Manual for the Design and Implementation of Recordkeeping Systems (dirks)

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Tip: What about big, complex systems?
Tip: Use OIT guidance

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Assessing and documenting systems

Overview

How is the analysis performed?

Tools to facilitate system assessment

Sample system assessment

Case studies and tips

Prepare a report

Overview

This section outlines the ways in which you can perform system analysis. It also provides examples of system analysis that can be used to guide your own assessment exercises.

How is the analysis performed?

Assessing systems in your department/section is best achieved by approaching each system with a specific set of questions in mind. These questions should relate to:

the recordkeeping requirements this system should meet
the recordkeeping functionality it should employ, and
any other relevant issues you've identified in the course of your Step A-C analysis.

It is likely that a number of these questions will be standard across the types of systems you assess, while those relating to recordkeeping requirements will of course change from system to system.

You may also want to prioritize responses. That is, you may want to say that a system is 'poor', 'inadequate', 'adequate' or 'good' when it comes to meeting requirements. Make comments or notes as you go. This will simplify your reporting down the track.

^ Tip: What about big, complex systems?

You may have large systems that perform a range of activities for your department/section. The analysis of this type of system is necessarily more complex than simple systems that only administer one discrete transaction.

In complex systems you should first identify the range of different activities and transactions they support. Assess the performance of each of these individually, to help avoid confusion. Document your analysis well, clearly differentiating between transactions, to provide a good basis to your final recommendations.

Tools to facilitate system assessment

System inventory

If you are assessing all systems that need to function as recordkeeping systems, or if you are examining a number of systems that are used to conduct a specific business activity, it can be useful to prepare a system inventory to help guide your assessment. A system inventory can just be a simple list of systems, or it can be a document that identifies your systems and provides you with a comprehensive overview of their functionality.

^ Tip: Use OIT guidance

The NSW (Australia) Office of Information Technology has developed an ссылка скрыта that explains how to compile a physical inventory and produce an 'information directory' of an organization. The guideline describes how to plan, perform and document the inventory. Attributes for each collection of information are listed as part of the inventory, including the type, source and custodian.

If you have completed Step A: Preliminary investigation, you may have already prepared a basic system inventory, when undertaking a broad assessment of your department/section and its operations. See Focus of Step A assessment for more advice.

Template for system assessment

A template for system assessment is a tool that outlines the specific questions or issues you want to know or identify about the specific systems you are assessing.

Developing a template to guide your system assessment will give structure to your system examination and will also help you to document your assessment. If you know your assessment is going to involve more than one system, the template is also a means of ensuring you apply a consistent approach to each individual assessment you conduct.

A template may include a range of fields that should be very specific to the needs of your department/section. A range of generic fields could include:

name of system
function/activity performed or supported by system
transactions performed within system
recordkeeping requirements system is subject to
location of system
system administrator
identified system risks
size of system
system controls/business rules implemented
system users - number and location (business unit, external users)
system interfaces - is the technology employed stand-alone or linked to other applications
type of data stored within system
frequency with which the information is collected/stored, accessed/used/disposed
business rules are employed within the system
metadata employed
identified constraints or problems affecting system use
physical form of information within system
physical location of system and the information it contains
budget allocation used for collection/storage/access/use/disposal of information within the system
privacy management implications of information within the system
standards applicable to the system
how are records created in the system?
how are they described?
how are they used?
how are they maintained? [7]

Please note that this list provides a very extensive range of issues, templates you develop need not be so extensive.

You should also include fields that enable you to test the specific recordkeeping requirements you have developed for the system. The list of questions or the template you develop can be as large or small as is appropriate to your requirements.

Response form for system assessment

Based on the system assessment template you develop, you should consider a means of documenting the systems you assess. This form will need to note the variety of questions you've asked about a system, and flag your responses to these questions.

Note that in your response form you will possibly want to leave space to make notes about the 'gaps' that your system assessment has identified. Please see the sample system assessment below for more information.

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