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Shared Drive Restructure A Case Study

Shared Drive Restructure A Case Study. Anne Rathbone, CRM Kris Boutilier, IT Guy February 2, 2016. Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD). Where We Are. Regional District vs Municipality. Similar to Counties in other parts of Canada Provide municipal services to un-incorporated areas

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Shared Drive Restructure A Case Study

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  1. Shared Drive Restructure A Case Study Anne Rathbone, CRM Kris Boutilier, IT Guy February 2, 2016

  2. Sunshine Coast Regional District(SCRD)

  3. Where We Are

  4. Regional District vs Municipality • Similar to Counties in other parts of Canada • Provide municipal services to un-incorporated areas • SCRD Board • Elected representatives from 5 un-incorporated area • Appointed representatives from the 2 municipal Councils • Appointed representative from Sechelt Indian Government District

  5. We Are a Company of CompaniesThe Mostly United Federation of Independent Departments! Accounting, Payroll, Financial and Investment Services Legislative Services and Bylaw Compliance Purchasing and Risk Management Solid Waste Management Various neighbourhood Sewer Systems Multiple Water Supply and Distribution Systems 4 Parks Planning and Management 4 distinct volunteer Fire Departments 5 separate Recreation Facilities Property and Land Management Services Transit Services and internal Fleet Maintenance … in all 98 entirely distinct business operations for 2013

  6. ... But Legally We Are a Single BodyThe Borg. Customers expect to always receive a consistent answer to any inquiry, regardless of how or where they make it. Which means: Information must be treated consistently with respect to handling, classification and retention regardless of how or where it’s created.

  7. LGMA Classification Schedule • A reference model developed for Local Governments • Intended to be modified to suit our specific needs • Provides cross-organization knowledge consistency • Reinforces the concept of ‘one corporation’, vs. ‘departmental methods’

  8. Example

  9. Where Our Shared Drive Was

  10. Our Original Shared Drive Vision… • “H: drive” was established circa 1994 • Structure was built around major business units that existed at that time • Ideal document flow: • prepare drafts within your department ‘private folder’, • move final edition to shared folders • Sensitive files, Human Resources, remained on floppy. • Hard copy was the Record

  11. … Used Cutting Edge Technology

  12. How H: Drive Slowly (de)Evolved • Departments had ‘walled gardens’ – anything goes • Folder structures were allowed to evolve organically • Eventually NTFS allowed users to create nested folder structures with long names that implied information that more correctly belonged in the filename itself. • A major corporate restructure in 1998 • Increasing need for collaboration • Created special folders for distinct “Teams” • Permissions were modeled around named users

  13. How We Finally Concluded We Had an ED(RM) Problem By early 2012: 465,000 files spread over more than 40,000 folders Information duplication was rampant Massive loss of version control and forking Outdated copies of 3rd party information No training for new staff Critically: Impossible to apply retention schedule consistently between paper and electronic editions, often simply impossible to infer correct classification.

  14. Consequences Lack of confidence in searches for electronic records Tacit violations of Protection of Privacy legislation with respect to customers personal information Information leakage Zombie documents Lost files Password protected documents

  15. Estrangement and Alienation • Recreation Planning team doesn’t have a problem working with the Recreation Operations team • Still an inability to collaborate with other departments • Led to proliferation of duplicate documents throughout H: drive

  16. Silly Subfolders John’s Stuff Paul and Lynda’s Sam’s Sh** Angie

  17. Deep Folder Structures are Bad But Long Folder Names are Usually Okay • H:\Infrastructure\Admin\1220-01 Tenders and Quotations\Solid Waste Tenders & Quotes\Recycling RFPs\Temporary Recycling Depot EOI 2011 • H:\Infrastructure\Legislative & Regulatory Affairs\4320 Licenses - Individual H:\Recreation\Manager\Bruce\Fitness\Coopers\Bruce’s Contracts\2011\Fall\Fitness\Doe.docx H:\WP\2001\April\Admin\FOI\FOI 2001-01\John Smith Response Letter.doc

  18. Path Lengths vs. Depths on H: drive

  19. Visualizing with Circular Treemaps N:\ Branch 1\ Subfolder 1\ Sub-subfolder1\ Treevis written by RandelShofer http://www.randelshofer.ch/treeviz/

  20. A More Complex Example N:\ Branch 1\ Subfolder 1\ Sub-subfolder 1\ Branch 2\ Branch 3\ Subfolder 1\ Sub-subfolder 1\ Sub-subfolder 2\ Branch 4\ Subfolder 1\ 10 folders nested up to 3 levels deep

  21. H: drive as it Stood at the End 40,405 folders nested up to 14 levels deep

  22. H:\Infrastructure\ Subfolders Alone subset of 8,641 nested subfolders

  23. Previous Attempts to Resolve our Issues • 2003 - Failed attempt to fund full scale EDRMS project • 2007 - Attempt to inject basic LGMA classification codes into existing H: Drive structure. • 2008 - New EDRMS project proposal • “I get the files I request when I request them, therefore there is no problem” from a Board Director.

  24. Steering Committee • IT, Records Management, Legislative Services • Communicating critical project aspects to management • Collaboration and cooperation between IT and RM was critical to ensure success of project • Time for a new shared drive – “N drive”

  25. Kris’ World vs. Anne’s World • IT says: • We should keep everything forever because… - capacity is not an issue (eg. Kryder’s Law) - search technology is fast improving (Altavista (1994) vs. Google (2013)) - of innovations in Computational Knowledge (Wolfram Alpha, ‘Big Data’) - those who are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it (eg. first ‘Make money fast!’ post in 1989 via Google 20 Year Usenet Timeline) - it’s just plain cool! (archive.org , Google Earth time slider, Data Mining) • RIM says: • Just because we can… • -doesn’t mean we should (eg. The Right to be Forgotten) • - we must manage our records from creation to final disposition

  26. Working Committee • Working committee • One (or more) reps from every department • Reps tasked with communicating with their department staff and management as well as the Steering Committee on: • their specific processes • what subfolders would be required • potential problems

  27. Business Process to Select Consultant Developed a price request and project outline By invitation No requirement to go to RFP

  28. Overall ImplementationTimeline • September 2011 - Hired consultant • November 2011 - Internal processes began on-site • folder structure revision and enhancement • interviews with staff to solicit specific knowledge • December 2011 to February 2012 - iterative review • 1 March 2012 - Cut over to N: drive • 6 month opportunity to migrate files from H: to N: • December 31, 2012 - H: drive to be blown away

  29. Desired Outcomes Resolve internal collaboration issues Implicitly purge electronic files that are beyond retention Reduce information duplication Improve quality of search results- provide certainty of FOIPP searches Preparatory work for eventual import of electronic files into formal EDRMS Rudimentary ‘knowledge capture’ from senior employees nearing retirement.

  30. Project Outline • Create folder framework • Determine lower level folder structure • Create draft design of folder structure • Determine and document permissions • Set up new folders and infrastructure • Train staff • Migrate to the new folder structure (tiny, isn’t it!) • Delete old directories

  31. Create Folder Framework Develop a high level folder structure Must be universal across departments Meet with steering committee for requirements

  32. High Level Folder Framework N:\ Administration\ Assets & Procurement\ Buildings, Facilities & Properties\ Community Services\ Finance\ HR\ Information Systems & Services\ Infrastructure\ Land Administration\ Legal Matters\ Legislative & Regulatory Affairs\ Parks Administration\ Planning & Development\ Protective Services\ Recreation & Culture\ Transportation & Transit Services\

  33. Adjust Structure of Lower Level Folders • Need to accommodate information being produced by each department • Interviews with key staff in each department • Conduct a file and document analysis on a random sample to test ‘fit’ • Tweak LGMA terminology to fit our environment • Eliminate ‘general’ classification wherever possible – having a ‘default’ option is bad.

  34. Resulting in N: drive • Absolute limitation imposed on tree depth • Function, Primary, Secondary, (optional folder) • Files can only be created within pre-existing Secondary folders or, if they already exist, within the optional level of folders. • Gross structural modifications made by RM team, based on justification contained in helpdesk request and an internal review process. • Users are not permitted to create optional folders, except for very specific delegated exceptions. • All users are permitted to access all files they can see.

  35. Example of Structure FUNCTIONFinance PRIMARY1855 Grants From Organizations SECONDARY1855-20 Grant Files CASE FILESAge Friendly Grant 2012 Bear Aware Program 2011 GMF Project 7173 2007-2012 Wildfire Mitigation Grant 2010

  36. Folder Modification Using the LGMA Classification, the folder structure in Land Administration for zoning applications should be PRIMARY3360 Zoning and Rezoning SECONDARY3360-20 Individual zoning applications CASE FILES310.1 337.5 We modified it to: PRIMARY3360 Zoning Bylaw 310 SECONDARY3360-20 310.1 SUBFOLDERPublic Hearing PRIMARY3360 Zoning Bylaw 337 SECONDARY3360-20 337.5 SUBFOLDERInput from Agencies

  37. Accommodating ‘Regional District-ness’ N:\ Infrastructure & Public Works\ 5350 Waste Water Treatment Plant\ 5350-01 Waste Water Treatment Plants General 5350-02 Waste Water Treatment Plant Equipment 5350-20 Canoe Road 5350-20 Curran Road 5350-20 Greaves Road 5350-20 Jolly Roger 5350-20 Langdale (YMCA) 5350-20 Lee Bay 5350-20 Lily Lake …

  38. Lower Level Folder Structure N:\ Infrastructure & Public Works\ 5350 Waste Water Treatment Plant\ 5350-20 Canoe Road\ Canoe Road Grinder Pumps\ Canoe Road Lift Stations\ Canoe Road New Connections\ Canoe Road New Mains\ Canoe Road Pumping Stations\ Canoe Road Sewerage Connections Canoe Road Sewerage Treatment & Disposal\

  39. Lower Level Folder Structure N:\ Infrastructure & Public Works\ 5350 Waste Water Treatment Plant\ 5350-20 Curran Road\ Curran Road Grinder Pumps\ Curran Road Lift Stations\ Curran Road New Connections\ Curran Road New Mains\ Curran Road Pumping Stations\ Curran Road Sewerage Connections\ Curran Road Sewerage Treatment & Disposal\

  40. Facilitating Knowledge Capture • Capturing email is the most natural way • but users have a hard time determining which ones qualify as Records • People ‘get’ grouping email in folders, but co-mingling emails with electronic files seems ‘foreign’. • the rigid structure of N: drive reduces the effort of choosing

  41. How We Approached Email • Originator would save internal emails, recipients to delete. • Recipient would save incoming external emails • If more than one recipient, first person named would save • Attachments would not be allowed for purely internal emails • Saving without creating subfolders requires using native .msg format instead of HTML • this has the advantage of preserving headers and metadata for a future EDRMS import

  42. NTFS Permissions This is why you want to invest in an EDRMS!

  43. Keep Them Manageable! VS.

  44. Leverage Inheritance!

  45. Management of ‘Restricted’ Files • Confidential and limited release files stored in parallel set of top level folders. • Default level of access is: none • Permissions: • inherit downwards from the point they’re granted. • are explicitly granted based on job role relevant to the information (not the named user). • Certain ‘blanket’ roles granted access on all folders (eg. CAO) • Users with permission to access only specific restricted folders cannot traverse intermediate folders (to prevent leakage through folder names)

  46. Example of ‘Restricted’ Structure Legal Matters (Restricted) 2220 Accidents 2220-20 Fleet Accidents Unit 473 01-Feb-2012 2220-20 Transit Accidents Unit 1204 01-May-2013 2430 Litigation 2430-20 Cases  Jones Land Slide 2011 Smith Creek Overflow 2012

  47. Final Top-level Folders Legal Matters Legal Matters (Restricted) Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Legislative & Regulatory Affairs (Restricted) Parks Administration Planning & Development Protective Services Protective Services (Restricted) Recreation & Culture Recreation & Culture (Restricted) Shortcut to Intranet Photos System Volume Information Transportation & Transit Services Transportation & Transit Services (Restricted) N:\ Administration Administration (Restricted) Assets & Procurement Assets & Procurement (Restricted) Buildings, Facilities & Properties Community Services Databases (Restricted) Finance Finance (Restricted) HR HR (Restricted) Information Systems & Services Infrastructure & Public Works Land Administration

  48. Training • MINT – Managing Information in N: drive Training • a lovely morning or afternoon with Anne! • resistance was futile! (see: The Borg) • Before cut-over, attendance gave you read access to N:

  49. Training Six weeks were set aside for training and space was dedicated to the project. We used just presentations and discussion, because learning the concepts was the focus, not how to use Windows. Staff from remote sites came to the main office Staff working outside main office hours were specially scheduled to attend training. Training was grouped by department, and scheduled by managers to accommodate operational requirements

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