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8. Details of Individual Metadata Elements
8.11 Approved Date
Attributes
Attribute
Value
Identifying Attributes
Name
dateApproved
Label
Approved Date
Defined by
Government of Canada Records Management Metadata Standard - dateApproved
Element URI
[To be actioned by Treasury Board of Canada, Secretariat before publication]
Definitional Attributes
Definition
The date when the content was approved.
Purpose
To indicate that the record has been approved on a particular date.
Rationale
"An authentic record is one that can be proven a) to be what it purports to be…" ISO International Standard 15489-1, s. 7.2.2
"A reliable record is one whose contents can be trusted as a full and accurate representation of the transactions, activities or facts to which they attest and can be depended upon in the course of subsequent transactions or activities." ISO International Standard 15489-1, s.. 7.2.3
Value Domain
A range of dates expressed using the Gregorian calendar.
Datatype Name
Date
Constraint
Applicable at record level only.
Obligation
Optional at record level.
Relational Attributes
Encoding Scheme
ISO International Standard 8601 [W3CDTF] as adopted by TBITS 39: Treasury Board Information Management Standard, Part 1: Government On-Line Metadata Standard
References
Linkages
Approved By
Conditions of Application - Record
Format
YYYY-MM-DD
Modifiable
Pre Record Declared Locked
Post Record Declared Locked
No
No
Occurrence
Repeatable
Conditions of Application - File
Format
-
Modifiable
-
Occurrence
-
Comments and Guidance
a) Explanation of Definition/Usage
This element is intended to record the date that a record has been approved. As with the Approved By element, this element can have multiple entries.
This element is not to be confused with Event Date/Time which logs the date and time when a records management action was performed on a record or file and which is in most cases system generated.
b) Best Practices
Recommended best practice is to format the value for this element as YYYY-MM-DD.
Once a value is input, it is not modifiable in order to preserve the audit trail of when the record was approved.
c) Obligation
This element is deemed optional because it is not a core records management function and is not specifically required by ISO standards.
d) Default Values/Auto-populate
The value for this date element cannot be auto-populated because creation or modification of the profile can (and often will) be done at a date subsequent to the actual granting of approval. And it cannot be defaulted as no one date would be appropriate. But given the small number of documents that require official approval, supplying a value will be unmanageable.
e) Linkages
This element is intrinsically linked to Approved By. There are no other linkages, because it does not affect any other element and is not affected by any other element.
f) Examples
- "2005-11-29" - A record is declared and submitted for approval in May of 2005. Six months later, approval is granted to the creator via an e-mail. The Creator contacts their records management representative and requests an update to the profile to complete the Approved By element and the Approval Date. The records management representative updates the element with the actual date of approval.
- "2005-11-29", "2005-12-05" - A record is submitted to a manager for approval and is accepted. The Approved By element is updated in the profile. At the same time, the Approved Date is updated for this approval. The record is then submitted to a director for further approval. Upon acceptance, the profile is updated with a second Approved By element and a second Approval Date. This can repeat until all appropriate approvals have been received.
