Happy New Year and welcome to 2015!
Thank you to everyone who came to our Keeping records together celebration on Wednesday 17th December 2014 and to those who came and spoke with us about the GRDS renewal discussion paper. We definitely enjoyed having a frank and open conversation about the GRDS!
Check out our Blog Keeping records together celebration wrap-up for a full overview of the morning.
We think a good way to recommence the GRDS renewal program in 2015 is to summarise the feedback you’ve given us so far – and list the top 3 topics.
Top 3 GRDS renewal feedback topics so far
Numbering is the number 1 topic we’ve received feedback on so far. You’re telling us that it would solve a lot of problems if the GRDS had static or unique numbering, particularly when managing updates. At the moment you may have to map the two schedules, unload the schedule, then upload the new one. Some of you are staging the implementation because of the volume of files you have, which can take up to 12 months or more. Are you experiencing the same issues? If you do upload the GRDS into your systems, how do you manage GRDS updates?
Disposal triggers are second cab off the rank. The current set of disposal triggers can be ambiguous and are open to interpretation. Ideally there should only be one disposal action per record class. Some of you would like to have a universal set of disposal triggers which would provide consistency and be used across all schedules. When a new version is released you need to change the disposal actions in the scope notes of every file, which is very time consuming. Are you changing the disposal triggers in your systems to reflect your business needs?
Last but not least, you’re telling us the idea of having a common activities function like the Northern Territory would be very appealing. This would reduce duplication across functions and allow you to use these activities in any function. But do you need to have records knowledge to know the difference between classes, activities and functions? Is the list of records types, like Western Australia, more user friendly to non-records personnel? Do you know this could reduce the size of your core schedules?
Some other feedback we have received has included:
- Please add bookmarks to this document to enable ease of navigation! I use the PDF version and it would be most helpful to be able to skip to a section or item by clicking on the bookmark. At the very least please link the section headings in the table of contents to the start of the corresponding sections within the document. (We have done this and it’s already available!)
- I definitely use the index. While the schedules are able to be utilised as word documents, I still prefer to have a hard copy in my hand and frequently refer to the index. Admittedly I do make my own notations in the index.
What do you think about these issues? Have you read our blogs on the 5 challenges of the GRDS renewal discussion paper? If you haven’t already, have a read and leave your comments and thoughts. Do you have trouble finding the correct record class to use because it’s only listed once in the GRDS, but could be used in multiple functions? Do you think we should expand the GRDS to cover even more common activities?
Before the paper closes for comment, we will be arranging discussion sessions (dates and venues to come). Also keep an eye out for more blogs!
You can contact us at any time via email, telephone, blog, Twitter or Facebook on any issues relating to the GRDS Renewal discussion paper.
