Information governance and records retention are pressing challenges for every organization. No matter what industry sector you are in or how large your enterprise is, regulatory compliance, data privacy and intelligent information management are C-suite concerns for all organizations. This is especially true for companies in information-intensive fields such as banking and financial services, pharma, and healthcare.

At the same time, organizations must also be able to preserve and present information when relevant for litigation and audit. Non-compliance or an inability to produce the requested materials in a timely manner could result in hefty fines and costly discovery fees. This is not to mention the amount of effort and investment required during an eDiscovery process to search for all related data across the enterprise.

If that wasn’t enough, data breaches and cyber-theft are at an all-time high. It seems as if there is another massive data breach every week. Experts tell us that it’s not a matter of if, but of when, your organization will suffer a breach. As a result, organizations are being compelled to take a hard look at their information stores and often reevaluate their retention policies to ensure they are using the latest best practices to protect the privacy and integrity of their data.

How can you gain control? We are proud to announce the release of Versatile Retention Software-as-a-Service, also known as VR SaaS, a complete retention schedule management and compliance research solution that gives organizations complete control over their information governance and data compliance efforts.

Download the VR SaaS Solution Brief here.

For years, users have relied on Versatile Retention as the most robust retention schedule solution available on the market. Now VR SaaS provides a cloud-based deployment model of this innovative software in addition to a number of new and important expanded capabilities and features.

• Comprehensive research and automatic updates for over 130 countries worldwide.
• Cloud-based control over retention schedules with complete change management workflow.
• Secure reporting and audit history for all schedule changes and security controls.
• System integration with other commonly used business information databases as well as popular online content repository services.
• Intuitive search engine for a comprehensive search for citations and up-to-date research on any country at any time.

“It can be a burden to find, understand and comply with the many laws regarding records retention and information governance, especially if your organization works across international boundaries and regions,” says Warren Bean, Senior Sales Engineer at Zasio. “We’ve made using Versatile Retention even easier because there is nothing to install, and it is accessible from any mobile device with an internet connection.”

View a 1 minute explainer video of VR SaaS.

For more information or to schedule a demo, please contact Zasio at 1-800-513-1000, opt. 1 or email sales at sales@zasio.com.

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This research was performed for Consulting clients and Versatile Retention (VR) software subscribers in a wide range of industries, including financial institutions, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals.

Internationally, we added over 11,000 citations and updated nearly 4,000. Domestically, we added nearly 3,000 citations and updated 2,000. A significant portion were added because of expanding subscription jurisdictions.

The EU adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation 2016/679) becomes effective later this year, so it’s especially important to stay up-to-date on laws evolving around this Regulation.

VR clients can stay current with all the latest changes to recordkeeping and handling laws by running searches in the Research “Advanced mode” tab and selecting “Date Updated” to limit results customizable date ranges.

Contact us today to see how our records retention solutions and consulting services can help you stay complaint with your data retention policies and practices.

Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is to provide general education on Information Governance topics. The statements are informational only and do not constitute legal advice. If you have specific questions regarding the application of the law to your business activities, you should seek the advice of your legal counsel.

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As Zasio Software Support Specialists, our goal is to always respond to the support needs of our customers in a friendly, timely, and professional manner. The records management and retention scheduling software and Information Governance consulting services we offer are second to none, which demands our customer support be top notch as well.

So, what does a typical day in the life of a Zasio Software Support Specialist involve? Here are the highlights of what we do each day to take care of our awesome customers:

• Product Support: Our Versatile applications are installed and used in about as many ways as the hundreds of customers that use them. Our highest priority throughout the day is to respond to support calls and e-mails to resolve issues that affect production systems. This includes more than just troubleshooting application errors. We also answer questions about application capabilities, assist with installation and configuration, help with custom report design, and provide recommendations on how to effectively and efficiently use Versatile applications. To ensure we find the best solution, we always strive to understand the issue a customer has or the business need they want to meet.
• Customer Projects: When we aren’t responding to support requests, we turn our attention to customer projects. Projects include data migrations, application customizations, advanced report design, or product integration. Basically, any work our customer requests that requires more time than we can perform during a typical support call.
• Training Sessions: The Versatile product user manuals are very detailed. They explain all the capabilities of the software and how to use it. For new or existing customers that want a more interactive option, we provide remote or onsite training. To train, we use the customer’s own Versatile product implementation, which allows us to focus on their specific needs and usage scenarios.
• Product Development & Testing: Because of the regular interaction we have with our customers, we can provide valuable feedback and feature requests to our software developers. This helps the development team make Versatile products better with each new release. This also ensures any “bugs” that may be found in a current release are resolved. Before new products or upgrades to current products are made available to our customers, we thoroughly test them to make sure there are no significant issues we need to address.
• Documentation Review: Our very talented technical writing staff writes all the Versatile software documentation in-house. As Software Support Specialists, we provide input on the more technical (nerdy) details of installing and configuring the products. We also review each product guide in detail, test each instruction, validate each image, and do all we can to make sure our product documentation is as accurate, thorough, and easy to use as possible.

So, what’s a day like in the life of a Zasio Software Support Specialist?  It’s never dull, always an adventure, and simply put: IT’S AWESOME!!

Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is to provide general education on Information Governance topics. The statements are informational only and do not constitute legal advice. If you have specific questions regarding the application of the law to your business activities, you should seek the advice of your legal counsel.

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To briefly explain our methodology, Zasio takes each individual recordkeeping or records handling requirement and groups it into a citation by similar subject matter and/or retention period/handling requirement type. For example, if a law has requirements to keep accounting records for 3 years and human resource records for 5 years, Zasio captures these in two separate citations, one for each subject and retention period. This often results in creating multiple citations per law or regulation and provides enough granularity to allow citations to be accurately linked to individual record codes that exist in client records retention schedules.

Internationally, we added over 4,000 citations and updated over 5,500. Domestically, we added over 6,500 citations and updated over 5,500. Many of the new citations were added because we captured new laws that were enacted, but a significant portion were added because we are constantly expanding our jurisdictional scope and the industries we research. In addition, we have greatly expanded the types of recordkeeping handling requirements we capture.

Historically, most of the international research we conducted has been for custom research projects for our Consulting clients. However, in 2016 we also expanded our VR subscription offerings, which previously included the US and Canada, to now include Mexico. One of our goals for 2017 is to continue to expand our subscription offerings into Australia and Europe.

Overall, one of the biggest areas of growth in recordkeeping and handling law in 2016 related to regulations about personally identifiable information (PII). The EU adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation 2016/679), which does not become effective for two years. However, to prepare for the new law, at least a few EU countries have started revising their PII laws. One example, France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL), has amended and updated several laws in anticipation of the new EU regulation, including their requirements on biometric authorizations. It’s likely that as EU countries prepare for the new GDPR regulation we will see changes and additions to the PII recordkeeping and handling requirements. 

VR clients can stay current with all of the latest changes to recordkeeping and handling laws by running searches in the Research “Advanced mode” tab and selecting “Date Updated” to limit results to a number of customizable date ranges.

Contact Zasio today to see how our records retention solutions and consulting services can help you stay complaint with your data retention policies and practices.

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