Iron Mountain launches online records management portal
~ Iron Mountain Connect provides single entry point for record keeping, reporting and industry resources ~

December 3, 2006 - Iron Mountain, the global leader in information protection and storage services, is launching its Iron Mountain Connect ™ customer portal in the UK. Unique to the information storage industry, Iron Mountain Connect is designed to help customers manage a formal records management programme for the paper records held in Iron Mountain's centres, via a web portal.

The need to provide a clear, comprehensive view of all stored records, as well as ensuring secure access to this information, is being driven by legislation such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act and MiFID Directive. This is in addition to the everyday requirement from departments within the organisation, to source information as and when requested.

Iron Mountain Connect is a secure password-protected portal, housing everything an organisation needs to construct and manage a complete records management programme, which takes documents from archiving, to destruction. There are two sections within the Iron Mountain Connect portal, a records centre and a full set of reporting tools, including a full transaction history for each record as well as activity, inventory and financial overviews. Training modules and access to industry resources are also provided to ensure users have the most up-to-date information about regulation and best practices for record keeping compliance.

The portal's records centre has comprehensive search capabilities, which allow users to locate files stored at Iron Mountain's off-site records centres, and request the retrieval or destruction of files or boxes. Organisations using the records centre functionality have the ability to grant varying privileges to users to ensure maximum security for stored records. The administrator decides who has access to which files, providing a clear audit trail of who has ordered boxes to be retrieved or destroyed. All users have access to 24/7 support should they have any queries.

The portal already has over 35,000 unique users in the US, where the service was first launched. Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) in the UK has been trialing the solution, with excellent results.

Mike Kaye, Departmental Record Officer at Defra commented, "Iron Mountain Connect is intuitive, fast and provides reliable search results with a substantial amount of valuable business information displayed on individual file series. Everyone in the Defra Records Team has welcomed the benefits of Iron Mountain Connect; the task of ordering/retrieving files is much more in line with the best internet shopping packages, and the time needed for training is minimal."

The Iron Mountain Connect portal was developed in response to customer needs. The increasing pressure of regulatory compliance across all industry sectors means that organisations need a more flexible approach to records management, without losing the security of outsourcing to an expert.

Iron Mountain Connect gives companies a single point of entry for all stored files with total visibility of all transactions, and the ability to access information when required, while retaining a strict retention schedule so that only essential files are kept.