Can SharePoint hold document and records metadata and classification?
Answers...
(a)
No – the South Australian Govt has put out a paper advising against its use because of this
The South Australian Government should stick to what they know and not put out papers that contain significant inaccuracies like this - showing that their advisors don't have a working knowledge of SharePoint
(b)
It is as good and in many cases better at holding metadata and classification than EDRMS
Yes –it can do inherited ; automated ; calculated ; manual ; choice ; lookup ; external db lookup; for metadata. For classification it can use site; library; and metadata combinations to hold classifications
(c)
It holds limited metadata and can not link into corporate databases
It does much better than this - inherited; automated and manual metadata. Site, library and metadata combinations can be used to hold the classification. Using the Business Data Catalogue (BDC) it can elegantly link into corporate databases.
(d)
This would require extensive customisation
Not required. Further customisation can be useful, but observations overseas of successful implementations show that the KISS principle applies – you can achieve lots “out of the box” through configuration plus small amounts of workflow or feature development
(e)
Yes, but this requires much more design work than for a traditional EDRMS
Yes it does, because SP is not an EDRMS product, it’s a content management platform. Thus, you need to tap into expertise about information design, SP capabilities (to get KISS) and records management
