EDRMS: The difference between documents and records

© 2008-2010 DocumentManagementWorkflowInfo.com - Read our Copyright Notice

Learn what electronic document and records management (EDRM) is and what the main differences are between documents and records.

What is EDRMS?

EDRMS stands for Electronic Document and Records Management System.

Document Management can be used to manage the lifecycle of documents in an organization, which includes the way documents are created, stored, reviewed, published, retrieved, disposed, and retained.

Records Management is the act of:

  • Determining when documents become records.
  • Which documents need to be retained and for what period of time documents need to be retained to meet legal, business, or regulatory requirements.
  • Disposing of expired records.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 has both Document Management and Records Management capabilities.

Documents vs. records

A document provides information in written, printed, or electronic form.

A record relates to an activity or transaction that has happened in the past; it is a record of history. A record can consist of one or more documents, which all relate to a single event in time.

In EDRMS, a document is an electronic file such as for example a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation, an email message, an image file, etc. A record can be seen as an electronic folder that contains one or more electronic documents.

The difference between a document and a record is that a document can change over time, while a record should not change.

In Summary:

  • A document provides evidence for what has taken place in the past.
  • A document can be changed as times goes on - a work in progress.
  • Once a document becomes a record, it should not be changed anymore.
  • Records are retained for predetermined time periods and disposed of after they expire.

Related Articles

Copyright: This article may not be used on web sites (whether personal or otherwise), copied, disseminated, altered, printed, published, broadcasted, or reproduced in any way without an expressed written consent of the owner of DocumentManagementWorkflowInfo.com. The techniques demonstrated in this article may be used within any SharePoint project. This article is provided without any warranties. Copyright for this article is non-transferrable and remains with the owner of DocumentManagementWorkflowInfo.com.