[IARA - State Agency Records Managers] Monthly Bulletin and Chat Invitation, March 2022
Indiana Archives and Records Administration sent this bulletin at 03/11/2022 12:48 PM EST
🍀☘️ Happy March, Agency Records Managers! ☘️🍀
Welcome to the month where if you're me and you wear purple all the time, you have to get ...creative...when March 17th rolls around. (Achievement unlocked: shamrock earrings.)
Last Month's Chat
On MS Teams, we had our second Records Managers Chat of the new year on February 24th. Attending from IARA were Jackie Swihart (Deputy Director for Forms Management, Imaging, and the Records Center), Samantha Putnam (Records Center Director), Jeannine Roe (Electronic Records Archivist), Amy Christiansen (Records Management Liaison for County and Local Agencies), the other Amy with the shamrock earrings, and Kara Chinn (Records Management Coordinator). We met with nine Records Managers representing nine different agencies.
We discussed February's bulletin topics, which were a recap on our new Records Managers Survey, including suggestions we're already putting into place, and a tour through who the Oversight Committee on Public Records are, how they interact with your records retention schedules, and where to find the schedule of upcoming meetings.
If you missed the February meeting but would like to know more, we now have you covered!
I've posted a transcript of the February 2022 RM Chat to our Monthly RM Bulletins Archive, where you can also find all of the previous bulletins I've sent out, back to August 2021 when we started. I'll try my best to keep providing transcripts of the meetings going forward, though the timetable on those may vary depending on how long the meeting runs and how much conversation there is.
News You Can Use
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You can expect to keep seeing the link to our Records Managers Survey for a while, because we want to keep hearing from you. We're currently up to 35 responses so far, from 31 county/local Records Managers, and 6 state agency Records Managers, and at the end of this bulletin, you'll see the result of one of the suggestions we received!
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Meanwhile, back on the IARA side of things, a small piece of news is that we've expanded our 4-year review cycle for records retention schedules to 5 years, starting this year. Coming to agencies every four years was resulting in a higher percentage of retention schedules that didn't need any updates yet, so we made an adjustment that will hopefully get us all closer to the sweet spot where we're ready to bug you about updating your schedules, and you're actually ready to update them!
This change won't have any immediate effect on you; it just means that everyone has an extra year to wait before Amy comes knocking at your email inbox saying "It's that time again..." If your agency wants to make changes before then, you don't need to wait; you can contact me any time about updating your schedule. We've just adjusted the length of time before I contact you if we haven't heard from you already.
The Records Manager Handbook, our step-by-step on the retention schedule update cycle, and the Creating and Updating Records Retention Schedules tutorial on our website have all been updated with the new information. The version of that same class in Successfactors will still say "four years" for a while, but that, too, will be updated the next time new versions of our courses go up in Successfactors.
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News You Can't Use The Records Management jokes may be few and far between, but the Memes Are Out There. Even colored appropriately for this month! Thank you, O Anonymous RM Meme Maker, for speaking eternal truths. |
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RM Topic of the Month: Changes to Forms Management
In the spirit of Yoda's sage advice, collaborate, we will.
In this case, by devoting our RM Topic section this month to an IARA division that isn't Records Management, but which works hand in hand with us, and often you: State Forms Management, which has changes that are in the works to make the process of creating and updating state forms smoother on those of you who also have that responsibility.
Who are they?
IARA's Forms Management division provides tailored, cost-effective forms management solutions to state government, while providing a uniform, centralized repository for citizens and constituents.
What does that mean in practical terms?
They work with state agencies to create and update the forms that belong to your agency, providing design, analysis, and approval services that eventually result in a new version of the form appearing in the State Forms Catalog for everyone to use. (Everyone with access to it, that is ; agencies can choose various levels of visibility, including everyone, only state employees, and only your own agency.)
What are they up to?
In 2021, Forms Management began the process of modernizing its operations:
- It streamlined services by eliminating envelopes as a state form.
- IARA’s Leadership Team created and approved a final draft of design guidelines to share with forms coordinators and hosted two virtual events to seek feedback. These sessions had a total of 20 external attendees, all of whom were in consensus that IARA is moving forms in the right direction.
- The Leadership Team drafted language for legislative updates to IC 5-15-5.1-6, which was later introduced by Indiana State Representative Tim O’Brien as House Bill 1120. This bill, in tandem with a proposed Rule, would have provided that IARA shall establish standards for the design and redesign of all forms used by state government, rather than designing and redesigning the forms themselves.
Although the bill failed to pass the House’s third reading deadline, IARA still intends to make major adjustments to Forms Management along these lines; for now, they'll just be part of the process, rather than spelled out in Indiana Code.
What's next for Forms Management in 2022?
With the support of the Governor’s office, design guidelines will be made available alongside complementary trainings, hopefully in the summer. The goal is to place more of the ownership and design of state forms in the hands of state agencies, with IARA's Forms Management Division acting as reviewers and approvers, resulting in speedier updates for all.
March Records Managers Chat
Our next Records Managers Chat will be happening on the 31st.
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New Stuff! Read Me! We've made a few changes to the meeting invites, based on feedback from our RM Survey. (Many thanks to Sharmila Sanka, from the Auditor of State's office!) It will still be a Microsoft Teams meeting, and the instructions for how to join it haven't changed, but I've made it into a recurring meeting, always on the final Thursday of the month. This means that once you've been invited to it, or you invite yourself by following the instructions below, it will reappear on your calendar every month, without you having to manually add it. If we end up needing to reschedule the Chat for a specific month, I'll make the change for just that instance, and everyone on the invite list will receive a separate invite for that new date. What all of this means for you: If you have the March meeting on your calendar already, then you're good to go. (I added as many of you as I could to the original meeting invite, to spare you having to ever do that again!)
If you don't already have the March meeting on your calendar, you can add it using the instructions below (or just shoot me a direct email at arobinson@iara.in.gov, and I'll add you). Then, MS Outlook willing, you will never have to do that again! 🥳 |
Meeting Information Date: March 31st, 2022 About the Meeting This 30-minute meetup is an informal setting in which to ask questions or talk about records management concerns; normally I'll begin by introducing any IARA colleagues attending, talk a bit about the topic of the monthly bulletin and make any announcements, then open things up for questions and discussion. I've included an agenda to help keep |
Adding the Meeting to Your MS Outlook Calendar (New Version!)
✉ Desktop Outlook
- Save the attached MonthlyStateRecordsManagersRecurringChat.ics file to your desktop.
- Make sure Outlook is open.
- Double-click the .ics file.
- Outlook will open it up as a traditional meeting invitation.
- Click "Accept" to add it to your calendar.
✉ Outlook on the Web
- Save the attached MonthlyStateRecordsManagersRecurringChat.ics file to your desktop.
- In your web version of Outlook, go to the Calendar page.
- Choose "Add Calendar," then in the left pane, "Upload from file."
- Click "Browse" and find the .ics file, then click "Open."
- Choose a preferred calendar from the dropdown list. (Even if you only have one.)
- Click "Import."
- Outlook will add the meeting to your calendar.
Meeting-Up in MS Teams
Are you new to using Microsoft Teams? No worries, IARA can help you navigate.
MS Teams is a collaboration app that many state agencies are now using to stay organized and have conversations with colleagues inside and outside of the agency.
But if your agency doesn't use Teams? No worries. You don't need to have the software installed on your computer to participate in a Teams call.
To Join the Meeting By Phone
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Dial 1-317-552-1674 at the designated meeting time, then enter this PIN when prompted:
780 827 355# ⬅️ This is the NEW call-in pin for our recurring meeting.
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We'll let you into the meeting.
To Join the Meeting by Computer
- Click here at the designated meeting time. ⬅️ This is the NEW meeting link for our recurring meeting.
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A new tab or window will open in your default web browser. From there:
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Choose the option to join on the web if you don't normally use Teams, then click "Join now."
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Join through your desktop or mobile application if you're familiar with using Teams and would prefer that to the web version.
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Choose the option to join on the web if you don't normally use Teams, then click "Join now."
If you have other questions about how to use Teams, or about the meetup, just contact me and we'll figure things out together!
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Looking forward to seeing you,
Amy A. Robinson (CIP) | (she/her)
State Government Records Analyst
Indiana Archives and Records Administration
o: 317-232-3285 | f: 317-233-1713
e: arobinson@iara.in.gov | w: www.in.gov/iara
a: 402 W. Washington St., Room W472, Indianapolis, IN 46204