Off-the-shelf document management tools rarely fit how a specific organization actually handles its records. One of our clients, a local municipality, needed a solution that matched their exact process for managing, classifying, approving, and disposing of official records. Here is how we built it using Microsoft 365.
Requirements
The municipality came to us with a clear picture of what they needed:
- A collaborative process for managing, classifying, and disposing of records
- Department-specific SharePoint sites with siloed document access
- Records champions who could easily designate documents as official records
- Automated alerts when documents were marked as records, marked for destruction, or destroyed
The Solution Architecture
Phase 1.0: Official Records
Weekly automated searches identify items labeled as official records across specified SharePoint URLs. The results are compiled into an interactive table and sent to the Records Clerk via Outlook. The clerk reviews the table, designates the appropriate disposition list for each item, and the item receives the default retention label and a "pending" status.
Phase 2.0: Monthly Approval
Monthly runbooks retrieve data labeled as "retention complete." An interactive table is embedded in an Outlook email to the Records Clerk, who designates approvers. The table is forwarded to those approvers, who set items as "approved for final disposition."
Phase 2.1: Monthly Review
On the 28th of each month, runbooks search for retention-complete items that have been approved. An interactive table is sent to a designated reviewer, who authorizes updating the retention labels to "pending deletion."
Phase 2.2: Daily Review
Daily scans locate items with "pending deletion" status. Labels are changed to "Auto Delete (7 Days)" within the appropriate disposition list, and the details are recorded in a master disposition list for audit purposes.
Technologies Used
- Power Automate for workflow automation
- PowerShell Runbooks for scheduled searches and bulk operations
- Outlook for interactive approval emails
- SharePoint Online for document storage and retention management
The Result
The solution automated the most time-intensive parts of the municipality's records management process while keeping the Records Clerk and department reviewers in control of the decisions that require human judgment. The process is now documented, consistent, and auditable, which matters significantly for a public-sector organization.
Microsoft 365 provided all the necessary tools. The work was in understanding the organization's process and configuring the tools to match it.