iManage has announced the opening of an R&D and support centre in Belfast, Ireland, focused on records management, information governance and security issues as they pertain to professionals and their management of work product.

The emphasis of the new centre will be on expansion and enhancement of iManage Govern, the company’s flagship governance software available as a cloud service or an on-premises installation. iManage Govern includes iManage Records Manager for paper and electronic records management, and iManage Archive Manager for long-term storage and governance of professional work product.

In conjunction with this announcement, iManage also announced the availability of iManage Records Manager 6.3, a product update that adds more than 60 enhancements designed to simplify everyday tasks, improve accountability, and provide users with greater insights that help productivity and staff allocation. One of the most important additions to this member of the iManage Govern product family is the new disposition feature that automates and enriches compliance when files are deleted, released to clients or transferred to other firms.  

As files are disposed of by records staff, users may track both the reason for disposition and the actual approvers. For example, if files are released to the clients, transferred to another firm or destroyed according to a court order, notes may now be added to each file to reflect these specific instructions. In addition, iManage sells a separate module that further streamlines disposition with workflows for notifications, selection, approvals, and processing of matters and files eligible for a particular stage of disposition.

Records Manager 6.3 also enables statistical reports and searching, which provide records managers with complete visibility into activities by individual users and can assist in improving staff allocation and delivering greater insights into productivity.

Other enhancements include:

• File label queue assignment by groups to support easier maintenance of label production
• Client- and matter-level security can be exposed in the file label queue to provide records managers with insights into special security related to the files
• Improved filtering on legal holds for easy identification of items under a specific hold
• More details included about audit trails for greater accuracy
• Improved selection and batch processing capabilities