Background Information *

About Doculabs *

About the Study *

About Benchmark Assessments *

EDMS Overview *

About the Doculabs Special Report Series *

Acknowledgments *

Records Management Benchmark Study Participants *

About the Participants *

The First Records Management Systems *

The Difference Between DM and RM *

Major Forces Changing Records Management *

Changes in Technologies within Organizations *

Changes in Customer Demands for Records Management *

Changes in Regulations *

Changes in the Competitive Landscape *

Enterprise Requirements for Records Management *

Architectural Design Approaches *

A Word about Two-Tier and Three-Tier Architectures *

Repositories and Databases for Electronic RMS *

Integration with EDMS and Other Applications *

Technology Standards *

Managing the Risk of Risk Management *

General Evaluation Methodology *

Evaluation Scenario and Process *

RMS-Specific Categories for Comparison *

Comparison Summary *

Records Manager Capabilities *

IT Capabilities *

End User Capabilities *

Best Uses *

Cuadra Associates, Inc. (STAR 3.5) *

EDUCOM Business Solutions (RecordMANAGER 2.5) *

Information Network, IN Inc. (InSight 32) *

Provenance, Inc. (ForeMost 6.3 and 7.0) *

PSSoftware Solutions Inc. (RIMS Studio 6.0) *

TOWER Software (TRIM 4.1 and 4.2) *

RMS and EDMS Trends *

What Next? *

Figure 1 – EDMS Technology Categories *

This section provides background information on Doculabs, on this study, on Doculabs assessment program, and on the technology sectors that Doculabs follows.

Doculabs is an independent industry analyst firm guided by the principle that both vendors and end users benefit from objective feedback about product strengths and limitations. Founded in Chicago in 1992, Doculabs was one of the first industry analyst firms to ground its vendor and end user advisory services in unbiased, reality-based assessment results.

Doculabs uses its hands-on assessment to help end users choose the right technology solutions, and to provide critical feedback to vendors. Doculabs’ timely, objective assessment results make its broad spectrum of advisory services, market analyses and research results among the most practical and valuable in the industry. Doculabs uses its reality-based product assessment to build a truly credible information bridge between end user need and vendor product development.

Doculabs has a growing staff of more than 20 analysts dedicated to product assessment, advisory services, and market analyses. The company specializes in emerging technology solutions in all facets of electronic document management systems (EDMS), electronic document output systems (EDOS), and technologies related to the Internet, intranets, and extranets (i*StructureÔ ).

Doculabs’ service offerings include advisory and consulting services, assessment services, and publications (reports and annual subscriptions). Because Doculabs does not resell products, we remain completely objective in our research and our recommendations.

For more information about Doculabs, call 312-433-7793, or visit our Web site – http://www.doculabs.com.

This report contains the results and analyses of Doculabs’ Records Management Systems Benchmark Study. All of the analyses contained herein are based on the opinions of the individuals who conducted the assessments. This study focused largely on configuration, implementation, and use. This study did not measure runtime performance.

These interpretive results should not be considered product endorsements by Doculabs. It is our hope that vendors will begin using a standard benchmark application suite, such as the one used in this assessment, to assist potential customers in forming their own comparative analysis.

We have worked diligently to ensure that the material in this document is both useful and accurate. Please be aware that errors may exist, and Doculabs makes no guarantees concerning the accuracy of the information found in this report. In particular, subsequent versions of the products may render some information in this report obsolete.

For product names and component names appearing in this document, Initial Capital Letters are used to designate trademark or other proprietary rights. However, in so designating or failing to designate such names, Doculabs does not intend to express any judgment on the validity or legal status or any proprietary right that may be claimed by the vendors.

Reproduction of this material in any form is strictly prohibited without written consent from Doculabs. Individuals or organizations interested in more information about this benchmark study should contact Doculabs, 1201 W. Harrison St., Third Floor, Chicago, IL 60607, (312) 433-7793. E-mail: info@doculabs.com. Web: www.doculabs.com.

Most organizations evaluate and compare products by concentrating on features and functions. The truth is that most products in a given category achieve functional parity every six to twelve months. Therefore, when evaluating products it is critical to focus on the process of application development, implementation, and ongoing use.

This is the basis for Doculabs’ benchmarking methodology. The approach is to assess a group of products in a specific category, using a real-world application scenario. We objectively analyze the product from start to finish, focusing on the different approaches that each product uses, and their impact on our ability to deliver a completed application.

Based on the assessment experience, we identify which of the products that we evaluated is the current leader or "benchmark" in key areas. Thus, Doculabs’ benchmark program goes beyond features, helping both vendors and users discover more about the systems we evaluate in a manner that is entirely objective and yields comparative results.

Doculabs’ benchmarking approach allows users to focus on those aspects of the system that are truly unique and that relate to implementation – without the bias of marketing hype and promises of future developments. Benchmarking also provides vendors a means to analyze how their products compare to others.

As you will see in this report, there is no overall winner or loser. Different applications have different functional and technical requirements, and certain products are better poised than others to meet particular needs. In the end, organizations must consider their own requirements and weigh them against the strengths of the products available in the marketplace. This study provides a framework to help evaluate products.

The net result of this study is to challenge an industry poised for significant growth to prove its ability to provide effective business solutions. For the vendors, please accept our opinions as a challenge to improve your offerings. All of the vendors willingly participated, which is a clear indication of their commitment to the market. Please recognize that the products included in this study are all appropriate for a diverse range of organizations.

Records management has only recently been seen as part of the growing electronic document management systems (EDMS) industry. The market extends far beyond traditional imaging and workflow, and includes technologies such as document management, records management, groupware, COLD, document input, electronic publishing, and search and retrieval. Various combinations of these products can be integrated to create systems for "knowledge management." For organizations, the challenge lies in deciding which technologies offer you real benefits, then integrating them into a common strategy on an enterprise-wide level.

In general, all EDMS technologies are essentially concerned with the same thing: managing "electronic documents," which can be any files that contain content. Examples include scanned images, electronically created files, reports, and even audio and video.

The following graphic identifies the traditional technology categories that make up the electronic document management systems (EDMS) market.

The following subsections describe each of these technology categories, and provide background on the system standards in place for those technologies (if applicable).

Document imaging is a key component of efficient electronic document management systems. Imaging systems convert "human readable" documents (usually paper) into "computer readable" formats (electronic images). Imaging systems provide organizations with the ability to capture, store, archive, and retrieve document images. While the core of any imaging system is the back-end image management architecture, enterprise imaging systems can encompass many other technologies, such as optical storage and print/fax subsystems.

The TIFF (tagged image file format) standard is the commonly accepted image file format; it is supported by all imaging vendors and is interchangeable across systems. Another new format standard gaining acceptance is Adobe’s PDF (portable document format), but it has yet to be universally accepted by imaging vendors.

Workflow systems are designed to automate business processes. Workflow processing technology is quickly gaining momentum as companies move toward more efficient, "paperless" offices. Production workflow systems allow organizations to define a routing and processing scheme that automates an orderly business process.

Whether stand-alone or as part of an imaging implementation, workflow systems can provide organizations with faster response time, increased productivity, improved customer service, and tighter quality controls. In addition to transaction-oriented production workflow products, new offerings are emerging to handle collaborative, administrative, and ad hoc workflows.

The most widely accepted workflow standards are specifications developed by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC). These specifications allow interoperability between different workflow systems through standard interfaces and data interchange formats.

Document management (DM) software addresses a common organizational problem – the inability to retrieve and manage electronically generated unstructured information in an efficient manner. DM tools facilitate the needs of multiple users who work on a single document or a group of documents, regardless of document format.

DM tools give organizations the ability to profile electronically created files for fast and easy retrieval. The software allows documents to be associated with indexes that describe the file, such as document type, author, application, etc. In addition, the software tracks revisions made to documents and provides added security.

The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) has spearheaded the development of two key standards: the Open Document Management API (ODMA) and the Document Management Alliance (DMA). ODMA enables DM systems to work seamlessly with desktop applications; DMA enables different DM systems to work together.

Another important standard is Microsoft’s Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), which is now fairly common in DM systems and many other applications. OLE technology allows you to place "objects" (files) created in one OLE application directly into another OLE application. This enables users to automatically invoke the native application of the embedded OLE object, and to automatically update the embedded object.

The primary purpose of records management is to manage the risk and cost created by your organization’s information (as embodied in physical and electronic form). Any type of business document (forms, invoices, correspondence, orders, etc.) can be classified as a "record." Once it is designated a record, the document is no longer managed by the creator, but by the organization – a fundamental difference from DM. The organization can choose to categorize the record in different ways, retain it for a certain length of time, and destroy it when the company is no longer obliged to retain it.

Organizations generally performed records management in response to industry regulations or to protect themselves from liability. The discipline of records management grew out of these business requirements. Likewise, the first records management systems (RMS) were designed to help records managers with their tasks. Today, the capabilities of RMS products have been expanded to handle electronic records, and to involve end users in the record classification and retrieval process. Many organization now look at their records repositories as powerful group memories, as opposed to liabilities the must be controlled.

Several new regulations are driving records management requirements, particularly in government agencies. For example, a new measure by the U.S. Department of Defense stipulates that all DOD agencies must use records management systems that have been certified as compliant with a core set of records management capabilities. In addition, a records management regulation that drew a distinction between paper and electronic records was recently repealed – meaning that agencies must treat electronic records and paper records in the same fashion. Regulations like these will pave the way for strengthened growth in the records management software market.

COLD (Computer Output to Laser Disk) represents one of the fastest growing segments of the document management systems industry. COLD systems download data in their print file format from a host system (usually mainframe reports) to a workstation. There, the reports are indexed and archived to a storage medium, which might be a hard disk, optical disk, CD, or tape. These stored reports are then available for retrieval or distribution.

Today’s COLD systems provide fast access to information traditionally available only on paper, microfiche, or microfilm. Information is easier to find, retrieval times are faster, archival is easier, and remote distribution is a real option. If your business is not using COLD technology yet, you probably have a number of costs that you could reduce or eliminate by implementing COLD, starting the day your system goes into production.

There are currently no COLD standards in place. AIIM is spearheading an effort to define common modules and interface points across COLD products, an effort that may take a year or more.

With any EDMS system, one of the key challenges is right up front – getting documents into the system. For this reason, the imaging and document management community has been paying close attention to document input technologies. For organizations looking at overall imaging systems, these input technologies are invariably a key piece of the puzzle.

Input technologies include scanners, document capture systems, character recognition, and forms processing packages. While these products do not offer archival or retrieval functionality, they provide the ability to create electronic images of paper documents, enhance them, automatically extract data from them, and make them available for import into an imaging system.

Today’s input technologies offer robust functionality and provide a critical component of an efficient enterprise system. As the technology and the market mature, these products are offering more turnkey capabilities right out of the box, as well as tighter integration with imaging systems.

Just as it is important to get documents into the system, it is critical to get documents out of the system for distribution, often for specific uses or on specific media. Organizations have a wide range of options for publishing.

One option is "traditional" paper-based publishing. This type of publishing involves complex formatting and rendering technologies designed to facilitate sophisticated print jobs and even print-on-demand applications. Another popular strategy is to publish data to CD-ROM and CD-Recordable. These media types allows organizations to easily share large amounts of data with remote users, in a way that enables timely updates, improved accessibility, and reduced inventory and distribution costs.

Finally, the Internet is becoming more and more popular as a publishing medium. Organizations can publish documents to the Web or to private intranets. This simplifies the challenge of making the most current information available, and allows companies to control and monitor user access. Many organizations are setting up corporate intranets that use technologies such as Web servers, HTML authoring tools, and browsers.

Just as users have many publishing options, there are many publishing standards. Depending on the medium, standards may include PostScript, PDF, HTML, SGML, and ISO specifications.

All EDMS systems need cost-effective ways to archive information and to make it available to users when needed. One of the more commonly-used storage technologies is the jukebox. Jukeboxes are available for both CD and optical disk. These so-called "near-line" storage devices typically offer less expensive storage than on-line options such as magnetic hard drives, and they can hold extremely large libraries of information.

Another key technology is jukebox management software. This software acts as the intermediary between users and the device, giving users access to the data and handling all user requests and file transfers. In most cases, the jukebox appears to the user as just another logical drive. In addition, the software includes performance-enhancing capabilities that can help jukeboxes achieve retrieval speeds approaching those of on-line storage.

A growing number of organizations are deploying groupware systems at an enterprise level. Groupware systems enable information to be organized and shared in a collaborative work environment. More than just e-mail, groupware is designed to help people collaborate through advanced features such as discussion databases, bulletin boards, electronic forms, and electronic schedulers.

Groupware systems like Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, and Novell GroupWise can tie individuals together electronically, creating an automated, collaborative work environment with increased productivity. More and more, the groupware system serves as the "universal inbox" for an organization’s users, and is evolving into the dominant application or de facto "platform" in many organizations. And with the Messaging API (MAPI) standard, it becomes easier to integrate groupware with third-party applications.

Text retrieval systems have been the stalwarts of libraries and legal systems for many years. This core technology is now being integrated in many other segments of the EDMS market, including DM, publishing, and COLD. Text retrieval is also becoming tightly integrated with the Internet, providing the ability to search Internet sites as well as allowing users to search and retrieve documents from a browser.

Text retrieval systems address one of the biggest problems of knowledge management: helping users find the information they need. Today’s text retrieval systems provide the ability to search for documents in a variety of different platforms, relieving the user from knowing or caring what format a document is in or where it is stored. Text retrieval systems also feature such sophisticated capabilities as natural language searching, heuristics, and summarization, which make the systems easier to use and improve searching precision.

Doculabs conducts regular benchmark assessments in all areas of the information management systems industry. Preliminary results are often published as articles in leading magazines and journals.

For many of these assessments, Doculabs also publishes "Special Reports," which provide a general explanation of a particular technology area as well detailed product information based on real-world assessments. Each Special Report provides the following information:

The Doculabs Special Reports are released at regular intervals throughout the year. The current series includes reports on these categories:

This report is the result of an independent benchmark study of records management products conducted by Doculabs. We installed and configured a number of leading records management products and used them to develop a real-world application. The systems were evaluated in early 1998.

The purpose of the study was to provide an overview of the records management market and technology, and to highlight the alternative offerings in the marketplace. In addition, the study provides organizations with a methodology to differentiate among the vast array of products available today, including criteria categories that are important to consider when evaluating records management technologies. For each category, we identify the "benchmark," or current leader, among the products we assessed.

The remainder of this study is divided into the following major sections:

For this study we tested the following records management systems (RMS):

For product comparisons, refer to Section IV, "Comparing Records Management Systems." For product reviews, refer to Section V, "Records Management Product Reviews."

All of the vendors included in this study participated voluntarily and paid a nominal lab fee to cover the cost of the resources and personnel required to conduct the assessment. This study represents only those products for which we have conducted a formal laboratory evaluation.

The group of products presented here by no means represents the industry as a whole, and the participants may not necessarily be the industry leaders. Vendors may decline to participate for any number of reasons, which may include a lack of resources for the evaluation or poor timing with respect to the product release cycle. Just because a product is not included in this review does not necessarily mean that the product is inferior to those in this report. Such an assessment can only be made through a hands-on comparison similar to the one used to generate this report.

Keep in mind that this test was not intended to identify a single winner or loser, and it was not a true performance test. Our analysis is designed to highlight each product’s strengths, and indicate the applications for which each product is best suited. Clearly, other factors will enter into your evaluation process, such as the vendor’s size and stability, its future direction, customer support, price, etc. Such factors were beyond the scope of this evaluation.

The concept of records management is not new. Any type of business document (forms, invoices, correspondence, orders, etc.) can be classified as a "record." Once a document is designated a record, the organization can manage it – categorize it in different ways, retain it for a certain length of time, and destroy it when the company is no longer obliged to retain it.

A record can be any document (physical or electronic) that has content, context, and structure. The content is the information the document contains. Context shows such things as the intended use, purpose, or recipients of the document (its history). Structure is the appearance, physical layout, or type of document (such as memo, letter, proposal, etc.).

Organizations traditionally performed records management in response to industry regulations or to protect themselves from liability. The discipline of records management grew out of these business requirements, and the first corporate records centers were designed around these goals.

Typically, records managers were concerned with a core set of tasks: classifying records, storing them in some logical fashion (such as folders, boxes, and shelves), tracking their location, retrieving them when needed for business reasons, and destroying them as soon as possible or moving them to a permanent archive. Records managers and archivists are well versed in these functional requirements.

But from a broader corporate perspective, records management has historically been a low-profile operation. In most firms, the records management group had little interaction with upper management, let alone corporate IT departments. The critical nature of records management tasks and requirements were generally not well-understood by the organization.

With recent trends in knowledge management, records management is now gaining the attention it deserves as part of an information management strategy. Organizations are realizing that their records represent a key corporate asset – a living corporate memory that can be used to improve business processes. And with the explosion of electronic documents within organizations, the need to manage and control organizational records has never been greater.

As the discipline of records management has grown over the years, software vendors have developed products for records management. The first software products for records management started to appear in the early 1980s. In general, these products were designed to make the job of records management easier, and were primarily concerned with paper records.

RMS technology helped records managers perform everyday tasks such as creating file plans and classification plans, establishing retention schedules, tracking records locations, and managing physical storage (shelf space). Records managers still handled paper and boxes, but at least they had a tool to help them track and find information, and remind them when to move or destroy certain records. RMS technology provided real value, assuming the records manager dutifully entered the information into the RMS.

Until recently, records management vendors positioned their products as solutions for a very specialized group: records management professionals who knew what they were doing. This meant that the products were not designed to appeal to an IT agenda or to the job requirements of more general corporate use. That was OK – companies had few records managers, and those people were specialists that understood the discipline of records management. This helped minimize issues such as cost of training, IT support, and usability.

A key challenge is to understand the difference between records management systems and document management (DM) systems. DM systems have plenty of capabilities, but they don’t provide all the specific functionality that’s required for records management.

Traditional DM systems normally store documents in a shared network, while storing associated metadata in a central database. Thus, the database controls user access, tracks versions, and allows searching. But users (with appropriate rights) still access and change documents – they are controlled by the creators. A fundamental difference in a records management system is that once a document is declared a record, the organization is responsible for managing it.

Most DM products lack the following critical records management capabilities:

This is where RMS products shine. RMS products allow users to classify records according to the corporate records plan. The records manager can then apply formal records retention and destruction operations on the documents – specifying which documents to destroy, which documents to transfer, and when to do it. Thus, organizations can save and dispose of documents in accordance with an approved disposition schedule, and meet legislated archival and information access obligations.

In addition, an RMS can effectively bring both electronic and non-electronic records under its control (a capability some DM systems are also incorporating). This ensures that consistent profiling conventions are used across document types, no matter what the format or where they’re stored. It also ensures that document access is systematically managed by the organization.

Unlike DM, RMS shifts document accountability from the end user to the organization. Once you decide to treat a document as a formal corporate record, the organization is responsible for the record, and it must ensure that the official version of the record is not modified. Thus, the record becomes subject to the official corporate retention and disposition plan, usually administered by a records manager. After all, it is the organization that is responsible for meeting obligations such as corporate policy or government and industry regulations, and using an RMS reduces the organization’s exposure to costly litigation.

The following table, based on comparisons made by Julie Gable of Gable Consulting, compares DM and records management in terms of their primary distinguishing characteristics:

The records management industry is undergoing tremendous change, which is being driven by four major forces:

These factors have tremendous impact on each other and on the records management industry as a whole. A change in one factor (e.g., the introduction and universal acceptance of a new technology, like e-mail) can quickly affect the other factors and turn winning vendors into losers – and formerly happy RMS customers into bag holders.

Consider the interrelationship between the four forces driving the RMS market. For example, sweeping technology changes (explosion of electronic documents, e-mail, the Web, etc.) are creating new customers, but they are also changing customers’ needs and expectations. New regulations and standards are also creating new customers, and changing the way in which customers go about their records management practices.

At the same time, the current RMS vendors are enhancing their products to meet new customer needs and new regulations. Meanwhile, new vendors are entering the fray to fill the gap between what customers demand (or will likely need in the future), and what the current vendors are providing today.

The remainder of this section explores each of the four driving forces in the records management market.

More and more organizations are starting to take notice of records management, and the technology is starting to emerge from the back office and assume a more high-profile strategic role within organizations. This transition means that organizations have a need to include records management as part of their larger IT infrastructures.

But this wasn’t always the case. Most records management systems evolved as a set of utilities that met the needs of records managers only. The products did not need to integrate with other systems, and records managers often couldn’t rely on IT support to implement and manage the systems. In fact, many records management systems were home-grown legacy systems, or simple box-and-folder inventory tracking systems.

Understandably, today’s IT departments may not be equipped to support records management systems. Likewise, many records management systems are not designed to support your organization’s information systems. These conditions have brought to light a number of technological issues that are having an impact on the RMS market. These issues include:

There is a new IT reality. Organizations have made significant investments in far-reaching technologies such as operating systems, databases, intranets, e-mail and messaging environments. Records management technologies should be able to co-exist with these components, and should leverage the infrastructure that these components combine to create.

IT groups have a vested interest in ensuring that the technologies they use are compatible and conform to standards. IT is responsible for creating a stable and reliable environment, while at the same time reducing the total cost of administration and support. In addition, IT groups want to know that the products they choose have a strategic direction that matches their own – such as a commitment to all-Microsoft technologies, or a need to support mixed environments via an intranet infrastructure, or a desire to standardize all databases on Oracle.

Many of the vendors we evaluated in this study understand the new IT reality, and are taking varying steps to ensure that they become first-class IT citizens. For example:

Today’s organizations are creating and receiving most of their information in electronic format. Countless documents are created and stored in electronic format. E-mail is the fastest growing area of discovery in corporate litigation today. Duplication and dissemination of electronic documents is extremely easy, and can lead to multiple versions and renditions of the same document – which means redundancy of information, which can be difficult to control.

By managing electronic documents as records, companies can bring the documents under organizational control and risk management. This means that an effective RMS must be able to handle records in electronic formats to help organizations practice proper records hygiene with their electronic records as well as their paper records. Ideally, RMS products can integrate with the applications with which users generate or receive electronic documents – productivity tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, and e-mail systems. RMS products should be able to gracefully accept attempts to declare records from these applications.

All the products we evaluated provide some means of managing electronic records, generally through one of two approaches. RMS products can manage electronic records directly, which requires the vendors to add these capabilities to their products. Or, RMS products can integrate with electronic document management systems (EDMS), and allow the EDMS to handle electronic records behind the scenes.

Electronic records present a new set of retention challenges. For cost-effective and secure storage and retention of electronic records, you’ll need to consider different types of storage media such as magnetic, optical, CD, and magnetic tape. You will also need systems and hardware to manage your storage, including jukeboxes and hierarchical storage management (HSM) systems. You must also be prepared to migrate data as storage hardware and software systems become outdated or obsolete.

Electronic records present new legal challenges as well. For example, with electronic records it is difficult to prove authentication without electronic signatures or other complex and expensive solutions. And since electronic records management is so new, there is limited case law to cite – but that hasn’t slowed attorneys from pursuing electronic documents in discovery.

Functionally, there is overlap between electronic document management systems (EDMS) and records management systems. But increasingly, EDMS functionality is creeping into the operating systems and desktop tools that users work with every day. Thus, your organization will soon have at least basic DM capabilities without ever buying an EDMS product.

Basic DM functionality includes "library services" such as version control, check-in and check-out, and so on. Such features are quickly becoming commodities. For example, Windows NT 5.0 will include such functionality. Microsoft Office products already include basic library services, although few organizations use them systematically. Primitive workflow functionality is also becoming commoditized – any e-mail or groupware system can use its messaging infrastructure for basic routing.

For EDMS products to survive in this climate, they must continue to provide significant value-add over and above what organizations can get for free in operating systems and desktop tools.

Beyond what is offered by the infrastructure vendors such as Microsoft, some EDMS vendors are now offering products that can easily and justifiably be deployed to literally almost every desktop of organizations. Two notable examples are Lotus Domino.Doc, which runs with Lotus Notes, and Open Text LiveLink, which runs in any Web browser and has been successfully deployed in installations with tens of thousands of seats.

What does this mean for the RMS industry? In the past, the RMS vendors had a reasonable argument for not making EDMS integration a high priority, because so few desktops used document management. This is changing, as operating systems and productivity tools alone will put at least basic DM on every desktop. Thus, EDMS integration is becoming a requirement for RMS products, and many are making strides. In fact, many RMS products rely on EDMS integration to manage electronic records.

More generally, EDMS integration is a good litmus test for RMS vendors. If a vendor does not even have a plausible strategy for such integration, it is conceivable that both the vendor and its customers are in for some rough times. Doing it right requires time and development cycles, which will put certain vendors (and their customers) behind the technology curve.

The Web is becoming more than a data distribution and publishing medium. Organizations are starting to use it as a platform for business applications. Records management systems must support the way in which organizations use "the Nets" – the Internet, intranets, and extranets.

But what does "support for the Nets" mean? At a minimum, users must be able to declare, classify, search, request, and retrieve records via browser. Ideally, the system can also be administered via browser, allowing records managers to handle retention and disposition in a Web-based environment. Architecturally, the RMS should be able to handle the demands that Web-based applications can generate – including the ability to provide reliability and performance with increased volumes and demand spikes.

While the Web is great for application accessibility, it actually creates challenges for records management in terms of content. The Web easily crosses functional, geographical, and even organizational boundaries. Companies can readily share documents and collaborate with suppliers, customers, and partners. That means new documents circulating around the organization – documents that can potentially be managed as records.

In addition, content that is delivered via the Web can be dynamically composed from multiple files or repositories. For example, a human resources application may draw information from several repositories. The information presented to users may vary depending on the employee’s privileges, level within the firm, or even the time at which the information is accessed if the system delivers the most current information available.

All this means that Web pages can be built from a wide range of repositories, and they can contain more and different content, structure, and context than their paper counterparts (including embedded code). Thus, if Web content and pages are to be classified and managed as records, the records management system must be able to handle dynamic content and the potentially disparate repositories of the source material.

All of the products we evaluated have Net strategies. Most offer first-generation solutions, with the ability to search for records and to declare and classify via a browser. The vendors are quickly trying to move beyond basics to address the larger issues and opportunities that the Web creates.

There are essentially two issues that the Year 2000 problem creates for the records management systems, the people who use them, and the vendors who provide them. First, many home-grown legacy RMS solutions are not Year-2000-compliant, and may have to be replaced with new systems. Second, with all of the other demands that the Year 2000 problems creates for IT groups, records management may receive little attention in many organizations.

Some legacy systems can’t handle the date change from 1999 to 2000. Those legacy applications must be debugged and modified to work around the problem, or replaced with alternate applications. Most of the records management systems in use today are legacy systems, and are ripe for replacement. This creates a huge opportunity for RMS vendors, who can offer organizations new systems to handle current and future demands.

The Year 2000 problem is taking tremendous resources from corporate IT departments. Polls consistently cite the Year 2000 problems among the top three priorities of senior IT managers. This means that records management – already low on the IT priority list – will not be receiving a lot of attention from IT groups for the next year or more. This means that it is more important than ever that the RMS product you choose conforms with your IT standards, so it can be efficiently maintained by IT personnel – or better yet, be deployed, administered, and supported without IT support.

Clearly, customer demands and expectations regarding records management systems are changing. The traditional customers for RMS products – records managers – must now cope with the challenges brought by electronic documents.

At the same time, new classes of customers have emerged – each of which has its own set of demands. Besides the records managers themselves, the three new groups with specific demands for records management include:

The latest shift in records management is to give end users access to the RMS, and to allow them to participate in the records management process. Putting the RMS into the hands of business users can extend RMS benefits to people who formerly had no experience with records management.

Many organizations want to allow users to classify records, search for records, and submit retrieval requests – right from their desktops. Thus, users can make informed business decisions based on information in the records repository.

End users have their own set of needs. They need a simple and painless process for declaring a document an official record and classifying it (thus easing the burden of responsibility). They need both basic and sophisticated querying capabilities for searching the records and document repository. They may want to access the RMS from an interface other than the RMS client, such as a Web browser, an EDMS application, or productivity tools such as Microsoft Word or Lotus Notes.

As records management gains acceptance as a strategic initiative, organizations will manage the RMS just as they would any other information management technology. Thus, IT groups will be evaluating RMS products with an eye toward cost of administration, ease of deployment, integration, and the ability to leverage existing technologies.

Specifically, IT groups want products that support their LANs and WANs, client/server environments, networks, messaging platforms, databases, intranets, and the Internet. They want to take advantage of the high-end hardware in which they have already invested. They want to ensure that the user community has reliable service and good performance. Finally, they want administration and maintenance to be as painless as possible.

As the organization rolls out records management to new classes of users, it does so with specific requirements in mind. The organization generally seeks to provide an accessible information repository that can be used to improve decision-making. It wants a system that is flexible enough to adapt to business process changes, making the system useful in changing business climates. And it wants to get a handle on the flood of new documents (particularly electronic), and involve users in the process.

But liability protection is still one of the overriding organizational requirements for records management. In today’s litigious-minded society, organizations are more sensitive than ever to exposing themselves to potential lawsuits and legal actions. It is dangerous to have discrepancies between organizational policy and actual records management practice, or discrepancies between management of physical and electronic records. Such situations can expose companies to huge discovery scavenger hunts, costing millions of dollars.

RMS technology offers a great way for organizations to protect themselves by ensuring that records are retained in accordance with any industry regulations, available for retrieval, and disposed of when applicable. This is more important than ever, especially with the widespread use of e-mail. When organizations are sued, key people to be initially deposed are the e-mail administrators.

Changes in regulations and standards are having a great impact on the records management industry. New regulations are forcing organizations (particularly government agencies) to implement new records management practices for records management, and to make new investments in technologies that meet the mandates of the new regulations. Technology standards are also playing a role (for more information on standards, refer to Section III, "About Records Management Technology").

Two examples of RMS-related regulations for government agencies include DoD 5015.2 and GRS 20.

This standard was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, in cooperation with the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The standard specifies the capabilities that a records management application must have, and proposes a consistent guideline for application software products designed to manage records (primarily electronic records). In general, the standard covers the following areas:

The new standard mandates that all of the Department of Defense’s records management systems use products that have been certified in compliance with the DoD 5015.2 specification. In total, DoD 5015.2 includes 127 mandatory requirements, and 48 optional requirements.

The Defense Information Systems Agencies (DISA) is the body that performs the compliance certification. So far, RMS products from Provenance and TOWER Software have been certified as 5015.2-compliant.

There is another way to gain DISA’s certification as DoD 5015.2-compliant: as a so-called "product pair." This certification is not for RMS products, but for document-oriented systems that can prove their integration with a DoD 5015.2-certified RMS product, and can perform a genuine product expunge (delete). At the time of this writing, systems from three vendors have been certified as product pairs (integrated solutions) with Provenance ForeMost: FileNET, Dyn Solutions, and USI.

The second regulation, General Records Schedule 20 (GRS 20), is a two-year-old NARA regulation that was recently overturned in a controversial court ruling. The rescinding of this regulation paves the way for agencies to start managing electronic records in the same fashion as paper records.

The original GRS 20 regulation considered physical (usually paper) records as the only viable medium. Thus, agencies could destroy e-mail and word processing files once they had been copied to paper or other physical format and deemed "no longer needed for updating and revision."

While GRS 20 drew a distinction between paper and electronic records, the courts determined that important electronic documents should be managed as records in the same fashion as important paper documents. According to the judge’s ruling, "Computers have now become a significant part of the way the federal government conducts its business. The federal government must adapt its electronic record-keeping capability to reflect that reality."

At a minimum, this means that the government must distinguish between valuable and useless electronic documents, and perform systematic retention and disposition on electronic records. This effort requires procedural and technological changes. It requires adequate records and document management for both paper and electronic records. The result will be major changes in the needs of records personnel, IT staff, and end users who are not records managers.

In the face of changing technology, customer needs, and other market forces, the vendors are responding in a number of ways. RMS vendors are rapidly changing their products to meet new demands. Some EDMS vendors are partnering with RMS vendors, while other EDMS vendors are encroaching on the records management space.

This section discusses how RMS vendors and EDMS vendors are responding to the current climate in the records management industry – both as competitors and as complementers.

Thanks to the rapid changes in document types, user demands, and regulations, many of the RMS systems in use today fall short of meeting all of an organization’s needs. Many RMS systems currently in use are home-grown solutions or older systems based on legacy technologies, woefully outdated for the new requirements of records management.

The RMS vendors are adopting a number of different strategies, many of which are reminiscent of the strategies pursued by the DM vendors over the past few years. For example,

Vendors will experience varying levels of success with each of these approaches. Depending on your application requirements, one approach might make more sense than another.

But on a larger scale, it is possible to categorize products into four different broad classes, based on their adequacy for enterprise records management, both now and in the future. The product classes are:

The following table summarizes the characteristics of each product class.

In the past, RMS vendors initiated the integrations with the EDMS vendors, largely because they found they could leverage such systems for electronic records management. Thus, a number of different RMS vendors provide integration with systems from major DM vendors like PC DOCS and FileNET. But more recently, the EDMS vendors are beginning to take initiative in integrating with RMS products (as evidenced by FileNET’s recent DoD compatibility certification as a product pair with Provenance Foremost).

Sophisticated records users have even started clamoring for mainstream EDMS vendors to build records management functionality into their architectures and object models – and it is starting to happen. Documentum’s new EDMS 98 includes "Records Management Services," which are based on a new EDMS automation agent for records migration. As of this writing, Documentum is the only solutions provider (besides TOWER Software) to incorporate document retirement into a common enterprise repository architecture, rather than in a separate records system.

We expect other EDMS vendors to follow suit. For example, Identitech currently provides basic RM functionality through its FYI toolkit. NovaSoft’s DM system already provides the ability to track physical documents. Such vendors are prime candidates to extend their RMS functionality.

Interesting things are also taking place with the EDMS support layer – input systems, output systems, and storage systems. For example, some near-line storage vendors are incorporating the ability to destroy files on CD and optical disk – a capability that most RMS products lack.

In addition, near-line storage vendors such as Diamond Head Software and SMS (via partnership with Smart Storage) are adding e-mail storage management capabilities. Users send e-mail to the jukebox management software, which burns it on CD. The software can organize and track messages so they can be easily retrieved, retained, and destroyed. RMS products may soon leverage such capabilities.

This section discusses a number of technical issues that are important to understand before implementing an RMS. They are the cause of much confusion in the industry. They are:

Almost all vendors involved in information management, whether they are in DM, workflow, or records management, contend that their systems are built "for the enterprise." But what exactly does "enterprise" mean? This is a confusing issue, one that’s very important to untangle.

Vendors used to talk about enterprise in the context of a large number of seats. But if you’re looking at enterprise today, you’re probably looking for more. You probably want every person in your organization to have access to the RMS and the same logical repository – even if your people or offices are in different geographical areas. You want the ability to tie the system to your existing business systems. You want deployment and maintenance to be as painless as possible. You want your IT staff to be able to leverage their existing skills in managing the system. And you want the system to be highly reliable and available.

This is important when looking at records management products. It’s one thing to provide a system that only needs to support a handful of records managers within an organization. It’s quite another to be able to support potentially thousands of users on different platforms who want to connect with the RMS and query the database for information. Thus, the vendors must ensure that their products can scale to support a different kind of usage.

In general, when thinking about which products might match your own enterprise requirements, think about the following criteria:

It is important to understand how many users you need your RMS to support. Vendors sometimes talk about scalability in terms of the number of seats installed. Other vendors use concurrency is the measure, indicating the maximum number of users that can be connected to the system at same time.

The better RM products distinguish between RM coordinators, contributors, and consumers – and offer functionality and pricing to match. Coordinators perform the RM administrative functions like creating and maintaining the file plan. Contributors can declare and classify records, as well as search for, retrieve, and request records. Consumers typically can just search for, retrieve, and request records.

The ratio of records managers to non-records managers is often estimated at around 1 records manager to 100-300 non-managers, with commercial organizations having a higher ratio of non-records managers than government organizations. In general, we expect the numbers of contributors and consumers to greatly increase in the next few years, as messaging systems and the Web make it easier for non-records managers to participate in the records management process.

Records management for the enterprise requires the capacity to handle a large number of transactions. Even though records management is not usually considered a transaction-intensive application today, as more and more users gain access to the records management system, transaction volumes will continue to increase.

The question is, how many transactions will typical users make? One reasonable estimate is that end users should declare as a record one of every ten e-mails or word processing documents they produce. This will vary across industries and applications. For example, organizations such as the military may require that every single document be declared a record, with a default minimal retention period.

This is the requirement that a system be able to manage large volumes of electronic or physical records. The ability of a system to handle large record volumes is distinct from the ability to handle transaction volumes, but it is determined by many of the same factors (such as the type of database).

For example, extremely large volumes of records typically associated with enterprise RM require a database that can handle the volumes with acceptable integrity. This may require a SQL database, or high-performance flat-file database.

Enterprise applications are typically distributed, both logically and physically. This means that enterprise applications often cross organizational and functional boundaries. They may involve multiple business units, such as Research and Development, Manufacturing, Legal, Marketing, and Sales. These departments may be physically distributed, such as across buildings or even across time zones in different cities.

The nature of enterprise applications places obvious requirements on the hardware and software systems involved. Performance must be acceptable, and replication may be required to give users access to the database locally. In addition, the system must be able to support certain kinds of functionality in a distributed environment, such as the ability to file and classify from any location. For many organizations, a Web-based approach is a practical necessity for performing RM in a distributed environment.

While some RMS deployments are for departmental or smaller-scale implementations, many organizations require the flexibility to use the system on an enterprise scale, perhaps for multiple departments.

Integration requirements arise at multiple levels. At a minimum, the RMS should integrate with an organization’s existing infrastructure components. These may include the pervasive document-producing applications (such as Microsoft Office) and e-mail systems (such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes).

At a more advanced level, the RMS may need to integrate with document systems, such as DM and possibly imaging and workflow. At the highest level, the RMS may need to integrate with the other information systems in the organization, such as legacy line-of-business applications (such as mainframe systems) and enterprise resource planning systems (such as those from SAP or PeopleSoft).

The enterprise RM application should share the resources of the organization. This implies that the RM application should also be compliant with major standards. The RMS should make direct use of common hardware and software such as servers, jukeboxes, scanners and operating environments. It should support common development and support tools such as Java and ActiveX. It should support common databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. And it should take advantage of the people and expertise within the organization.

Even with an RMS that is enterprise-ready in all other areas, challenges may exist in terms of system management and training. For starters, many organizations underestimate the time and cost associated with deployment. RMS products are not shrink-wrapped solutions, and some degree of customization and integration will be required.

Likewise, maintenance and support are issues that organizations must plan for. RMS software can make things easier by integrating with the operating system utilities, but all systems will require maintenance at some level. System monitoring, change management, and software updates must be managed systematically in order to provide acceptable service and support to the user base.

Keep in mind that electronic records management is still a maturing industry – if you are managing electronic records, much of what your are doing is new. Your IT staff, your integrators, and even your vendors may need extra time to come up to speed on the nuances of electronic records management.

One of the largest potential hurdles for organizations is a lack of enterprise focus in general. Many companies have not yet introduced a unified network infrastructure or standardized enterprise environment – which may make "enterprise RMS" a moot point.

Likewise, RMS practices are not likely to be in place throughout the enterprise. Some organizations may even face resistance as they try to roll out the RMS to previously autonomous departments or users. Common instinct is to resist change, particularly one that imposes new work paradigms. Users will need time to understand the value of enterprise RMS, and to learn how to effectively use the tools to support the company goals. This, too, can be challenging, as different users have different skill sets, responsibilities, usage models, and delivery environments.

There are three basic high-level architectural approaches that can be used in document-centric systems such as DM and RMS products. Each design enables different levels of functionality, integration, and scalability.

It is critical to understand these approaches for two reasons. First, the RMS you choose will use one of these designs, and it is important to be sure the approach makes sense in your environment. Second, if you’re going to integrate your RMS with a DM system, the DM system will also use one of these designs.

The three basic design approaches that characterize the architectural approach that DM products and RM products can use are:

The following table summarizes the key characteristics of each approach:

Client/server-based systems are the traditional approach for DM and records management products. These systems are characterized by a client application that provides users with system functionality and access to the repository. The documents are typically stored in a shared network drive, while metadata is stored in a database. All document access is controlled through the database.

The following are key characteristics of client/server-based systems.

Web-based systems provide a number of key advantages. Because Web browsers are ubiquitous, Web-enabled systems can provide users with controlled access to corporate document stores or records stores via the Internet, intranets, and extranets. As a result, corporate users can add or access information from any location. Companies can also share access to certain documents with users outside the organization, such as customers or suppliers.

Web browsers and Web-based applications are platform-independent, so it does not matter which client operating system is used. The Web’s thin-client computing paradigm means easier rollouts and reduced administration for client workstations. Finally, the emergence of advanced technologies such as ActiveX and Java applets allows vendors and application developers to develop robust interfaces that are comparable to client/server interfaces.

Most vendors with traditional client/server systems have added Web-based access to their core offerings. In many cases, the browser-based interfaces provide only basic functions, such as searching and viewing. But some vendors provide Web-based interfaces that provide complete functional parity with their core client/server offerings.

From an administration standpoint, Web-based systems are simple to roll out, because no client software is required. In addition, ongoing administration and support is simplified, as software updates only need to be made on the server.

Most installations will involve a mix of client/server users and browser users. Because browser-based clients typically have a lower cost than full-fledged networked clients, organizations can increase the size of their deployments in a more economical fashion.

Groupware- or messaging-based systems represent a strong step in the evolution of document-oriented systems into mainstream applications. While no RMS products have yet taken this approach, several DM products are now available for use within groupware environments such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes.

Groupware-based systems use the messaging infrastructure as the application framework. Profile information is stored within the groupware system itself, such as in Lotus Notes databases or Microsoft Exchange Public Folders. Documents can be delivered and distributed via messaging. Groupware-based systems enjoy the same scalability as the groupware systems themselves, which use a messaging-based architecture that is designed to support thousands of seats in an enterprise.

Usability is simplified, as users can access the system directly from their groupware clients. To users, this makes the system feel like part of the infrastructure they use every day.

Life is simplified for administrators, as well. Groupware-based systems leverage the name and address books of the groupware systems, which means users do not have to be created and maintained just for the document system. Everyone with a groupware account can have access to the document system. There is no third-party database to manage. And as groupware systems add new capabilities (such as collaboration, integration with operating systems, and Internet capabilities), groupware-based systems can leverage them.

Groupware-based systems are also highly effective for categorizing and managing e-mail messages. In most organizations, e-mail is used for exchanging business-critical information. Groupware-based DM systems allow users to store and profile e-mail messages within the DM system.

While the groupware-based design has advantages, few products in the document management space use this approach – and none in the records management market. In addition, there is some question as to the trustworthiness of groupware systems as a repository for managing critical business records that are subject to regulatory requirements.

System architectures are changing. All of the RMS products we evaluated currently use two-tier architectures. But many products in the larger EDMS market (particularly DM systems) are moving to three-tier architectures. What are the pros and cons of each?

Two-tier architectures consist of only two components: the database server and connected clients. Most of the processing takes place on the client. In addition, the client connects directly to the database, which requires that database drivers be installed on the client machine. For these reasons, two-tier architectures are often referred to as "fat-client" systems.

Two-tier systems provide some advantages. The architecture is simple, and it is proven to work. Users can search multiple databases, and have the client combine and prioritize the results into a single hit list. Users have full system functionality available even if they are not connected with the main system – an ideal scenario for disconnected or mobile users.

But two-tier systems have drawbacks, too. Because all processing and database connectivity takes place on the client, organizations may have to invest in high-powered workstations in order to have good performance. Upgrading the client software can be resource-intensive, as the software must be upgraded on every single user’s desktop.

Two-tier systems can also be difficult to scale in large distributed systems. In a two-tier configuration, each client requires its own database connection, and it is difficult to maintain a large number of connections to multiple databases.

A few years ago, the first three-tier architectures were introduced as a way to address these limitations. Three-tier systems add a middle server layer that handles most of the system processing.

Consider the advantages that three-tier architectures provide:

However, the real advantage of the three-tier configuration is Web-readiness. Two-tier, fat-client systems are too difficult to manage in an intranet paradigm where thin clients or zero-administration clients are the norm.

With three-tier systems, users simply connect to the middle server layer via a browser, through a Web server. Users can run HTML-based interfaces, or the server can download Java applets or ActiveX controls to users for execution on the client. This simplifies system upgrades, as software only needs to be updated on the server.

The Web is a key requirement for organizations that want to give their users access to the RMS from any desktop, anywhere, without requiring client software. Systems with two-tier architectures must be redesigned to accommodate Web users, whereas three-tier systems only need to build a browser interface and handle connectivity issues.

This section highlights the different repository approaches and database approaches that RMS products can use for storing electronic records.

In discussions of document-oriented systems, the term "repository" typically (and vaguely) refers to both the document store itself, as well as a database that stores metadata (index or profile information) and information about the actual location of the documents.

There are three basic approaches to repository architectures that RM vendors take for electronic records management, and they have significant impact on the functionality they can provide. The three approaches are:

This section briefly outlines each approach.

This is the most basic approach for managing electronic records. In this approach, the RMS captures metadata from the source application (such as Microsoft Word) and adds it to the RMS database.

However, the RMS has no control over the actual documents. Electronic documents are stored in the same location they would be stored even without an RMS – usually a network drive. Thus, the RMS has no control over unauthorized access or tampering with the documents.

This is the most basic approach. It provides only records tracking or inventory ability; it is thus the electronic counterpart of systems that track or keep inventory of physical records on shelves. Most currently installed electronic records management systems are probably of this variety, being home-grown or custom integrations.

In this approach, metadata is captured from the source application into the RM database, and retention is applied. The document itself is placed in the RM repository, over which the RMS has direct control.

This is the approach taken by Cuadra, IN, Provenance, and TOWER. Provenance also allows the option of storing documents in a DM repository (the third approach), and can later migrate them to the RM repository.

In this approach, records management data is entered through the DM system’s profile screen, and the document is added to the DM system’s repository. However, the RMS controls the records in the DM repository, and can apply retention to them.

This is the approach taken by EDUCOM and PSSoftware, which currently require integration with a DM system in order to handle electronic records. EDUCOM uses PC DOCS to manage electronic documents, while PSSoftware requires either PC DOCS or FileNET. Provenance also uses this approach, although it can alternatively add electronic records to its own repository.

There are several common database approaches that RMS vendors can take, and each has advantages and disadvantages. The most common database approaches are:

So which database approach is best? Clearly, it depends on your application requirements, and the way in which a given vendor has implemented its database approach. For example, if accessibility is critical, you may want to look closely at products that use open relational databases. If performance is more critical, you may want to look closely at products with proprietary databases, or relational-based products that have devised ways to address performance limitations.

Relational databases like Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server offer robust SQL searching capabilities and ODBC compliance. Such databases are easily accessible, allowing users to form their own searches across any number of records. This makes the data more accessible for data mining applications. In addition, relational databases do not restrict users to the RM product’s user interface and query language for extracting index data.

EDUCOM, IN, Provenance, PSSoftware, and TOWER all offer systems with relational databases.

Products that offer their own proprietary databases can optimize the database for the particular demands and requirements of the RMS. Proprietary databases using a sequential or hierarchical approach offer fast performance and can handle large records databases with many indexes. In addition, a proprietary database means you don’t need a third-party relational database, and you don’t need a database administrator to manage it.

However, proprietary databases may not support access from outside queries, which could limit a user’s ability to search across records. And if your vendor goes out of business, getting data out of the system could be a challenge. But if you will always access your data via the RMS itself, this issue is not a limitation.

Cuadra offers a proprietary database, and cites among its virtues its ability to handle hierarchical relationships easily. They alleviate the difficulties commonly associated with proprietary databases by offering translatability.

As organizations begin managing their electronic documents as corporate records, vendors of RMS products must respond by offering the ability to manage electronic records.

Some RMS vendors have chosen to add basic functionality for electronic records management. Other vendors have opted to provide integration points with DM systems and EDMS infrastructures. EDMS products can include technologies such as DM, imaging, workflow, and computer output to laser disk (COLD).

Clearly, EDMS products provide mature functionality for handling electronic files, and RMS products can leverage these capabilities. Many organizations already have existing investments in EDMS technologies, so it make sense from an IT perspective to integrate the RMS with the EDMS layer. From a usability standpoint, users will want to have the RMS seem like a part of the existing EDMS infrastructure that they are already using.

In addition, users will expect the RMS to integrate seamlessly with the other applications they already use. This could include desktop productivity tools (word processors, spreadsheet programs, etc.), as well as line-of-business applications such as accounting systems or SAP applications.

For all of these reasons, it is critical that RMS vendors offer open interfaces to allow developers to integrate the products with existing systems. Options include C-level APIs, higher-level interfaces such as OCXs and Visual Basic controls, and even macro-level integration with desktop applications.

Another way to make applications easier to use is to integrate them directly into the operating system. For example, several new DM systems provide Windows NT shell integration – the repository appears as a logical drive in the file system, so users can access the repository straight from their Windows Explorer or Windows desktop applications. This is a compelling way to make the repository transparent to the user. However, none of the RMS products we’ve seen currently offer this level of integration.

Clearly, there is some functional overlap with records management and DM, and even with productivity suites such as Microsoft Office. However, there are certain key functions that only one type of product can provide. Therefore, in many cases it may make sense to integrate the various technologies to create a more seamless environment for users.

The following table shows some of the functions each system typically provides.

EDMS and RM technologies often coexist in the same environment for different reasons. Each was created to solve separate but overlapping needs. There is currently no "suite" of combined records management and EDMS solutions. Most DM vendors don’t offer records management functionality native to their offerings. Unless your EDMS system has some specific RMS functionality built-in, the two systems will have to be integrated.

Because RMS and EDMS technologies are so naturally complementary, users should plan a strategy that incorporates both. Using an RMS that integrates with EDMS will require fewer resources, provide better application functionality (records management functionality) and leverage vendor strength. Keep in mind that these technologies provide different benefits to different classes of users.

The following table summarizes the benefits that integrated EDMS and RMS can bring to different groups within an organization.

A number of different technology standards are impacting the records management marketplace. Some standards come from industry consortiums, and others are de facto standards from vendors such as Sun and Microsoft. The standards include those for databases, security, the Internet, distributed object models, and inter-system standards for EDMS.

Database standards include Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), Structured Query Language (SQL), and OLE DB.

ODBC is the major standard for database connection and communication. ODBC gives software application developers the ability to write to a standard interface for all back-end database platforms. Thus, any ODBC-compliant application should be able to use an ODBC-compliant database.

SQL (structured query language) is a well-established standard for database access and data extraction. SQL queries provide a common way to search for data in any relational database.

OLE DB (Object Linking and Embedding – Database) is a Microsoft standard that provides an OLE interface that applications can use to access multiple data sources.

One of the most frequently requested security models is the native operating system security, such as Windows NT Security. Unlike the mainframe environment, in which third-party packages are required, Windows NT-oriented applications can leverage the operating system’s tools and user/group/role structure in the Windows NT domain.

Applications that leverage Windows NT security minimize the administration effort, particularly for organizations with thousands of users and many user groups that change frequently. Application security can be synchronized with the Windows NT domain so that when users move from one department to another, their new security is reflected in the application as soon as the network security is changed.

ADS (Active Directory Services) is one of the most important new features of Windows NT 5.0, which extends the Windows NT security model to a broader level. Instead of managing the security at the application level, now all the components within the systems, such as users, groups, files can be managed as objects in a distributed environment.

As the Internet becomes a more pervasive delivery mechanism for information, security standards become critical to the success of a solution. A particularly significant Internet-based security access standard is Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). This protocol allows clients via TCP/IP to search and manage data in other systems that use LDAP-compliant directory services. Thus, any client that is LDAP-compliant should be able to seamlessly access other LDAP-compliant systems. Active Directory in Windows NT 5.0 supports LDAP.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a common Internet security protocol. SSL creates a layer on top of an existing connection-oriented transport protocols such as TCP/IP. SSL creates a session with a remote host and establishes if a user is valid. Once this is completed, a secure session is established. During the secure session, data from the client is encrypted or authenticated, while data received from a server is decrypted and verified.

Kerberos is a ticket-based security protocol. When a client logs on to the network, it logs on to the Key Distribution Center and receives a session ticket which is valid for a certain period of time or until the session ends. As l