Confessions of a User or I Survived The Simultaneous Installation of an EDMS and RMA Donna Read Senior Records Analyst National Archives & Records Administration Southeast Region April 21, 2004

Why Start a Project Like This? Archival holdings dating from 1800’s: Over half million documents, letters, articles, books, historic homes, textile, etc. Current organizational holdings included: Newsprint, microfilm, video, broadcast tapes, DAT tapes, architectural plans, Pulitzer prizes, photographs, magazines, books, etc.

Systems Already In Place Archival holdings: word processing files, databases, manual lists, index cards, tacit knowledge Records management program started in 60’s, included off site records center Late 80’s in-house relational DB put in place that automated retention schedules, disposition reports, box labels and deposits

What drove us to become users? Research needs – over 30 different finding aids Questionable if existing RMA was Y2k compliant Living in a DOS world (unhappy users)

Requirements Champion/Sponsor Project Manager A Plan –Formal Proposal/Business Case Senior Management Support!!!!! Partners:IT & Legal Good Records Management Foundation

The Process Analyze needs and requirements Who are your clients How do they search What are they looking for Where are they looking for the information How will they use it once they get it

Process Continued Create RFP (parameters) – Web enabled, open architecture, type of DB Security and privacy issues Number of expected users Search capabilities: full text, wildcard, proximity, Boolean, etc. Other software interface requirements

VSE - Vendor Selection Event Choose Your Vendor(s) – Tread carefully- do your homework Go on field trips – visit their clients Get all promises in writing, record telecons Understand – they call it a feature, you will call it a bug The sales person may not know the technical side of the software Our initial choice was PCDocs & Foremost

Unexpected Additional Partner EDMS vendor said: Must have an integrator for the system! Familiarity with the product Speak technobabble fluently Our IT staff did not have knowledge of the software Another round of vendor interviews.

The Integrator Corridor Consulting, Inc. Lifesaver Glue that held us together Facilitator, liaison with IT Key to the success of the project

Pieces of Our Project PCDocs iRIMS API for PCDocs & iRIMS to communicate Integrator History Department Legal Department IT Department Senior Management

Before Construction Foundation - Solid Records Management RM policy must already exist and be enforced Installing an electronic system does not clean up your paper mess, just adds an electronic mess

Before Construction continued Technical Infrastructure – Up to date Will the software run on your hardware Will upgrades in the product affect your hardware interface Buy-In From Staff Requires change management Will affect the workflow and culture

Meetings Meetings Meetings Size of the project determines the number of years of meetings You have this project as a residual duty This is the vendors full time job

Details Are you customizing the product? Your upgrades will need customizing also If you’re using a COTS will functionality be lost? What are willing to give up How much training to get and give? Who pays for the training How to handle legacy data conversion What is the ROI in converting legacy data

Details (continued) Who gets access to the documents? Security concerns involved with access Cost of continuing maintenance. Usually a yearly cost of 15% of the initial investment Does IT have resources to support you? This impacts their systems admin staff

The Unexpected Organizational changes Staff changes Vendor Changes PCDocs purchased by Hummingbird RIMS (PS Software) purchased by Open Text Software not functioning as promised Additional costs to get software to work as promised

What Did It Look Like? Customized profiles to meet our searching needs, multiple libraries in EDMS Outstanding searching & retrieval of documents in the system Full text searching in the RMA, barcode labels Ability to set retention against electronic records in the EDMS with event based trigger

End Result Started in March of 1997 Installed first software in November 1999 Conversion of 200,000 records from legacy system to RMA Trained 120 employees on use of RMA Moved all files from the desktop environment to the EDMS Imported scanned documents into the EDMS

Lessons Learned Have to start with a sound foundation Better documentation of vendor promises Take smaller bites – smaller pilot Communicate better with senior management

Implementation of EDMS and RMA Donna Read NARA Senior Records Analyst or NARA, Southeast Region 1557 St. Joseph Ave. East Point, GA 30344