With the continuing problem of appropriately managing the electronic records throughout the enterprise, organizations need to review the processes by which records get declared.  Electronic records can exist virtually anywhere.  They can be stored in the file systems (network drives, laptops, etc.), email, document management systems, imaging systems, etc.  To attempt to resolve this issue and mitigate organizational risk, consideration needs to be given to integration of systems, business process review, training, and automation of declaration of records.  Realistically, the true solution relies on a combination of all of the above.  Declaration of items stored in the file system: In order to manage this appropriately, organizations need to consider not only how to get records declared from the file system, but also the prevailing reason that items get saved into the file system in the first place.  From a records management best practices perspective, documents stored on file systems represent a Pandora’s Box of risk. Inevitably, these items perpetuate themselves throughout the organization, outlive their appropriate retentions, and, as a result, are discoverable. To mitigate these risks, organizations should look to records policies and procedural training, limiting capabilities to file to file systems (implement document management systems), and leveraging existing technologies that can manage and move file system content based on file metadata to locations that can be managed by records systems. Declaration of Email: Managing emails as records is the 800 pound gorilla within any organization.  Many organizations are utilizing email archiving tools, but these tools typically do not include true records management 6 tools, such as a file plan hierarchy and subsequent support of a true retention schedule.  There are combined email archiving/records management solutions, which make the most sense, but there are also ways to manage these items via training and automated records declaration processing based on email metadata and content.  Similar to the items in the file systems, unmanaged emails can also lead to high risk situations. Declaration of items stored in a Document Management System: These items represent the easiest records to manage.  They represent working documents that have metadata and are stored in a single location.  A subset of items stored in a document management system can likely have an automated declaration process associated with them as, potentially, the metadata within the document management system can be utilized to discern where in the file plan the document should be declared.  From a manual declaration process, this is also streamlined as much, if not all, of the document metadata can be mapped to a records management system, to minimize the declaration effort.  Most important, though, is a records solution that manages items declared from document management systems in-place, in their source repositories, so no additional copies reside elsewhere, or are moved in any way. Declaration of scanned images : Scanned images represent items that are typically stored either directly on file systems, within document management systems, and/or within records management systems.  As a result, business processes need to support the minimizing the number of copies of images stored within an organization, as well as the formalization of how a subset of those items may be become records.  Perhaps the most important issue is to ensure that finalized items, excepting those that are on hold, stored throughout the organization do not reside on any storage device for any longer than the shortest retention period assigned within the records system.  This is the primary organizational risk mitigation strategy.