Most content that is created by companies today typically gets stored in an electronic form. In many cases, the electronic version of a particular document or other content may be the only format in which the information exists. In a typical business cycle, such content gets created, used, and then destroyed once it is no longer needed. This destruction of electronic content can either happen according to a pre-defined schedule (e.g. an expiration policy), or the destruction can happen manually when a user deletes files he doesn't need any more.
Business events can sometimes occur that will disrupt this natural cycle of a piece of content. For example, a company audit, lawsuit, or investigation are all examples of disruptive business events where certain pieces of content need to be tagged as related to an investigation and the business processes changed accordingly. The process of finding content related to such an event is often called “discovery” and the process of locking down items related to an event is often called “hold.”
As the amount of content that is subject to this discovery process grows, the management of disruptive business events grows increasingly more complex. Each disruptive business event might be managed by a different individual; documents associated with a particular disruptive business event may span different repositories; and so on.
Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for managing disruptive business events. A selection is received from a user to associate one or more items in a content repository with one or more disruptive business events. Once items are associated with events, the business processes around those items change based upon predefined settings defined on the business events. As users interact with the one or more items associated with the disruptive business event during a normal course of business, one or more actions associated with the event settings are applied.
In one implementation, a system for managing one or more disruptive business events across one or more content repositories is described. The system includes one or more content repositories for storing items of content. The system includes one or more lists of disruptive business events that have been created in one or more content repositories. Events in a list can then be associated with at least a sub-set of the items in the repository where the list was created. The one or more content repositories control the management of the disruptive business events and the associated sub-set of the items of content to ensure that any actions associated with the sub-set of the items through the events lists are applied as users interact with the sub-set of the items.
In another implementation, a method for sharing data for one or more disruptive business events with other applications is described. A request is received from a separate application to access data and settings for a disruptive business event that has been associated with a sub-set of items in a content repository. The data that was requested by the separate application is retrieved and then returned to the separate application.
This Summary was provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
The technologies and techniques herein may be described in the general context as an application that manages disruptive business events for one or more content repositories, but the technologies and techniques also serve other purposes in addition to these. In one implementation, one or more of the techniques described herein can be implemented as features within a content repository such as MICROSOFT® Office SharePoint Server, or from any other type of program or service that is responsible for managing electronic content that may be subject to disruptive business events such as lawsuits or audits.
In one implementation, techniques are described for management of disruptive business events and a related discovery process. The term “disruptive business event” as used herein is meant to include an event that disrupts the normal flow of a business process such that electronic content needs to be managed in a different manner, such as to have different behavior and/or actions taken when interacting with content. As noted earlier, a few examples of disruptive business events can include lawsuits, audits, investigations, etc. Some or all of the techniques described herein allow a disruptive business event and the electronic documents to which it relates to be associated with a disruptive business event in an events list and organized in a hierarchal manner. The term “events list” as used herein is meant to include a list of one or more disruptive business event that have been or can be associated with one or more items in one or more content repositories. Alternatively or additionally, techniques are described for customizing what happens when an item has been associated with a particular disruptive business event in an events list, and/or for enabling data related to the disruptive business events to be shared with other systems.
Content repository (104a, 104b, 104c, or 104d) is responsible for storing and managing items. The term “item” as used herein is meant to include a document, spreadsheet, web page, wiki, blog, or any other type of electronic content that is being managed by the content repository. The events list (106a, 106b, 106c, or 106d) can contain information about one or more disruptive business events that have been defined for the company using the content repository. Using system 100, events lists can be defined and managed so that these disruptive business events can be integrated into the normal process of content creation and maintenance, yet managed according to any legal or other requirements that have been defined for them.
Events lists (106a, 106b, 106c, and 106d) can contain disruptive business events that are be associated with items in the content repositories in a hierarchical fashion. In other words, content inside a content repository can be structured in a hierarchical manner. For example, sites can contain sub-sites which contain libraries which contain folders, which contain items. Disruptive business events can be defined at multiple levels in that hierarchy. Content within the repository can be subject to any disruptive business event defined in its parent chain. Some non-limiting examples will be described to further illustrate how system 100 can be used in one implementation.
Suppose Contoso Corporation is a company that is using computers (102a, 102b, 102c, and 102d) for storing various content, as shown in
Further suppose that their repository of content is structured so that their consumer products division is separated from their business division. Thus, computers 102a and 102b with content repositories 104a and 104b may be used by the products division, and computers 102c and 102d with content repositories 104c and 104d may be used by their business division, just as an example. System 100 allows any of Contoso's disruptive business events that involve the entire company to be defined and managed at the root level, and used throughout the entire repository. However, disruptive business events that impact only a single division can be defined within the division's repository, and their use will be appropriately scoped to the division's repository.
In addition, suppose that Contoso's repository has different types of content—for instance, word processing documents and web pages. System 100 allows customizations to be made to control what happens when an item is subject to a case. For instance, documents can be exported to a records vault while web pages can be locked down and editing prevented.
Alternatively or additionally, Contoso employees may have gone through a large amount of effort defining data about disruptive business events and performing searches for content within a repository. In one implementation, web services (such as 108a, 108b, 108c, or 108d) allow the company (in this example, Contoso) to share information about the disruptive business events (in this example, the lawsuits) with other applications or content repositories, such as an email server.
Turning now to
A selection is received from the same and/or different users to associate one or more items in one or more content repositories with one or more disruptive business events contained in the events list (stage 208). For example, the user can select one or more items that should be associated with a particular disruptive business event, such as a lawsuit or audit. This association of items with the disruptive business event can be performed at some later time after the disruptive business event and its event settings have been created.
As users interact with the items associated with the disruptive business event, actions are applied and the item's state is changed according to the event settings (stage 210). Some example actions can include logging changes that are made to the item, logging access details about who opened the item, logging a user name of a particular person who accessed the item, saving search metadata that describe a search that was used to locate the item, etc.
In one implementation, event settings can be defined at any point in this process of
For example, diagram 230 shows two different content repositories. Library 232 has its own hierarchy, and library 244 has its own hierarchy. If the entire library 232 is associated with a disruptive business event, then all of the items in that library become subject to any actions associated with the disruptive business event. This includes all of the folders (234 and 236), and all of the items (238, 240, and 242). If instead of associating an entire library with one or more disruptive business events in an events list, a particular folder is added (such as folder 246). Then any items that belong to that folder are subject to the disruptive business event (which is items 248 and 250) in this example. At the most granular level, a single item can also be associated with a disruptive business event (such as item 252). By allowing items to be associated with events lists in a hierarchical fashion, organizations can manage disruptive business events at multiple levels of content and federate the management of events. Alternatively or additionally, organizations can manage items (i.e. documents) more easily without having to assign each item one by one to a particular disruptive business event.
As shown in
Additionally, device 500 may also have additional features/functionality. For example, device 500 may also include additional storage (removable and/or non-removable) including, but not limited to, magnetic or optical disks or tape. Such additional storage is illustrated in
Computing device 500 includes one or more communication connections 514 that allow computing device 500 to communicate with other computers/applications 515. Device 500 may also have input device(s) 512 such as keyboard, mouse, pen, voice input device, touch input device, etc. Output device(s) 511 such as a display, speakers, printer, etc. may also be included. These devices are well known in the art and need not be discussed at length here.
Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims. All equivalents, changes, and modifications that come within the spirit of the implementations as described herein and/or by the following claims are desired to be protected.
For example, a person of ordinary skill in the computer software art will recognize that the examples discussed herein could be organized differently on one or more computers to include fewer or additional options or features than as portrayed in the examples.