SharePoint for records management? Big and getting bigger.

• Author: Hill, Brian W.

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It's no secret that organizations are deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 at a rapid rate. During the October 2009 sold-out SharePoint Conference, Microsoft announced that SharePoint Server is one of the fastest-growing products in Microsoft's history, with more than $1.3 billion in revenue, representing more than a 20% growth over the past year.

What may come as a surprise to some is that organizations are now using SharePoint extensively for records management. Given the importance of records management to broader enterprise content management (ECM) and legal risk mitigation strategies, we asked several vendor-specific questions in the Forrester Research and ARMA International Records Management Online Survey, which was completed in the third quarter of 2009. Respondents were asked, "What software product(s) does your organization use for records management?" and 17% of them reported using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for records management, nearly double the rate of the next closest offering.

Some people might presume that SharePoint records management users work for smaller firms. Yet surprisingly, 42% of respondents using SharePoint records management are employed by organizations with more than 5,000 employees.

While Microsoft has achieved remarkable market adoption in a relatively short time, respondents report lower satisfaction levels with SharePoint then they do with other records management solutions. While the satisfaction level for the overall records management market isn't high, only 36% of SharePoint records management users report that they are either somewhat or very satisfied (see Figure 1).

As records management professionals know, there is no technology "magic bullet." Yet key functional gaps in SharePoint 2007 likely impact satisfaction levels. In particular, MOSS 2007:

* Lacks physical records management and federated records management support. More than 80% of records management decision-makers use technology for physical records management.

* Offers no current DoD 5015.2-STD V3 certification. Forty-two percent of records management stakeholders say this requirement is important to records management purchases.

* Presents challenges in declaring records, managing file plans, and placing legal holds. A number of enterprises report challenges with SharePoint in the process of declaring and managing records, file plan capability constraints, and legal hold limitations.

The joint survey shows that those organizations using SharePoint records management have a lower level of e-discovery confidence and are less confident in long-term retrieval capabilities than their peers.

Insufficient attention to people and processes during deployments, not just software, stand out for many as a major factor impacting solution satisfaction. That said, Microsoft plans to incorporate significant functional enhancements to SharePoint Server 2010, including key advances in records management. Among other...