Network shared drives: how to clean up files for better information management: his article offers recommendations about what an organization can do at the enterprise, workgroup, and personal level, both through process changes and technology, to prep and clean up their shared drives for better information management and for potential migration to an electronic content and records management (ECRM) system.

• Author: Tuemmler, Brian
• Position: RIM FUNDAMENTALS

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I recently went through the process of painting some rooms in my house. One of the things I had to do before painting was tape up all the doors and frames. This is one of the less satisfying household tasks I can think of since it takes time and, by itself, doesn't actually beautify the room.

It does, however, provide huge benefits: it gives a good perspective on the job at hand and any problems that might arise, and it results in straight edges and a lot less clean up. A similar lesson can be applied to the process of transforming an organization's shared drives; some prep work can add a lot of benefits.

Getting a Handle on Electronic Records

A number of large organizations are transforming shared drives--or cleaning up, organizing, and managing information located there--as part of their overall program of getting a handle on electronic records. This is often, but not always, done in anticipation of implementing an ECRM system.

Just as taping before painting pays off, content cleanup--leveraging classification tools, if possible--as preparation for the shared drive transformation can greatly simplify and make the outcome more accurate.

Shared drives frequently are thought of as the place where office computer files are stored for collaboration. However, based on this author's organization's experience with Fortune 500 clients, this type of usage represents only about 35-45% of the files found on shared drives for many organizations. The rest, which should not or cannot be migrated to an ECRM, comes from:

* Creating, downloading, and distributing software

* Putting convenience copies in multiple places

* Creating, sharing, and running databases

* Moving e-mails and .pot e-mail archives so they don't fill up the inbox

* Backing up a desktop when a new computer is installed or when an individual leaves the organization

* Developing and publishing web content to the organization (Technically, publishing web content should be done in an ECRM, but migrating this content from shared drives can be tricky and will likely break links.)

* Needing a temporary place to store such things as iTunes or company party photos

A proper information management strategy around shared drives is focused on segregating the different types of content so each can be managed more effectively. This can be done by:

* Putting databases, install files, and applications on dedicated servers separate from electronic records

* Putting the good content into structures that allows individuals to manage, classify, or purge it

* Getting rid of useless, non-business content so managing everything else becomes easier

All this can be done using the right tools and a solid approach for developing policies.

Using the Right Tools

Index and classification management (ICM) tools represent a fairly new category of tools that is available to help with the cleanup and categorization of unstructured content, which is any type of digital content that is not inside a database, from office documents and images to applications. These tools will inventory a network share and gather information from the file (e.g., dates and size), the file attributes (e.g., author)...