In general, the following applies to audit-compliant SharePoint archiving:
- Documents must be stored in their entirety, unaltered, and without any loss of data.
- The data must be retrievable and reproducible at all times.
- Access to the data must be traceable in order to prevent tampering.
But how exactly is archiving implemented in SharePoint? Read on to learn about the various options SharePoint offers for this purpose.
Record Center / SharePoint Archiving
The Records Center is a separate SharePoint site that is isolated from the rest of SharePoint and serves as the central location for all inactive documents. Documents that are no longer relevant to the company’s workflows are moved there. Once the documents have been moved, they are no longer available in any other location within SharePoint and can only be accessed with the appropriate permissions. In this area, you can also define the criteria for monitoring and retention periods. Using a document ID, information can still be found even after it has been copied to the repository, as this ID is assigned once and retained.
Different policies may apply to different types of records. To simplify management, record libraries can be created to which uniform policies apply. Alternatively, content types can be created to assign unique properties to records.
In Place Records in SharePoint Online
With this method, the data remains in the location where it was originally stored and is not moved. This approach allows for direct record management and individual customization of each document. Of course, this also involves more effort because the data is no longer simply moved to an archive. The advantage is that the documents remain accessible to employees (depending on their permissions, of course). However, this complicates auditing because a central archive is no longer available.
Combination of the two options
Here, documents are initially kept in the location where they were originally stored, with the option to customize this setting. However, after a predefined period of time, the documents are moved to the archive and assigned a document ID. The specified settings and permissions apply within the archive.
Conclusion
Which method is ultimately the best depends on a company’s specific needs. The answer therefore varies depending on the organization.
