UW-Madison Records Management Program
File Plans
2015 UW-Madison Records Management Program
University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives & Records Management
A
T
I
P
Accountability
 Transparency
 Integrity
 Protection

C
A
R
D
Compliance
Availability
Retention
Disposition
ARMA International publishes the Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles®.
More information about the Principles can be found at www.arma.org/principles.
“records are the memory of your business,
holding knowledge and evidence of
commercial activities forgotten when people
T. Blair, founder of the
move on” Barclay
Information Governance Initiative
Photo courtesy of UW-Parkside Archives
What is a File Plan?
A “File Plan” is a well thought out plan on
how records are managed.
Think of this as a roadmap to how your
Dept./Units manages their records.
A good file plan will assist with:
 Documenting department/units activities effectively
 Identify records consistently
 Retrieve records quickly
 Disposition records no longer needed
 Meet legal and organizational requirement
See JOB AID: Documentation of Records
Management Practices aka File Plan Creation
What
Why
(Information)
(Taxonomy,
Compliance,)
Who
Where
(Custodian, Security)
(Repository)
When
How
(Retention, Disposition)
(Process)
Integrity
Compliance
Accountability
Protection
Availability
Transparency
Retention
Disposition
This is the level at which the information or
document type is identified. Information that
is dependent on the needs of the business.
What information does the department
create or use?
File Plan: Taxonomy and Classification
What is a taxonomy?
taxis (arrangement) + nomia (method)




A filing system is the “systematic indexing and arranging of records based
on established procedures”
Classification should be applied to both paper and electronic records and
subject to the same retention and disposition.
Records could be filed in many different ways:
 Chronological order
 Alphabetical or Numeric order
 Alpha-Numeric order
 Electronic Format
Use of Standardized Naming Conventions for records.


Define the folder
structure for both paper
and electronic records
that meets the
department business
needs.
Determine the records
management categories
for the folder structure
using uniform naming
conventions.
Electronic Formats for Files and Documents
Metadata is “Data about Data "It conveys Content, Context & Structure
Examples of descriptive metadata:
Rules about the management of information cannot
be defined and documented unless a role in the
organization has been identified as accountable for
the management of the information.
This is not necessarily the person or persons
responsible for creating, approving, or using the
information.
The Custodian is typically in an organizational
leadership role. It is the person who has
Accountability.
• You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your login. Do not
share your credentials.
• Make business passwords different than personal passwords.
• Treat all information as confidential unless categorized otherwise.
• Organization resources (hardware, software, etc…) should be used for
business purposes only.
• See CIO Policy: Handling University Data and your responsibility
https://www.cio.wisc.edu/security/guides-students-faculty-staff/handling-university-data/
Permissions applied to the repository (e.g.: file share,
applications, hosted SharePoint site) will list what
permissions as they actually are, not what they should be.
This may be more rigor than some would want as it requires
AD to align with the file plan.
Role
University Records Mgt. Advisory
Create
X
All Employees (access limited)
Corporate Communications Manager
Public (access limited)
Read
X
Update Delete
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
In this section will be the container of the information.
Information Types are contained within File Type.
Files are contained within a Repository.
The drawings below will help to make this point.
Note: For illustration purposes a paper file structure is represented. This same
concept is applicable for all formats (paper documents, digital documents,
databases).
To ensure the integrity of information, a repeatable process should be
employed. This section of the file plan can either detail how to retain,
reference, and remove information; or can reference a document that contains
this information.
Retention Schedules are good for
documenting why (citations) information
should be kept for a particular time
period, and how long (retention period).