In its simplest form, Mangofile is a ‘metaphor’ for a traditional filing system. This means that anyone who can understand a traditional filing system will be able to understand Mangofile.

Mangofile is a software application. It comes in two ‘flavours’ – a Microsoft Windows version and a web browser version. This enables people to view documents even when working remotely or away from their office.

Mangofile uses common terminology such as ‘in-trays’ and ‘filing cabinets’. These help to make learning the application even easier.

Mangofile stores digitized images on a computer system. This means that documents can be retrieved and viewed in and instant without even needing to leave your desk.

Every image can be copied to a digital storage medium such as CD or DVD which means that you can take a ‘back-up’ of all of the important documents in your system.

Each Mangofile user must log into the system in exactly the same way that you might use a key to open a filing cabinet. This means that you can be confident your documents are secure…

In a nutshell…

…an electronic filing system enables you to store, index and retrieve digitized images of paper documents.

Mangofile is the UK’s leading electronic filing application boasting thousands of installations. The product is used by home office users, small businesses and larger enterprises alike all with differing requirements and budgets…

With emerging litigation issues (namely Enron and BAT) stemming from the lack, or recent destruction of papers, it becomes clear that some documents must be retained indefinately. The following pages clearly set out what the UK Government; VAT legislation, FSA’s Conduct of Business Rules, Customs and Excise etc., suggest that we keep, and how long we should keep them for…

What with traditionalists and sceptics, most companies are doing their utmost to avoid the prospect of the “paperless office”. Up until now it has been accepted that the tradional filing systems are adequate and with, “these hi-tech prices” SMBs are safe in the knowledge that tradition will suffice. But how much is the paper-bound office really costing?...

How Valuable Is Your Data?

Not all types of data are the same. Most of your organisation's data is valuable. Some of it is extremely valuable and/or absolutely critical to the survival of your business. Without it, your business simply cannot recover. It is this last category of data that can truly be called mission-critical data.

How Much Can You Afford to Lose?

One of the first steps in the process of developing a disaster recovery plan is to classify company data according to Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO). The Recovery Time Objective is the maximum acceptable downtime for that system. In other words, how long can your business continue without access to the data? The Recovery Point Objective is the maximum acceptable loss of data. Since your data will only be current to the last backup process, how much “recent” data can you afford to lose?...

As compliance legislation starts to bear down on organisations in almost all sectors, record retention is becoming a task even the most paperless of offices can not avoid.
Emails, customer correspondence, employee records, spreadsheets and countless other documents are potentially under the control of regulations such as the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act and innumerable more mundane legislation, such as the VAT Act and the Finance Act.
Many organisations are, therefore, now having to overhaul - or establish - a business-wide records retention, retrieval and destruction policy. Ensuring that is done successfully, say specialists, depends on taking a measured, step-by step approach.

For most companies, it is among the worst things that could happen: a lawyer's letter lands on the managing director's desk informing them that a disgruntled customer, a former employee with a grudge or a regulatory authority seeking to enforce labyrinthine mandates, intends to take the company to court.
The pressure is now on to assemble evidence - and quickly. But in many cases, that evidence is not held in paper files, but in a myriad of electronic formats: emails, human resources or customer management systems, scanned-in faxes and application forms.

The events surrounding the collapse of Enron and the recent judgment in McCabe v BAT in Australia have given all businesses around the world cause to review their document destruction policies very carefully.

The facts of these two cases are perhaps extreme, but provide important lessons for all companies. In the past, courts in common law countries have sometimes drawn adverse inferences of fact against a party caught destroying documents.

Now, they might start giving judgment against that party where they are persuaded that the primary purpose of the document destruction policy was to impede the prospects of a fair trial.

Unless a company can satisfy a court that it has genuine commercial reasons for routinely destroying its documents, it risks everything. As a result, it is arguable that the only safe course of action is to retain all documents and to destroy nothing.

The important lessons which companies can learn from the recent Andersen/Enron fiasco are the need to pay attention to which documents are being retained and when documents should be destroyed, and the importance of consistently enforcing their document retention policies. By focusing on more effective management of their document retention programs, companies can improve their operations, reduce costs and reduce their potential liability. In light of Andersen's recent experience, companies should review how their own programs are operating and would hold up under court scrutiny...

The second worst thing you can do in the face of a government investigation is to destroy the documents relevant to that investigation.

The worst thing you can do, of course, is to almost destroy these documents. There is an axiom in the world of electronic documents and records - "delete doesn't and restore won't." Indeed, forensic document recovery and reconstruction is a multi-million dollar business. Most companies have an ill-used document retention and destruction policy. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court's ruling in the Arthur Anderson case, a significant question was raised about how companies should draft and apply their policies regarding document retention and destruction, as well as the liability of all parties - including computer security professionals - for assisting in the destruction of electronic records. Unfortunately, rather than clarifying the situation, the Supreme Court's ruling may embolden those who wish to use security professionals for at best unethical and at worst illegal purposes…

The December 1, 2000, “Mandatory Disclosure” amendments to Rule 26(a)(1) further increased the burden on producing parties to disclose the existence of electronic documents and other information when a law suit is commenced. These changes, coupled with the growing body of case law concerning production of electronic data, mandate that businesses prepare in advance foe electronic discovery requests.
A competent and consistently enforced document retention policy reduces a company’s risk by ensuring that electronic data is handled properly. Some companies operate without any formalized plan for document retention and destruction. Others have policies in place but fail to include electronic data in their protocol. Even the most proactive company with comprehensive retention policy that includes electronic data may not be enforcing the policy to the extent necessary to avoid legal risk…

The advent of the “paperless society” has been a boon for fastidious record keepers and the lazy alike. With storage capacity expanding to unfathomable dimensions and storage costs per bit of data approaching zero, the incentive to discard, at least at first blush, has been virtually eliminated. However, another trend, the rapid increase in the number of lawsuits, as well as the ever-present risk of government enforcement actions, provide ample justification for doing more than retaining indefinitely an undifferentiated mass of electronic documents. Retrieving data in response to a request for “electronic discovery” in private litigation or in response to a government investigative demand, and the attendant review of that data by attorneys for responsiveness, privileged communications, and confidential business information, could be extremely costly. At the same time, any business person who recalls the 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes or the rapid demise of Arthur Anderson will recognize that the inability to produce key documents when called upon to do so can be damning not only in the courtroom but in the arena of public opinion as well…

The Enron debacle has not been the only stage displaying this lesson to us either. At least a dozen other recent investigations and corporate actions have used electronic communications as evidence. From email and instant messages to system logs and captured electronic chats, taken together, such data can paint some pretty interesting pictures.
The courts aren't the only ones who might find such documents worth reading. Attackers, competitors, and other staff members might uncover information that they do not need to know. To help counteract such situations, many companies are enacting policies directed at such items, their use, their ownership, and the methods of retaining and destroying them. Once implemented, such guidelines present a stout first line of defence against allegations of corporate document destruction and leakage…

The retention of documents as a matter of course is important in the context of the day-to-day running of your company. Clearly the formulation of a document retention/destruction policy is governed by the needs of your business in respect of factors like retrieval, storage space and compliance with your own rules and business policy as well as regulation and statute. Such a policy cannot be resigned primarily to deal with the demands of possible future litigation. Litigation should ‘fit in’ with, and sit alongside, this primary purpose.

It’s true to say that such a policy must also be designed to cope with limitation periods which necessitate your retaining documents for varying periods of time. To put this in context, for example, claims arising from a breach of contract and/or negligence have a limitation period of six years (excepting personal injury claims which are statute barred after three years) and there is a ‘long stop’ imitation period of 15 years for latent defect claims…

Not all e-mails are records. E-mail records are those that represent the official record (records that document business activities, and which have evidentiary or reference value) or sole copy of a document that needs to be archived. Only e-mails that are considered official records should be archived in an e-mail archiving system.

E-mails that are not records should be purged through routine e-mail management processes. The criteria for assessing whether an e-mail is a record is the same as the hardcopy records management criteria.

Examples of e-mails that should be considered records include:
• A job offer sent to a prospective employee where the e-mail is the official offer.
• A contract negotiation containing finalised agreed-upon pricing.
• A memo sent to employees informing them of a new policy or process…

E-mail is arguably the most significant technology to transform business since the telephone. Within a few short years, it has changed the way we communicate, make decisions, and transact business. But it has also created a management challenge. According to IT research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), e-mail volume is expected to grow almost 400% between now and 2005. With so many messages sitting on servers, desktops, backup tapes, and flying through firewalls, companies are well aware of the importance of e-mail management. What most companies do not realise, however, is the possibility of a weak point in their e-mail management systems and processes. If there is not an effective technology and risk management process in place, then the potential for a gap between e-mail management systems and processes is increased…

BSI BUSINESS INFORMATION has recently published two new codes of practice that form a part of the well-known BIP 0008 code of practice on the legal admissibility and evidential weight of electronic documents. The new codes relate specifically to information communicated electronically and to linking electronic identity to documents. They will be of particular interest to users of electronic information management systems who need to ensure the authenticity and integrity of information that is communicated between different computer systems and, specifically, where this information may be required as legal evidence…

Our books of guidance are the main reference material for people in the Department. All Customs and Excise’s formal procedures and work systems are outlined in these books which give managers and staff the Department’s rules and guidelines and general advice on interpreting them.
The guidance is aimed at C&E staff and should not be relied upon by businesses in calculating their taxes and/or duties.

The department is obliged under information legislation to have retention/disposal schedules for all its corporate records. Without clear retention/disposal policies the department risk falling foul of the Data
Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act, and Public Record Act. Failure to dispose of records in a timely and efficient manner can lead to criticism from the Information Commissioner and Adjudicator.

Currently, information relating to how long we should be keeping records is scattered throughout operational guidance. Quite often this retention/disposal information is out-of-date and/or the reasons behind why particular time periods were chosen have been forgotten.

Considerable effort is going into reviewing and revising retention/disposal information. The people making decisions regarding retention/disposal timescales need to understand the different drivers that may effect their decision…

Have the numerous scandals of Enron, Andersen, and WorldCom that are based on records management done anything to impact your records management program? Every time an article on some company that has encountered trouble appears in the news, you probably do as I do and let out a sigh of relief that it is not my company that is being singled out. The simple truth is that it could very easily by my company or your company that is next written up in the leading newspapers for problems related to the way we handle our records. Worried yet? Don't you think it's time for us all to get our records acts together?...

1. Brush Up on Standards: If you're serious about document and records management, rest assured that best practice in this area has been well explored. Invest in familiarizing yourself with ISO 15489 (International Standard for Records Management) and NFPA 232-2000 (Standard for Protection of Records) to help you build your records management knowledge base.
2. Build a Team: Document management is more about people and process than it is about technology. A good document retention team will include a professional records manager or librarian, legal counsel, HR personnel, line of business managers, and IT professionals. Assemble as complete a team as possible before tackling your initiative.
3. Know What Constitutes a Record: Keeping every business document ever created will quickly turn into a costly storage nightmare. Know what constitutes a document that needs to be retained and what doesn't. This will largely depend on local and federal laws, as well as industry regulations that govern your business…

In the mid 1990s, vendors and users of electronic document management (EDM) systems were concerned about the issue of legal admissibility of electronically stored information. The burning question was—do we need to keep original paper documents? In order to address this issue, those involved in the technology drafted a Code of Practice, detailing policies and procedures that would enable users to demonstrate the authenticity of electronically stored information.

This Code of Practice was published by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in 1996, as BSI DISC PD 0008…

COLD Computer Output to Laser Disk, also referred to as ERM (Enterprise Report Management). Process whereby computer output, such as reports, are captured, indexed and stored to optical disk. Cheaper than online storage with the possibility of direct recovery using indexed searches. Sometimes referred to as COM replacement…
Digital certificate An attachment to an electronic message used to authenticate the sender for security reasons…
Metadata Data associated with documents to provide information on their contents, context and use…