ISO/TC 171/SC 2/WG 11 - EDMS Guidelines

This document gives guidelines for a set of procedures and activities to be considered and/or performed by organizations when planning, designing and implementing various enterprise content management (ECM) technologies. The aspects or project phases range from initial business analysis through to vendor/integrator selection and technology implementation. The implementation of processes to manage electronically stored information (ESI) requires significant participation from the affected business units, if the content is stored and managed when created/received and controlled through the information life cycle following organizational policies and/or records retention and control policies are applied. As these efforts require multiple people with different disciplines, including technical teams, records managers and organizational management, this document has been prepared taking those perspectives into account. This document is applicable to both in-house and outsourced systems, including cloud solutions. It can also be useful when dealing with specialized business systems. The term "enterprise content management (ECM)" (or "document management") used throughout this document is intended as an all-encompassing term referring to capture technologies [scanning, indexing, optical character recognition (OCR), forms, digital creation, etc.], management technologies (document services, workflow and other work management tools), and storage [primarily non-alterable or write once read many (WORM) technologies]. This document provides information to users related to the technical reports, guidelines and standards that have been developed for technologies commonly available in ECM systems. This document is not intended to be an all-inclusive paper on electronic document or content management and does not attempt to influence any single technology or provide legal guidance or legal opinions. While there are storage technologies other than optical/magnetic currently available (i.e. microfilm, microfiche and hybrid storage systems) that are not included in this document, those technologies can be reviewed if determined to be appropriate by the end-user organization.

ISO 18829:2017 identifies activities and operations that an organization needs to perform, or have performed, to evaluate whether the electronically stored information (ESI) is or was maintained in a reliable and trustworthy environment(s). These environments utilize content or records management technologies commonly referred to as either enterprise content management (ECM) or electronic document and records management (EDRM) enforcing organizational records management policies and schedules. ISO/TR 15801 and ISO 15489 (all parts) established the standards and best practices associated with implementing trustworthy records/document management environments. However, a standard is necessary to define the methodology used to evaluate these types of records/document management environments regardless of what technologies are currently employed by the organization. ISO 18829:2017 establishes the assessment methodology to be followed to identify the level of organizational compliance with these standards as related to trustworthiness and reliability of information stored in these environments. ISO 18829:2017 is applicable to existing or planned ECM systems. Establishing the existence of a trustworthy system is an important step in documenting the reliability of ESI maintained within that system or environment. ISO 18829:2017 is designed for use by organizations evaluating the trustworthiness of existing record/document management environments. ISO 18829:2017 identifies all of the mandatory activities and areas that need to be examined by a resource, or resources, with a thorough technical and operational knowledge of the specific technologies and methodologies being examined, along with understanding record management processes and activities.

ISO/TR 22957:2009 presents a recommended set of procedures and activities that are advisable when performing analysis, selection and implementation of project phases associated with electronic document management systems technologies. ISO/TR 22957:2009 provides user-level information outlining specific recommended activities to be completed throughout the various project phases typically performed when implementing these technologies. It outlines the steps and activities, together with compliance with relevant industry standards and guidelines that need to be examined and “certified” to ensure relevant technologies have been analysed, designed, implemented and managed, ensuring document/record validity when used in a business or government environment. ISO/TR 22957:2009 provides both user- and technical-level information and guidance detailing specific recommended activities and project tasks/phases recognized throughout the EDMS industry as being the EDMS industry best practice related to analysing business processes, evaluating appropriate/relevant technologies and ensuring complete technology implementation where required by the organization.