SharePoint records management certifiable

This week I did a session on document and records management with SharePoint 2010. In the discussion we came to talk about certification. We all know that SharePoint 2007, combined with the DoD add-on pack has been certified for the DoD standards (5015.2). Here in the Netherlands we appreciate this fact, but we have our own standards. Most notably the NEN 2082 standard.

In 2009 Microsoft NL was able to have a SharePoint 2007 + DoD 5015.2 add-on  configuration certified for this Dutch standard. As SharePoint 2010 is based on this configuration, I have high hopes that SharePoint 2010 will be certified for DoD and NEN as well.

Information architecture

But our most important discussion, regarding this subject, was not on IT or SharePoint or other tooling, but focussed on how an organisation works with documents. It was about procedures, metadata, information architecture.  We went from -the platform needs to accommodate our processes- to -perhaps we need to look at our processes more closely-.  It is one of the best practices for document management with SharePoint, isn’t it? Take a good look at aspects like your documents, metadata and procedures. Anyway, in the end, the predictable conclusion was that implementing a Document Management System or Records Management environment is not the same as installing SharePoint.