Declaring Documents

Use

In document management of The National Archives, you can manage documents saved electronically in two functional statuses:

When a document is in the processing phase, it is saved as a private document and is protected from access by other users.
As soon as the contents of a document have been processed and the document is closed, the agent can declare the document. The agent can decide which user group should have access to this public document (see Roles and Authorizations for The National Archives).

Note

In The National Archives (TNA), public documents are referred to as "records". The term records is already used in the SAP system by the component Records Management. For this reason, these documents are referred to public documents, not "records in the following section (and in the SAP system).

Features

If a document has the status "private document" it can only be accessed and processed by the responsible agent. The agent's private documents are located in the electronic desk in the area Work Basket under Worklist in the file Private Objects. These private documents do not exist for other users and cannot be found using the search functions.

When a document is declared, no further changes can be made to the contents of the document or to the corresponding metadata. The disposal data, is an exception to this. A retention period for a document in the fileplan can still be set for this data.

Activities

The process of declaring a document has the following steps:

You are in the display or change mode of a document and start the declaration in the standard toolbar with the pushbutton Declare.

Note

The pushbutton Declare is only available for private documents and is hidden for documents that have already been declared.
If the document has not been assigned in the fileplan, you are asked to do so in the dialog box Select Folder. Select the folders provided for the document in the fileplan. A list of the folders last used is displayed in a dialog box or you can start one of the following folder search functions:
- Record Plan: Determine folder using the fileplan
- Search: Determine folder by attribute search
- Record: Display folder in a new session
Define the folders you require an continue with ( Continue).
In the dialog box Declare, you are informed that you can now change the attributes of the document for the last time. To continue the process, choose Continue.

In the dialog box Change Attributes, you can check the attributes of the document for the last time before the declaration.

To complete the declaration of the document, choose ( Continue).