Helpful Tips

Document management is a common problem at many organizations, and UCOP is no exception. We’ve found that the easiest way to combat being overwhelmed by your documents is to start early! Here are some tips and information:

  1. Organize your email. UCOP has a one year email retention policy. All emails older than one year old are removed, unless placed in your online archive. We recommend creating folders in Outlook in your online archive sorted by topic.
  2. Create name standards and stick to them. It will be easiest for you to find something if you can expect it will be named in a certain way. Find out early if your department already has some in place, and suggest some if they don’t!
  3. Check the retention schedule. The UC records retention schedule has lots of information about proper record disposal time. This will keep your documents manageable and prevent liability.
  4. Store sensibly. There are a lot of different places you can store your documents, but some are more suitable than others! Storing anything on your personal computer can be problematic in case of a crash. Shared drives can very quickly get out of control. SharePoint is a great place to store your unit’s documents, with multiple ways to organize—UCOP offers a few workshops on how to use it. Box is also a useful storage tool, and can be a great asset when sharing documents between different departments.

If you have any questions about document management, records management, scanning documents, or about general UCOP history, please let us know!

You can contact us at records@ucop.edu or at 510-987-0399.

See http://ucal.us/rmtraining for more info and training!