Records Management Template for Product Managers

Archiving moves a record to a lower-cost, lower-access storage tier where it can still be retrieved if needed (e.g., for legal discovery or audit purposes). Deleting permanently removes the record and makes it unrecoverable. Use archiving for records that have regulatory or legal retention requirements. Use deletion for records that have no further value and pose a liability risk if retained.

Treat Slack messages and emails as transient communications, not records of decision. If a decision or approval happens in Slack, the responsible person should capture it in the canonical record system (e.g., a decision log in Notion) within 24 hours. Slack history and email archives should not be your primary records storage because they are not classified, access-controlled, or retention-managed.

Records containing PII (customer names, emails, usage data, interview recordings) need Confidential or Restricted classification. They must follow your data retention policy and be included in your data subject access request (DSAR) process. When the retention period expires, ensure personal data is either deleted or anonymized, not just archived.

Before migrating, use your records inventory to decide what to bring forward. Migrate active records and records within their retention period. Do not migrate records that have exceeded their retention period. After migration, update the storage locations in your records inventory and verify access controls are correctly configured in the new tool.

The record owner (defined by role in the inventory) is responsible for ensuring records of their type are created, stored correctly, and disposed of on schedule. The program owner is responsible for the overall framework: conducting reviews, updating the inventory, and ensuring compliance. In practice, this works best when it is part of a product operations role.