Perhaps we should use the tools differently? For example, if I working on a project, I create a project space which has a disposition, and carries certain metadata about it contents, and who created it, etc. In this space I can send and receive emails, create other documents, invite others into the space to work on documents, etc. All the emails are captured and there is an audit log of other work. I don’t have to drag and drop into a records/document management system, go save as, etc. The tools like email work from within the space. Once the matter is finished, the space can be archived for a specific period or permanently archived. The workspace about a particular matter is the core record.
Hi Vivienne, channeling email communication through a record system does work, and that is the situation you describe with your project spaces, which sound like they work very well indeed.
If email is channeled through individual email accounts in an email environment then the email environment becomes a de facto record system, and it is very hard to find ways of moving correspondence consistently into any other record system.
Thinking Records 
Maybe never!
Perhaps we should use the tools differently? For example, if I working on a project, I create a project space which has a disposition, and carries certain metadata about it contents, and who created it, etc. In this space I can send and receive emails, create other documents, invite others into the space to work on documents, etc. All the emails are captured and there is an audit log of other work. I don’t have to drag and drop into a records/document management system, go save as, etc. The tools like email work from within the space. Once the matter is finished, the space can be archived for a specific period or permanently archived. The workspace about a particular matter is the core record.
Hi Vivienne, channeling email communication through a record system does work, and that is the situation you describe with your project spaces, which sound like they work very well indeed.
If email is channeled through individual email accounts in an email environment then the email environment becomes a de facto record system, and it is very hard to find ways of moving correspondence consistently into any other record system.