[Dossier] What standards should i look for in my EDM system?
Published on 20 April 2017
When a business moves towards digitalization, the most common recourse is to use an Electronic Document Management (EDM) solution. While these solutions can usually provide everything you need in terms of general digital document use, they cannot usually guarantee the probative value of archived documents. In short, any chosen solution needs to be able to provide the complete life cycle of a digital document, including probative archiving or record-keeping, accessibility to all documents, traceability, as well as the continuity and integrity of each document starting from its creation and through the end of the legal period of conservation. There are several SaaS EDM solutions available on the market at this time, but the challenges of maintaining a compliant archive can only be managed when coupling two specific platforms together: Electronic Archiving System (EAS) and Digital Safe software.
The main archiving standards
Maintaining archiving compliance is an ongoing complex challenge due to the constant evolution of document formats, compatibility issues, as well as the continuity of physical conservation mediums. The best way to approach compliant digital archiving is to therefore avoid proprietary solutions and to only use tools that respect all of the necessary standards in place. Usage of these solutions that consider all standards of compliance will ensure the possibility of future maintenance as well as interoperability between different solutions.
These standards are born from different areas of EAS and Digital Safe technologies, and are completed by the use of metadata, electronic signature technologies, interoperability, and electronic time stamping. In France today, the following principal standards are used to ensure complete compliance: NF Z42-020 2012, ISO 1 4721 or NF 42-013 2009, ISO 1 4721:2003 OAIS (Open Archival Information System), ISO 1 5836 (Dublin Core standard), RFC 3161 IETF, CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services).
In France, the Fédération Nationale des Tiers de Confiance (National Federation of Trusted Third Parties) is the main reference when it comes to compliant digital archiving. Their role is to promote different methods and technologies to help guarantee digital confidence, all the while helping companies ensure that their digital documents are compliant and can be used as admissible proof.
