Iron Mountain Smart Sort

Solution Guides

As you accelerate digital transformation, you want to reduce cost and risk by destroying paper records that are no longer needed. Unfortunately, this is often not as simple as it sounds.

9 October 20206 mins
Iron Mountain employee pulling boxes

Achieve your information governance and business objectives with Smart Sort


Do you...

  • have a large volume of inherited records?
  • have trouble finding records when you need them?
  • want to relocate inventory but first need to destroy what you no longer need?
  • want to destroy records but can’t confidently isolate which ones are eligible without a substantial investment?
  • want to go paper free but find it difficult to make decisions about which records to digitise?
  • need to isolate records for a merger, acquisition or divestiture?

If you answered yes to and of the above questions, ask us about Iron Mountain Smart Sort.

Your challenge

You need to sort and reorganise your records inventory to make defensible decisions on disposition. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as it sounds.

What makes destroying records so complicated?

  • Lack of inventory integrity/visibility: When key metadata is not captured and listed throughout the information lifecycle, it is difficult to search, manage and make decisions on what records to retain, digitise, or destroy.
  • Commingled record types and event date complexity: Different record types have different requirements. If records are not organised according to record classification or event date, you can’t confidently and defensibly take action.
  • Reorganising records is labor intense and expensive: You lack the resources to sort each file by destruction eligibility date, record type, a unique identifier, or other requirement.

What this means?

  • Unnecessary cost: Large volumes of records without file-level metadata are stored without regard to destruction eligibility dates or record classification will impact your ability to effectively manage your program.
  • Increased risk Holding onto records longer than necessary increases the risk of information loss and regulatory violations. It also adds complexity to legal discovery, audit response and compliance management processes.
  • Lost productivity: Finding what you need and making quick decisions on records disposition requires a well organize inventory. Without an efficient process to sort and reorganise files, you could lose time and delay your critical objectives.

Smart sort enables you to make defensible decisions by sorting and reorganising records by:

Destruction date Sort and reorganise your records according to destruction eligibility year so that you can confidently destroy paper documents as they meet retention dates.

Category Initiatives, such as divestiture, require the need to isolate records in a short period of time. We will sort and reorganise your records according to record type, record status, unique identifier - or whatever you require.

Association If you do not require sorting and reorganising of your inventory, leverage Smart Sort to apply metadata to records at the file level so that you can avoid the high cost of manual file-level listing.

Our team can support you from Iron Mountain record centres or at your location. If you have records in-house or at an offsite storage facility, we can support your needs.


Want to learn more?

To learn more contact your Iron Mountain Account Manager directly or fill out this form including the words“Smart Sort” in comments section to request more information.

The Smart sort process enables automatic decision-making about how each file should be managed in order to meet the specific requirements of your organisation.

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