Y2K: The Demand for Evidentiary Records.

• Author: PHILLIPS, JOHN T.

Information management in the 21st century will assume an importance in every enterprise that extends beyond today's afterthought stature. Rather than being cost centers or overhead functions to be contained, successful information management programs with vision will be critical to documenting organizational business processes. A major reason for this change in perspective is that vital documentation will be required to answer two questions for many enterprises on January 1, 2000:

1. What went wrong?

2. Did we do what we were supposed to do?

Suddenly, a particular class of records known as Year 2000 (Y2K) Program Records becomes mission critical documents. How those records are created, stored, and managed today could very well determine the success or failure of many organizations on the first day of the new century.

Y2K computer system problems are due to the common practice of using only two digits rather than four to record a year in a computer software date field. Thus, a computer system recorded February 15, 1998, in month/day/year format as 02/15/98. However, once the year 2000 becomes a reality, such computer systems may not be able to differentiate between February 15, 1900, and February 15, 2000, because both get recorded as 02/15/00.

Using only two digits for dates was prudent when computer memory, disk storage, and processor costs were relatively expensive and needed to be conserved. However, this short-sighted practice will now result in computational errors within arithmetic operations and cause a variety of difficulties in data field comparisons, data sorting, and the recording of accurate electronic records in databases that require dates for the year 2000 and beyond.

Business records will help to determine what went wrong so that organizations can immediately begin fixing computer system problems. Without adequate documentation of Y2K program conduct and computer systems testing, determining the root cause of problems could be very difficult. Y2K-related records could enable business analysts and software engineers to locate a date anomaly and prepare a software fix that rectifies the problem. "Did we do what we were supposed to do?" questions will come later as management, stockholders, regulatory authorities, system auditors, judges, attorneys, and others question the nature and degree of Y2K program efforts.

The ability to provide records as evidence of sincere and professional efforts to prevent Y2K-related disasters, injuries, or other calamities could be the critical difference for organizations and individuals that survive the year 2000. Demands for these records will come from both internal and external entities. The life cycle perspective for managing Y2K records should extend beyond the year 2000, as Y2K-related business challenges could affect internal operations, customer relations, litigation, and organizational credibility for many years.

Y2K at a Glance

Most computer software created in the past few years avoids the Y2K problem by declaring dates in at least a MM/DD/YYYY format, where 1900 and 2000 can be differentiated. However, many older "legacy" computer systems still have software or databases without this capability. These systems must have their data structures, computer software code, and all supporting utility and operating system software searched to correct Y2K-related date anomalies. For this reason, Y2K issues can affect an entire information technology infrastructure, including mainframe...