Documentum Records Management – It is time to de-risk your RPS implementation

This week we met with a client who has been evaluating Documentum RPS (Retention Policy Services) for about 18 months. The complexity of the product and its impact on database size and the audit trail are primary implementation concerns. Our client has multiple repositories and content storage of well over 700TB. The impact of applying RPS policies to objects, executing dispositions, running dm_clean and storing the resulting reports and audit trail entries are forcing a detailed examination of how RPS will function under pressure.

TSG has implemented several alternative records management solutions for clients (see related posts here, here, and here) and minimized the amount of data written to the audit log, repository, and database. As an alternative to RPS’ one size fits all approach we advocate streamlining records management by using the Documentum tools already available: jobs, relations, security, and object properties.

Documentum RPS

De-Risking Approach

Markups

Specify each markup and purpose
Apply and remove to individually documents

Legal Holds

Create a relation of type dm_relation for each hold
Apply the relation to one or more documents individually or in bulk based on attributes; set the parent-child in a way to form a “Relation Lock”
Report on the documents under a hold
Remove the hold in bulk

Retention Policies

Apply individually to documents or apply as a set through folder links

Retention Evaluation

Evaluate attributes and assign a retention file code to the document
Further option is to secure records with ACLs and/or a “Relation Lock”

Retention Management Jobs

Pre-defined jobs for specific retention tasks; some are outputted in XML format

Documentum Jobs with a Java Program

Define as needed to work with sets of documents and process documents in batches
Output as Documentum Reports, PDF, or Excel
Reporting Legal Holds, Inventory, Disposition, Document Review

Administration

OOTB RPS Administration functions, plus customization for approval groups.

Administration

Admin Tools can be simple ( such as database tables) and could be used with or without a user interface but they would still contain the ability to define retention markups, policies, and approval groups

Disposition Execution

Disposition Job and Disposition on-demand. Job runs against all eligible documents

Disposition Execution

Disposition Job can be flexible to only process particular retention policies, folder locations in a repository, or documents with certain attribute values.

Disposition Approval

Workflow routes document one at a time to the owner to approve disposition

Disposition Approval

Use of a custom UI “Approval Manager” to approve or reject documents for disposition
Use of an Approval Report with locations to initial approval of retention or disposition

Reporting

OOTB reports using RPS Admin tools

Reporting

Robust reporting for legal holds, document inventory, and disposition can replace much of the complexity of RPS.
Reports can list documents under holds, documents needing review and approval, a general inventory, and documents eligible for disposition. Any information available on the documents can be reported on.

Privileged Delete

Only the Retention Manager can delete documents under a retention policy

Record Security

Documentum ACLs can be used to secure records and ensure they are not deleted inappropriately.
Specific functions can verify the user’s role and perform actions if certain conditions are met.

Summary Recommendations

When de-risking Documentum records management we recommend acting on records with known dispositions and legal holds first. There is no need to try and boil the ocean to process everything at once. Gradually build knowledge and skills in RM at a measured pace and work through the issues with business groups and legal as the disposition process proceeds. With a de-risked approach IT teams and records managers can make progress in days and weeks instead of months and years.

Have you tried an “unconventional” approach to RPS? We’d love to hear more in the comments.

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