SharePoint 2010 : Implementing and Managing In Place Records

SharePoint 2010 introduces In Place Records Management, a feature that allows you to declare any document as a record—if it is located within a site collection that has this feature activated. This eliminates the need to have to send every document to the Records Center in order for them to be handled as a record.

After enabling this site collection feature, users can declare any document within the site collection as a record. These records now have policies and restrictions on them similar to those in the Records Center. The policies for these records can be added at either the content type or the document library containing the documents.

1. Implementing In Place Records at the Site Collection

To use In Place Records Management, you need to activate the In Place Records Management site collection feature. After doing so you can use the site collection record declaration settings shown in Figure 1 to control how the records are managed in the site collection. This page is divided into the following three sections.

• Record Restrictions

• Record Declaration Availability

• Declaration Roles

Within the Record Restrictions section, you can specify restrictions on how a document or item is handled after it has been declared a record. The three options available are No Addition Restrictions, which will allow the records to be handled in the same way as non-records; Block Delete, to prevent the deletion of the records; or Block Delete And Edit, to prevent both the deletion and editing of the records.

In the Record Declaration Availability section, you can specify whether all lists and libraries within the site collection can use manual declaration of records by default, or you can choose to not make the manual declaration the default behavior for all lists and libraries. When the second option is selected, you can only declare records using a policy or workflow.

Within the Declaration Roles section, you specify which user roles can declare or undeclare records manually. There are three options for the declaration and three options for the undeclaring of the records: All List Contributors And Administrators, Only List Administrators, or Only Policy Actions.

Figure 1. Site Collection Record Declaration Settings page

2. Configuring In Place Records in a List or Library

After implementing In Place Records at the site collection, you still have to manage which lists and libraries use the In Place Records feature. This is done by accessing the settings for the library or list, where you will now have a Record Declaration Settings option under Permissions And Management.

When you click this link, you will see the page shown in Figure 2. By default, the library inherits the manual record declaration settings from the site collection options. However, you can choose to override those settings and select either the Always Allow The Manual Declaration Of Records option or Never Allow The Manual Declaration Of Records option. Optionally, you can override the need to manually declare records in the list or library by selecting the Automatically Declare Items As Records When They Are Added To This List check box. After selecting this check box, the three options above the check box are no longer available as choices.

Figure 2. List or Library Record Declaration Settings page

2.1. Managing In Place Records in a List or Library

After you have enabled In Place Records for a list or library, you will are able to choose any item or document within that list or library and declare it as a record using one of two methods. You can use the Declare Record icon on the Ribbon as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Documents Library with Declare Record option available on Ribbon

Another way you can declare a record on an existing document is to hover over the document name and click the drop-down arrow; then click Compliance Details to display the dialog box shown in Figure 4. You can then click the Declare As A Record link within the Record Status section of the screen.

Figure 4. Compliance Details dialog box

Regardless of the approach you take to implement an In Place record, there is an easy way you can look at a document library to determine if a document has been declared as a record. After declaring a document as a record, the icon displayed under the Type column within the library will have a little lock on the lower-right side of the icon, as shown with the Productkeys document in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Declared record with Lock On File icon

With the appropriate permissions, you can also undeclare the record from within the Compliance Details dialog box by clicking the Undeclare Record link.

2.2. Managing Information Management Policies with In Place Records Activated

After activating the In Place Records site collection feature, you will have a different experience when enabling retention—you will see an additional option available that allows you to specify how you want the retention policy to behave for records and non-records, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. Enabling retention with the In Place Records feature activated