Filing plan. Legal, Technical, and Practical Issues

The new Guidelines on the creation, management, and preservation of digital documents, approved by the Italian Digital Agency (AgID) and effective as of January 1, 2022, place particular emphasis not on individual records, but rather on fundamental archival units and series.To adopt AgID’s terminology, the focus of document management and preservation has shifted to “records aggregations”, namely series and files, accompanied by all the relevant finding aid.Within public administrations, however, compliance can only be achieved following the preparation of the table of administrative procedures (along with related matters and activities). It is, indeed, essential to bear in mind that within the realm of administrative actions, four key regulatory frameworks converge: those concerning transparency, understood as total accessibility; the exercise of the right of access (to the file, rather than just individual documents); and, within the scope of digital administration, the digital file.This study, following an analysis of the current regulatory framework, aims to elucidate the drafting methodologies for the Filing Plan (the nomen juris prescribed in the Guidelines) and the associated metadata set. The underlying logic, accordingly, ensures continuity between the creation and preservation phases of records.