With the huge technological development, and the transformation of all traditional transactions and operations into electronic transactions, and with the transformation of data and digital documents into a huge database of information and data. The organization around it has increased exponentially in recent years, and at the same time, we cannot really ignore that electronic archiving is still often considered a burden on employees, as electronic archiving is a highly specialized matter that only needs to be dealt with by skilled people - records managers and archivists - It must be at the highest priority in many areas of work.

The integrative role between records management and electronic archiving
We believe that an integrated approach based on the management of the life cycle of electronic incoming and outgoing records of the facility is necessary for effective management and archiving of professional information. This requires the participation of all employees, but should not be an additional cost or burden.

Let's explain first how to integrate records management from electronic incoming and outgoing and electronic archiving. There are a lot of formal descriptions of records, but in a certain way we can describe them as information that can serve as evidence of business transactions or other legal obligations, in short all documents and data that must be kept for a specific period is important to the facility because you are legally obligated to do so (contracts, invoices, permits and so on). Therefore, electronic records management focuses on the correct management of these records, from creation or reception to archiving.

On the other hand, electronic archiving focuses on the preservation stage. In other words, when records are not being used properly and actively, but are kept securely for a well-defined period of time, the essence of effective electronic archiving lies in the common understanding and application of records management best practices by all employees. But how do we achieve this end? The following guidelines show you how to take a comprehensive approach to CMS records management and workflows:

 

Work on records management principles from the beginning of content creation. For example, make sure that the document type classification (eg Contract, Invoice) is a mandatory step/field. This will limit the efforts required of knowledge workers to comply with the facility's records management policies for each type of document at later stages, and even cancel those efforts.

Each content element should have well-defined content characteristics. The so-called metadata. The metadata of these documents should provide useful information to facilitate records management compliance as well as the daily work of knowledge workers.

Define an effective content structure. Finding a balance between creating conditions of use by knowledge workers, in line with their daily activities, which, at the same time, ensures the recording of information necessary for records management purposes.

Ensure that all actions performed on the content are automatically recorded in audit logs (who, what, when, why), so that you can automatically generate reports to facilitate access to all different types of content processing, in addition to adhering to log management policies.
What are the risks of traditional archiving? What are the returns generated from converting your paper documents into electronic records?

One of the most important basic pillars to ensure the success of the facility and the continuity of its effective work is efficiency in managing and organizing records; so that it is not exposed to any form of loss, damage or tampering; Therefore, traditional archiving cannot be considered as the ideal solution to ensure effective work continuity, for several reasons, the most important of which are:

Reliance on the skills of some employees in all preservation, archiving and retrieval operations; This means that it is limited to certain individuals and not others and is based almost entirely on their personal experiences.
Companies must be able to produce any original documents required at any time for any kind of legal oversight or audit.
The absence of tight security and confidentiality systems on documents and the possibility of their being stolen or tampered with by employees with weak souls.
Wasting a lot of time and effort while organizing records and also during the process of searching for a specific document or paper.
Documents are often damaged or lost due to the large size of the facility and the frequent manual circulation of documents between employees and various levels of departments.
The large number of copies of incoming and outgoing records between more than one concerned department, for example, the work is divided into a financial part and a technical part, which makes completing the papers of a particular project not done with the required accuracy and speed.
The absence of a backup copy of the incoming and outgoing records in the event that the facility is exposed to an accident such as a fire, or an individual error that may be caused by a cup of coffee or tea.

The shift to electronic archiving addresses all the problems of traditional archiving mentioned above. In order to facilitate and speed up work, increase productivity, and reduce storage and printing costs, not to mention the exploitation of the paper archive space and its employment in matters that contribute more to raising work efficiency.

 

What are the consequences of your use of electronic archiving?
Despite the importance of costs associated with slow response times and wasted resources, it is more important from the perspective of information management, as electronic archiving gives the facility many advantages that contribute to saving time and effort and improving the pace of work effectively, the most important of which are:

 

Using modern technologies to facilitate, such as smart scanning, in recognizing images and Arabic and English letters.
the ability to modify records and the ability to encrypt specific parts of a file and easily add a code, stamp or signature; And arranging and classifying documents in the manner and style of work in the facility through multiple patterns.
The ability to improve the quality of poor documents and save them with the best possible accuracy, and the ability to deal with