Electronic document management

Page contents:

• Digital archiving
• Storing digital data as archival information
• Backup and disaster recovery

Digital archiving

Although it adds a level of complexity to the architect's existing duty to archive project and administrative records, digital archiving allows vast amounts of information to be stored using very little physical space. Additionally, digital archiving provides the ability to:

• make multiple copies of archives
• archive fragile material
• make material searchable
• make material available to a wide audience.

However, to achieve these objectives digital data must be in a form suitable to the task, not just now, but into the unforeseeable future. It is also not accomplished without cost, or consequences to the data being archived.

Turning hard copies into soft copies

Existing physical documents, (which include paper, slides, printed photographs, paintings etc), can be converted into digital format by scanning them.

The resolution at which a document is scanned, measured in dots per inch (dpi), will affect the quality of the resultant digital image. The higher the resolution the larger the file size, and the larger the original physical document the larger the file size.

Low resolution is fine for display on computer monitors (typically 72 dpi), but will produce low-quality prints. While it may be difficult to pre-empt future requirements, assumptions will need to be made regarding required resolution relative to overall file size and storage implications.

Although there are a number of computer file formats which can compress digital image files, file size can still be quite large, however selecting an appropriate file format for digitised images is not a problem. There are a number of suitable common and/or open-source file formats available (eg JPEG, PNG, PDF GIF, TIFF). Each individual practice should consider the best format for its needs.

Equipment needed to digitise documents can be expensive, and require specialist skills to operate. This is particularly so for large documents requiring large-format scanners. Additionally, special types of documents (eg slides) require specialist scanning equipment.

File types

Consideration should be given to both file type and document management systems with respect to future archiving. A lack of agreed best practice in digital archiving means each archiving task has to be assessed on its merits, with a focus on maintaining future possibilities rather than definitive commitments.

Archivists should consider converting existing hard-copy material to a digital format and generating new digital content in a universal format such as PDF in order to avoid double-handling when archiving in the future.

Additionally, particularly where CAD files are concerned, consideration should be given to migrating all project computer files to later versions as software upgrades are released. This will allow CAD files created in superseded programs to be re-used in later software versions.

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Storing digital data as archival information

Most architectural work is now being produced using digital media. While this data is most often printed to create the finished paper document, most software, including CAD programs, allow files to be saved electronically as PDFs (portable document format). Additionally, it is becoming increasingly common (particularly for larger projects and those using building-information-modelling software) for digital data to be accessed directly by all participants in the construction process.

Under this scenario, although drawings will still be printed where required, they may not form part of the official documentation set. Additionally, web-based project-management systems are also becoming popular. A commercial provider rents out use of a database accessible via the internet. All communications (RFIs, instructions, transmittals, etc) are stored on and accessed from the website. Issued documents are also stored on the site in a digital format (scanned and/or digitally generated). It is possible, therefore, that the entire history of the construction of a building could theoretically be contained within such a website.

Two problems facing archivists of digital media are determining how and in what format digital data should be stored. To this end, the concept of migration has been developed, where data is reformatted periodically to a new computer format considered more up to date. This has ongoing cost implications.

An alternative but similar approach is to keep data in a format readable by humans and not just computers, and therefore decipherable even though the original software may no longer exist. ASCII text description is used by all computer systems to codify the alphabet, numbers and punctuation characters (i.e. all the characters on a keyboard). Many digital file formats are written using this method and such files can be opened in any text editing program (HTML web pages are an example). Although this coded information may appear illegible on face value, it is possible for it to be deciphered and for a computer program to be written to recreate the original data.

Another approach has been to try and establish an open-source data format that is not controlled by any one business corporation. Although a number of fairly narrow interest groups have set up working parties to develop something to suit their own needs, there is nothing on the horizon that is developing as a universal all-purpose archiving format.

There are a number of ubiquitous, if not universal, data formats that are already being used for archival purposes. PDF is one of them. PDF files can contain vector and pixel information (i.e: images), as well as native text, making them extremely suitable for generic data. The PDF format is owned by Adobe Inc, and although their Acrobat (PDF) Reader is backward compatible and available as a free download from their website, there is no guarantee it will always be so.

That being stated, there are several advantages of archiving material in PDF format:

• Most CAD programs and productivity applications can save their native files in PDF format
• scanners can save to PDF format without the need for further conversion
• the universal format of PDFs allows anyone to read the digital file
• PDFs can be locked and password-protected to prevent changes from unauthorised persons
• PDF file sizes are generally small and their resolution can be changed if further size reduction is required

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Backup and disaster recovery

Protecting electronic data requires the preparation of a data backup and storage plan, regular testing of the system and updating the data when hardware and/or software changes.

Have an IT professional advise on, configure and implement a back-up and monitoring system such as those outlined below. Use backups to replace corrupt data and use a monitoring system to identify hardware faults that can lead to failure.

Risk management measures to prevent data loss include:

• purchasing the highest quality hardware within budget
• having hardware configured by a professional
• using surge protectors, redundant and uninterrupted power supplies
• maintaining hardware
• updating drivers, and replacing old and/or faulty hardware
• configuring applications to automatically create back-up copies and to auto-save at regular intervals
• knowing where these back-up copies are stored
• using licensed software that is regularly updated
• monitoring operating system updates as they can be the cause of data corruption
• storing data back-ups offsite to mitigate the risk of fire, flood etc. at the premises of practice

Criteria analysis

• Decide whether you will be backing up all or part of your data.
• If not, determine what you need to backup, by deciding what you can afford to lose. You can't recover data that you haven't kept.
• Decide how often to backup – can you afford to lose a week's work or a day's? How often is it likely to be retrieved or restored? How long it must be retained and in what form?
• Confirm any special legal, QA or regulatory requirements that you have to meet in your data backups.
• Identify the systems and hosts, where they are located, what medium they will be backed up on and where this media will be stored.
• Identify the types of company data required to be stored, the kinds and levels of security the company requires and who will have access to this data in the form of the backup.

Data protection and backup

• Base your backup strategy on proper planning and execute to a company backup policy. Analyse your strategy in terms of staffing, technical expertise and budget.
• Determine the best backup technologies and techniques that align with your company’s business needs. Automate as much of your backup as possible. Consider the possibility of on-line backup solutions. Consider outsourcing your backups if you do not understand the process.
• Regularly review and revisit your backup/restore risks, procedures and technologies to ensure that they remain appropriate as company needs, conditions and storage requirements evolve.
• Centralise your backup and recovery systems, and ensure that software is updated and backups are performed as necessary.
• Establish procedures that will enhance reliability and effectiveness of the backups.
• Ensure that backups are completed properly. Assign responsibility for getting backups accomplished and monitor the effort to spot problems. Ensure that those responsible for backing up company data are properly trained and audited.
• Test to ensure that the backup copies are virus free, valid and can be successfully restored.
• Maintain backup logs so that you can track backup activities.
• Dispose of backup media carefully, making sure that they are physically destroyed so that their contents cannot be read by unauthorised persons.

Data storage requirements

• Ensure that the data storage you install is scalable so that it is easy to add more capacity at a later date. Make sure it is in a format that is well recognised in the ICT industry and can be supported by varying ICT representatives.
• Use the kind of storage devices that are best suited to the services that they support and your company's preferences.
• Where possible consolidate data onto fewer servers with larger hard drives so management and backup is easier.
• Rank the importance of your data and establish ways that the most important data is backed up first and restored first. By eliminating unnecessary data from your backup efforts you will reduce storage space.
• Compress the backup data so that it requires less media storage space.
• Keep backed-up data in a different location to the original media.
• Ensure that the backup copies are safe. Store in a logical, easily accessible and secure offsite location. If your company has multiple buildings consider storing the offsite media in another building. Plan how to move backups between the company office and the secure storage area.

Backup media rotation

Backup media reuse should be simple so that potential mistakes can be minimised. The more complex the strategy, the greater the likelihood that it will be compromised by error or failure.

At a minimum the system needs to generate messages on success as well as failures.

• Allocate a specific person to verify via a daily tasks checklist that the backups ran and ran correctly.
• Consider backups for critical data being duplicated on different types of media.

Testing

• Conduct periodic backup testing to confirm the company's ability to recover files and directories.
• Regularly test the recoverability of random files and directories to ensure that the backup system is working.
• Make 'dry runs' of restoring backup data under pressure and to self-imposed deadlines.

Backup strategy

Backup files regularly. Make backing up part of the normal office routine.

Most backup software supports the three common types of backup jobs:

1. Full Backups – backs up all the data in the selected directories and volumes. (Requires substantial amounts of storage space).
2. Differential Backups – captures all the data that has changed since the last full backup.
3. Incremental Backups – captures all data that has changed since the last non-full backup.

A weekly or bi-weekly full backup is the foundation of any good backup schedule. Add daily incremental or differential backups to capture any daily changes that occur between full backups. Adjust the backup schedule to suit the company environment.

A combination of the above strategies as a typical routine would be to run a full backup at the beginning of each week, and run a differential or incremental backup each day.

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