Symp-ly News
Summer tends to be a slower time for us, as most of our clients end up taking summer holidays with their friends and families. But like clockwork when the beach chairs go away, and the leaves start to change everyone is revved up and ready to start. We’ve got work to do! We still find time to stretch our legs and not only share our knowledge but learn from those in the community as well.
Better Information Architecture Leads to Better Compliance
I wrote about information architecture (IA) in our last newsletter, but gosh darn it, it’s an important topic! One of the advantages of speaking at conferences is we get to catch up with different members of the community. Back in July at TechCon 365 in DC, we met with Joanne Klein, a friend and leader in the M365 community focusing on compliance and records management. She shares the same passion for helping organizations explore and harness the power M365 as we do. We decided we should collaborate in our knowledge and started an ongoing series of sessions for our organizations to learn what each of us do.
Turns out we think of things in a similar way. But when we draw a line between IA and compliance, there are some considerations we can all follow through on better. Here are a few things I’ve learned so far:
Content Types are important! Well, that’s not a new thought to me. But just like we often see with Sympraxis clients, a column in a library for Document Type is just not the same. It may seem easier, but in the long run it reduces your ability to apply clear labels to specific content and have valid sensitivity and strong retention policies.
What “record” means can be different. Understanding what different organizations think of as a “record” varies. For some, it’s from the initial glimmer in the eye of someone creating the content; for others it’s when the content is “done” and is shared – with many variations between these two extremes.
The last one reminds me of the days when organizations would hire designers to come up with a look and feel for an Intranet – without any understanding of the dynamic nature of SharePoint pages and how master pages worked. For example, a retention policy - on paper - may say that employee records must be kept for six years after the employee leaves the organization and then reviewed in case that employee has since returned. That translates into a number of required pieces of information: we have to know which different Content Types are employee records (usually not just one), we need to know when an employee leaves in a consistent way (Termination Date?), and we need to have people who can review that content at the beginning and end of the retention period to determine its disposition. There’s no magic wand! 🪄
More to Come
After our first session I am looking forward to these sessions with Joanne and we are learning so much from each other. Watch for more output from these discussions.
