Records Metadata vs Keyword Search: Making Records Findable

Records findability starts at the point of creation

Trustworthy information has four attributes. It must be accurate, reliable, timely, and findable. Last episode covered the first two. This week, Lee Karas and Maura Dunn take on the other two.

The rule does not change. Capture the record where the work happens. Capture it when it happens. Capture it from the people doing the work. As a result, timeliness and findability follow along.

Why your file dates cannot be trusted

Open a shared drive and sort by date. The dates look authoritative. However, they are not.

Sometimes opening a document changes the date. The created date gives way to the modified date. Meanwhile, that modified date may only mean someone glanced at the file.

Auto-save makes it worse. Word saves before you rename your copy. Your manual version scheme then breaks quietly. It never runs at all in Microsoft Project or Visio. Even in Excel, it can miss when OneDrive has not finished logging in.

Timeliness is proof, not a timestamp

An approval date proves timeliness. So capture it deliberately. A workflow engine already knows who drafted, who commented, who approved, and when. Record that context anyway, because property values alone will not carry it.

Maura describes a client who did this on paper. Every requirements document carried five or six signature blocks. Each reviewer initialed and dated in ink. Then the team scanned it. An e-signature process gets you the same result today, with less effort.

Traceability at every step

Business requirement one becomes functional requirements 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5. That trace increases accuracy. The sign-offs at each step add timeliness.

Universe search versus precision search

Library science calls keyword search a universe search. You give it three words. In return, it gives you everything near those words. For example, ask for "training" and you also get "learning."

The result set grows. The usefulness does not. Instead of the whole company, you now face a couple thousand documents.

A precision search works differently. First you set the file type. Next you name the business process. Then you 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, process, record category, and trigger date or event. Those are real data, not keywords. Because of that, you can filter on them and build a collection. In other words, you get a virtual folder without a physical file plan.

Maura and Lee revisit an old FileNet argument on exactly this point. An IT lead wanted no folders and no file plan. He trusted full-text search to sort out billions of documents. He was partly right, but for the wrong reason.

Search, access, and retrieval

Findability has three parts. Search identifies potentially responsive material. Retrieval pulls it back so you can use it. Access decides whether you may open it at all.

Sometimes users can see that a record exists but cannot read it. Sometimes they cannot see it at all. That choice is yours, so make it on purpose.

Episode chapters

00:00 Timeliness and findability: the two attributes we still owe you

00:58 Why the date on the file lies: created versus modified

02:12 Auto-save versus manual versioning, and when OneDrive has not logged in yet

04:35 A tangent worth an episode: password management as a mapping problem

05:34 Capture at the point of creation, then make capture into storage

06:39 What the workflow engine already knows, and what you must record by hand

08:09 Ink initials and signature blocks: traceability from business to functional requirements

09:44 The universe search: three keywords, a million results, ranked by confidence

11:51 The precision search: file type, process, and facility narrow it down

12:58 Process metadata tags every file behind the scenes

14:27 The FileNet argument: "we will just use search"

15:24 Function, process, record category, and trigger as real metadata, n...