Overview
Records management is often treated as a filing problem, but a record is evidence: of a decision, a transaction, a commitment, or an event. If records are incomplete, unfindable, incorrectly changed, or destroyed at the wrong time, an organisation cannot confidently defend a decision, respond to a regulator, answer an information request, or prove that it followed its own process.
This course teaches the discipline first, then applies it practically inside Microsoft SharePoint. Day 1 establishes the principles, legal context, and file-plan thinking. Day 2 shows how SharePoint functionality can be used to structure, classify, protect, find, review, and manage records without making separate compliance-portal configuration the centre of the training.
Important positioning: SharePoint functionality can strongly support a records-management programme, especially through libraries, metadata, content types, versioning, permissions, content approval, search, and legacy information-management features. It does not replace the need for a legally reviewed retention schedule, defined accountability, and formal governance. In SharePoint for Microsoft 365, Microsoft recommends modern Microsoft 365 compliance solutions for formal retention and records management; this course keeps the learner experience SharePoint-focused and treats legacy SharePoint-only retention capabilities with caution. Why Should an Individual Attend?
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Reduce compliance and legal risk by understanding South African records management requirements, including POPIA and National Archives obligations.
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Improve audit readiness with practical techniques for organising, managing, and retrieving records quickly and confidently.
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Protect sensitive information through better retention, disposal, and information governance practices.
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Boost operational efficiency by reducing time spent searching for documents and clarifying what should be kept, archived, or disposed of.
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Build a defensible records management framework that supports governance, accountability, and business continuity.
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Gain practical tools and templates to immediately improve records management processes within your department or organisation.
Outcomes
On completion of this course, delegates will be able to:
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Identify and classify records correctly, distinguishing records from documents, data, and working materials.
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Apply legal and regulatory requirements relating to records retention, disposal, privacy, and compliance in South Africa.
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Develop effective file plans and retention schedules that support business, operational, and governance objectives.
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Implement records lifecycle controls to ensure information remains reliable, accessible, and legally defensible.
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Establish clear ownership and accountability for records management responsibilities across business and IT functions.
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Strengthen organisational governance and audit preparedness through improved recordkeeping practices and faster evidence retrieval.
Program Outline
Principles, Governance & the Legal Framework
Day 1 deliberately avoids opening SharePoint immediately. SharePoint can only support records management when the underlying discipline is clear: what a record is, what the law expects, who is accountable, and how the file plan should be structured.
Module 1: What Records Management Actually Is (and Is Not)
This module builds the vocabulary and judgement needed for the rest of the course.
What you will need: discussion materials, a departmental examples list, and any existing retention schedule or policy.
Topics We Will Cover
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Records vs documents vs data: a record is evidence of business activity, decision or transaction, and is expected to remain trustworthy once created.
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The four qualities of an authoritative record: authenticity, reliability, integrity and usability.
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The records lifecycle: creation, active use, reference, retention, disposition or archival preservation.
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Archives vs records management: active business control versus enduring historical, legal or evidential preservation.
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Risk of poor records management: weak audit defence, slow evidence retrieval, privacy exposure and wasted staff time.
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Exercise: classify ten items from participants own work as record, not yet a record, or not a record.
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Module 2: The Legal& Regulatory Landscape in South Africa
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This module explains why records management is a compliance discipline, not only an administrative preference.
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What you will need: discussion materials, a departmental examples list, and any existing retention schedule or policy.
Topics We Will Cover
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National Archives and Records Service of South Africa Act 43 of 1996: public bodies must manage public records under a formal legal framework.
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Disposal of public records requires written authorisation where the Act applies.
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POPIA Section 14: personal information should not be retained longer than necessary unless a lawful retention ground applies.
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When retention ends, personal information must be destroyed, deleted or de-identified unless a lawful basis remains.
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Sector-specific rules must be added to the retention schedule by legal, compliance or subject-matter experts.
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Exercise: identify records in participants departments that probably contain personal information and need retention justification.
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Module 3: Designing a File Plan and Retention Schedule
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A file plan is the structural backbone that the SharePoint design will be built against on Day two.
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What you will need: discussion materials, a departmental examples list, and any existing retention schedule or policy.
Topics We Will Cover
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What a file plan contains: record category, sub-category, owner, retention trigger, retention period, disposal action and authority.
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Useful descriptors: business function, department, policy or legal authority, citation, owner and internal reference ID.
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Retention triggers: created date, modified date, approval date, project closure, contract end, employee exit or another event.
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Disposition choices: retain, review, destroy, transfer to archive, de-identify or escalate for legal/compliance review.
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Records and non-records in the same information environment: low-risk working documents and official records need different control levels.
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Workshop: map departmental record types to a draft file-plan table without guessing unresolved legal retention periods.
Module 4: Records, Final Versions and Responsibility
This module closes Day 1 by clarifying when a document becomes a final record and who owns the programme.
What you will need: discussion materials, a departmental examples list, and any existing retention schedule or policy.
Topics We Will Cover
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Drafts vs approved records: SharePoint should help users distinguish working drafts from approved evidence.
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Finalisation controls: approval status, version history, check-out/check-in and read-only libraries can help protect final records.
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Records manager / records officer responsibility: file-plan ownership, training, monitoring, exception handling and periodic review.
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IT and SharePoint administrator responsibility: site provisioning, permissions, configuration, search, backup and technical support.
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General staff responsibility: filing correctly, completing metadata, using approved libraries and not bypassing controls.
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Reality check: if a regulator asked for all records of a transaction type from the last five years, how quickly and confidently could we produce them?
Who Should Attend?
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Engineers
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Technicians
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Technologist
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Project / Construction Managers
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Contractors / Subcontractors
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Others in the Built Environment
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Executives / Senior Management
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Middle Management
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Administrators / Support Staff
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Others: Anyone wanting to learn best practices for document management, version control and knowledge sharing within Sharepoint.
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