Easy access records - Alfresco Governance Services - 23.4 - 23.4 - Ready - Alfresco - external

In many cases you might want to create records from files that already exist in Alfresco, rather than creating a record from scratch.

With Alfresco Records Management you can declare files in non-Records Management site as records. When you create an “easy access record”, a record of the file is added to the Records Management site. The file is still visible in its original site, identified by the icon, but is locked and with a limited set of actions available.

This means that most users never need to think about records, file plans, or retention schedules. They just declare the file as a record, and the rest is handled by the Records Administrator and any rules that they’ve set up.

When a record is created from a file it’s added to the Unfiled Records area of the Records Management site. A Records Manager then has numerous options for Filing an unfiled record and Managing unfiled records.

There are three options available for declaring files as records:

• File as Record

  Use File as Record to declare records from files in non-Governance Services sites and then select a destination folder where they will be filed as a record.

  Note: You don’t have to select a destination folder and if you don’t the created record can be found in the unfiled records area.

• File Version as Record

  Use File Version as Record to create a record from a version of a file and then to select a destination folder where the version will be filed as a record.

  Note: You don’t have to select a destination folder and if you don’t the created record can be found in the unfiled records area.

• Auto-Declare Options

  Each time a new major or minor version of the file is created, the version is declared as a record and added to the Unfiled Records area, in the explorer panel of the Records Management site. It’s identified there as a version record by the icon.

  It’s still available in its original site, with a full set of actions available, identified by the major versions icon or the all versions icon.

  Note: Your Alfresco Administrator can choose to only make these options available to certain users only. If they’ve done this then you’ll need to be a member of the RECORD_CONTRIBUTORS group for these options to be available.

  And as with standard Alfresco functionality you need to have the required permissions before you can do anything with files.

You can see version details of records created from versions in the file preview screen on the Records Management site. When records are created from versions of the same file, a relationship between the records is automatically created.

You can also classify a file and declare it as a record at a later date, and it will keep any classifications applied. See next section.