Building Your File Plan

The first task that is required to effectively use Records Management is to create a file plan. Often in Records Management, the terms "file plan" and "retention schedule" are used synonymously, however, the latter is really a subset of the file plan as a whole. You will need the Record Manager, Global Record Manager, or System Admin role in order to see the file plan.

A retention schedule typically lists all the record classes (also known as a record series or record category), the length of time each document or record will be retained, the reason for retention, and the disposition of the item.

A file plan is much more detailed. It not only contains the retention schedule, but it also shows where the information resides, specifies the type of record (case or administrative), indicates the rules to determine when a record is declared, and identifies the type of trigger that will start the retention.

The file plan consists of multiple key entities that will be created, each of which plays its own role in a document’s lifecycle. The following illustration shows each of these entities and their relationship with each other.