Information Management in MOSS 2007

I went to the monthly San Diego SharePoint User's Group Meeting and had a great time as always. Not only was it the one year anniversary for the group, but they had some great speakers (and free Microsoft SWAG).

Last night's focus was on Information Management. Chris Beckett gave the second presentation and focused on MOSS 2007 features that support Information Mangement policies. Information Management Policies are specific to the MOSS 2007 application and are not openly available in WSS 3.0 without a lot of program/code experience (workflows/SharePoint Designer).

With MOSS 2007, a site administrator has the option to set Information Management Policies that can effect the entire site, a single list/library, or even on a single list item/document.

As Chris pointed out, Information Management is often overlooked in most organizations. Since almost 60% of all SharePoint implementation is Document-Centric...managing those documents should be a high priority.

Too often outdated information resides on the Shared Drive, and distracts/confuses users that are searching for current information.

With the flow of information moving so fast in todays military/intelligence community, documents that are over a year old are often irrelevant. The entire face of the Iraq war changed after the OIF I push was complete. Overlays, documents, SOPs, and map images used during that time are now useless.

MOSS 2007 can automatically delete/archive files that are no longer valid, and can send an alert before performing the action to verify that the document is no longer being used.

The automatic (OOTB--Out of the Box) Information Mangement features that come with MOSS 2007 are:

Labels - embeds a text label onto a doc when it is opened, like UNCLASSIFIED or FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (works In Office 2007—custom API)

Auditing – Writes an event to an audit log, to track every user that looks/adds/edits/deletes certain documents (entirely on server)

Expiration – Executes an action when item reaches an expiry date (entirely on server)

Barcode – Generates a unique 10 character barcode that can be printed with a doc (works OOTB with Office 2007 or can be used with older versions when using the custom API)

Again, these features have more relevance in the civilian business world where companies like Enron can get sued for millions of dollars for improper document management...but with a little thought some great features can be applied to military applications/sites.