>
>I am looking for a listing of key records and document management
>requirements a system must have  to support the a records management
>program.
>
>Does anyone have requirements matrix or know where I can get one?
>
>Regards,
>

I've read all of the replies to this with great interest and while
DOD5015.2, VERS, MoReq and others may tell you the minimum criteria an
application must meet to be certified by those documents to achieve certain
things, those may all be relatively meaningless to any one specific
installation.

The only thing that really means anything IS IF THE APPLICATION meets YOUR
specific requirements, and the only way to determine that is to perform a
functional needs assessment of the organization for which the application is
being deployed.  

Each organization has individual needs for an information management
application, and some functions may be much more critical to your success
than others.  For that reason, you need to determine from the end users the
requirements to suit your needs first, assign a weighting to each of these,
then develop a matrix to evaluate available offerings against.  You also
need to establish the capabilities of your information architecture to see
what it can handle, and where upgrades may need to be made if you select
some applications. This is the only way to successfully identify the system
that is right for each deployment.

Each of the documents mentioned is a design criteria document, intended to
determine which functions an application can perform... it doesn't determine
which performs it most efficiently or effectively, just that it can do it. 
One may take 5 steps or clicks, the other may take 15, but that isn't
reflected in the results.  

If there are certain must have functions critical to your organization, its
important to evaluate the applications to determine how easily and well they
perform these functions, and that the application performs them in its
native state, not requiring the use of  3rd party add-ons or modules.  This
avoids potential problems later when upgrades occur and modules or add-ons
lag behind and you may lose critical functionality until they catch up.

There really is no "one size fits all" when it comes to these products, and
while these criteria documents tell you the systems meet THEIR criteria for
certification, they still may not do what you need them to do as well as you
need it done.  The worst possible scenario is to throw a 'solution' at an
under evaluated problem.  

My best friend bought a car, and he said it was a great car, but he doesn't
have two kids and a wife who is vertically challenged, so when we looked at
the same car that he certified, it didn't work for us... this is no
different, except for the cost and the number of passengers.

Larry
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