Instead of always moving through their life-cycles in a perfectly linear order, external events often occur that change how a record should be dealt with. For example, in many cases criminal records for juveniles must be retained for X years, or until the juvenile turns 18. In this scenario, records have two possible retention schedules, depending on whether an external event (the juvenile’s 18th birthday) takes place. A records management system must be flexible enough to take into account this type of either/or logic. Versions 7.2 or later of Laserfiche Records Management Edition (RME) are able to do just that.
When creating a retention schedule in the Laserfiche Administration console, select the Alternate Instructions tab, where you can define an external event and an alternate retention schedule (the alternate retention schedule must already be created).
During a record’s life-cycle, if you specify that an alternate event has taken place, Laserfiche will use the alternate retention schedule for the record in question.
To specify that an alternate event has taken place, select a record folder in the Laserfiche Client, select the Records drop-down item in the menu bar, and select Record Management. In the Record Management dialog box, select the Alt. Retention node, then click Set Event. Define a date for the event. This will trigger the alternate retention schedule to take effect.
Note: Setting an alternate event date changes a record’s final disposition eligibility, but has no effect on a record’s cutoff eligibility. You can define an alternate event date before a record is cutoff or after.
This example points to the overall flexibility that RME provides when dealing with records that have complex life-cycles.
