This post accompanies the What Counts? episode "Records Metadata vs Keyword Search: Making Records Findable," with Lee Karas and Maura Dunn. Listen to the episode or play it on our podcast page.
Trustworthy information has four attributes
Information you can act on is accurate, reliable, timely, and findable. The first two come from capturing records where the work happens, when it happens, from the people doing the work. The last two are where most organizations quietly fall down.
Your file dates cannot be trusted
Sort a shared drive by date and the results look authoritative. They are not. Simply opening a document can push the modified date forward, and auto-save writes a version before anyone renames a copy. Manual version schemes break silently, and in tools like Microsoft Project and Visio they never run at all.
Timeliness is proof, not a timestamp
An approval date proves timeliness. Capture it deliberately. Your workflow engine already knows who drafted, who commented, who approved, and when, but property values alone will not carry that context forward. One client solved it on paper: 5 or 6 signature blocks on every requirements document, each reviewer initialing and dating in ink before scanning. An e-signature process gets you the same result today with far less effort.
Traceability at every step
Business requirement 1 becomes functional requirements 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5. That trace increases accuracy. The sign-offs at each step add timeliness. Together they turn a folder of documents into evidence.
Universe search versus precision search
Library science calls keyword search a universe search. Give it 3 words and it returns everything near those words. Ask for "training" and you also get "learning." The result set grows; the usefulness does not. You have traded the whole company for a couple thousand documents.
A precision search works differently. Set the file type. Name the business process. Name the contract or the facility. Now the found set is small enough to use.
Metadata is what makes records findable
Four elements matter most:
- Function — the area of the business the record belongs to
- Process — the activity that produced it
- Record category — what kind of record it is, tied to your retention schedule
- Trigger date or event — what starts the retention clock
These are real data, not keywords. Because you can filter on them, you can build a collection on demand — a virtual file that assembles itself instead of a folder someone has to maintain.
Where to start this week
Pick 1 high-volume record type. Define its function, process, category, and trigger date. Capture those 4 values at the point of creation, not in a cleanup project later. Then check whether a new person on the team can find last quarter's approved version in under a minute.
If that test fails, findability is your exposure. Our free IG Navigator readiness score will show you where it sits against the rest of your program, and the records retention and file plan templates give you the structure to fix it.