The initialism EDRMS stands for Electronic Document and Records Management System. It describes the combined technologies of an Electronic document management system and an Electronic Records Management System as a complete integrated system.

The aim of EDRMS

An EDRMS aims to enable businesses to manage documents throughout the life cycle of those documents, from creation to destruction.

Typically, systems consider a document a work-in-progress until it has undergone review, approval, lock-down and (potentially) publication, at which point it becomes a formal record within the organization.

Once a document achieves the status of a record, the organization may apply best-practice or legally enforced retention policies which state how the second half of the life cycle will progress. This typically involves retention (and protection from change), until some events occur which relate to the record and which trigger the final disposition schedule to apply to the record. Eventually, typically a set time after these events, the record undergoes destruction.

EDRMS software

A range of software vendors offer these systems at an enterprise level (i.e. targeted at managing all documents and records within an enterprise).

These vendors have historically provided Electronic document management systems and have acquired smaller Records Management System companies. The seamlessness of the integration and the original intention of the records-management component to manage electronic records typically sets the complexity of deploying and potentially of using the final system.

Associated technologies

• Business Process Management (BPM)
• Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
• Scanning
• Web content management (WCM)

Professional organisations

Professional organizations for documents and records include:

• The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM)
• The Association of Records Managers and Administrators (ARMA International)
• Records Management Society (RMS)