The DoD standard does not mandate three levels specifically. It has 3 file plan components as Mike correctly states, Series, Category and Folder. However it does not allow for nesting of Series or Category, i.e. it does not allow a category within a category. It does not prevent adding additional folder levels, this would an implementation decision. Hence you may find that some systems allow this. One of the problems with existing records managment systems is the complexity - we wanted to keep things simple - at least to begin with. Based on feedback we'll review how we can best change this going forward.
Underneath the covers each of these file plan components is simply an aggregation object, so the restriction is not hard-baked - we can add additional levels later.
Just some notes on the discussion about standards and the implementation.
With DoD the disposal schedule is held at the category level, this is the reason I think that nesting categories is not allowed. Does not mean that it can't be handled, MoReq2 allows for nested disposal schedules, but implementing and testing this becomes far more complex.
MoReq has a classification scheme (file plan) which can be any depth, but you still cannot nest folders (called files in MoReq2 - just to confuse
), the nesting is at the higher (class) level. There are various rules about files in classes, etc. MoReq2 also supports the notion of sub-files, but these also have restrictions, if you have sub-files all records need to go into the sub-files at a particular level.
Implementing some of this can be difficult, but it makes even more complex for users to understand. Take the simple example of adding nested folders to the existing Alfresco implementation, currently the implementation supports operational actions at the folder level, things such as close, cutoff, re-open, un-cutoff, freeze, transfer, unfreeze, etc. If these operations could be done on nested folders, then it becomes complex for a records manager to work out what is happening to sub-folders with these types of operations. We just need to work out a way of allowing this, which is simple enough for records managers to understand, yet powerful enough to be useful.
Once categories (nested tags) becomes available in Share you may be able to do what you want with those, I think categories will appear before nested folders.
Underneath the covers each of these file plan components is simply an aggregation object, so the restriction is not hard-baked - we can add additional levels later.
Just some notes on the discussion about standards and the implementation.
With DoD the disposal schedule is held at the category level, this is the reason I think that nesting categories is not allowed. Does not mean that it can't be handled, MoReq2 allows for nested disposal schedules, but implementing and testing this becomes far more complex.
MoReq has a classification scheme (file plan) which can be any depth, but you still cannot nest folders (called files in MoReq2 - just to confuse
), the nesting is at the higher (class) level. There are various rules about files in classes, etc. MoReq2 also supports the notion of sub-files, but these also have restrictions, if you have sub-files all records need to go into the sub-files at a particular level.Implementing some of this can be difficult, but it makes even more complex for users to understand. Take the simple example of adding nested folders to the existing Alfresco implementation, currently the implementation supports operational actions at the folder level, things such as close, cutoff, re-open, un-cutoff, freeze, transfer, unfreeze, etc. If these operations could be done on nested folders, then it becomes complex for a records manager to work out what is happening to sub-folders with these types of operations. We just need to work out a way of allowing this, which is simple enough for records managers to understand, yet powerful enough to be useful.
Once categories (nested tags) becomes available in Share you may be able to do what you want with those, I think categories will appear before nested folders.
