Records Management - Managing Information Copies/Duplicates

Organizations must ensure that drafts, copies, and duplicates are included in their document retention program. Each term should be clearly defined and every employee should be educated on their use and purpose. Often, drafts, documents, and duplicates, which have been used in the development or creation of an official record, can be discarded once the final version is created. Some examples are drafts and correspondence, reports and other documents, calculations, research material, rough notes, editing and formatting notes, dictation tapes that have been transcribed.

Generally, once the final version of the record has been completed, it will be filed or put into the information manage system. Drafts and working material become non-records and may be destroyed.^[1] In certain situations it is necessary to keep drafts, and working materials. For example, they might be needed to track the development and changes on an important document. They should be filed and grouped together with the other document that pertain to the subject, program or service. Examples may include records created in the preparation of:

Legislation, laws, and regulations;
Legal documents;
Audit reports; and
Policies, standards, guidelines and procedures.

In order to reduce the amount of hard disk and paper space used, while still allowing access to documents as needed, consider the following:

Rather than widely distributing an entire document, send a link to a website or put the document in a shared folder;
Destroy duplicate print and electronic items when you know the master has been filed;
Dispose of draft versions and working papers when you know that the final version has been filed; and
Continue to follow the organizations guidelines regarding discarding confidential or sensitive information.

E-mails should have their own set of record retention periods as not all e-mails are records. One e-mail rule is that only the "official" copy of the e-mail is a record that needs to be retained. Another way to control the flow of duplicates is to inform employees that only the sender need retain the e-mail. If someone other then the sender must take action pursuant to the message, that person should also retain a copy. All other e-mail messages and attachments should be purged from the system when no longer needed.

Instructing employees that recipients are required to dispose of unnecessary duplicates will enhance their comfort level. They will know they are neither violating company policy nor breaking the law when deleting duplicate e-mail.^[2]

Today's work force is very mobile and it is necessary that they consistently follow the records retention schedule whether it is regarding an e-mail, drafts, or copies. If an employee implements their own document retention schedule, disposing of documents could be haphazard. This could jeopardize the company if the documents were ever subpoenaed and an employee did not follow the organizations records retention schedule.

All the various media types should be addressed in the records retention schedule (including reproductions, microfilm, flash drives, BlackBerry devices, Palm Pilots, laptops, compact disks, and machine readable computer records).

For an organization's document retention policy to be effective, they should stay current with the laws that effect them. They should also continually train staff, provide them with periodic e-mail updates on what documents to delete and constantly reinforce the difference between a draft and a final version.

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