Patent ID: 7856436

Claim:
A dynamic method for withholding certain records in a records management system from a disposition comprising: receiving, with a processing system having computer-readable storage media, search criteria that identifies records that should be withheld from the disposition, wherein a type of the disposition comprises one of destruction, transfer, review, and archiving of the records, wherein the records that should be withheld from the disposition are records that are not disposed of in accordance with the disposition, wherein a search criterion is provided for each type of disposition; storing multiple search criteria records by storing each search criterion and the disposition in one search criteria record; receiving record data comprising at least one of the content of records and information describing the records, wherein each of the records includes a hold status field that indicates, for each type of disposition, an indication of whether the type of disposition is on hold, wherein the type of disposition is one of destruction, transfer, review, and archiving, wherein the indication indicates whether to hold destruction of the record, whether to hold transfer of the record, whether to hold review of the record, and whether to hold archiving of the record; storing the record data; comparing the record data with a first search criterion of the search criteria in accordance with a pre-determined schedule to determine which of the records should be withheld from a first disposition, wherein the first search criterion includes user-entered search criterion for locating record data that is to be withheld from the first disposition based on at least one of the information describing the records, the content of the records, and files to which the content of the records point; marking the record data to identify the records that should be withheld from the first disposition based on the comparing by updating hold status fields of the determined records to indicate that these records are to be withheld from the first disposition stored with the first search criterion; receiving a second search criterion of the search criteria; storing the second search criterion; and comparing the record data with the first search criterion and the second search criterion in accordance with the pre-determined schedule to determine which of the records should be withheld from the first disposition or a second disposition.