house staff should have. This expertise will enable the documents to be sorted properly the first time (who wants double work?).
Step 1 - identify topics to save the documents under; use dates as necessary
Step 2 - put together a plan prioritizing which documents (either by topic, by date, or even by file cabinet drawer) that will be scanned first, second, etc.
Step 3 - get buy in from in house employees
Step 4 - set milestones (ask them to help identify these so they have some ownership of the process)
Step 4 - get to work.
More Answers (2)
Denise C
Director - Construction Audit at Altran Control Solutions
Best Answers in: Mentoring (1), Project Management (1), Career Management (1)
As "out of the box" as the suggestion may sound, I had the same problem at a former company and we also had a sponsorship with a special school for differently abled adults. We were able to hire some of the sevant students there who were able to work quickly and efficiently to find trends and are amazing at organizational skills. It helped support their school efforts and it was an economical solution as well. I do not mean to imply that we hired them at a low wage but because of their concentration they were able to tackle the problem quickly. I also recommend that you contract with a good record retention company to store the files where they can be more safely protected from disaster.
There is off the shelf software that can handle what you are looking for. You need professional level software and some guidance on how to get things setup. Doing this incorrectly could lead to lost documents, wasted space, and a maintenance nightmare that will cost much more than spending a little upfront and doing things correctly.
I would look for a hosted solution to save on the hardware costs. I would also find other departments or localities that want to pitch in on a better scanner so you can get the job done faster and save some money. What we do for customers who are subject to public inquiry or FOIA is to provide "Google' like searching through their documents. It's not perfect by any means, but it gets you close and speeds research tremendously.
