[IARA - State Agency Records Managers] Monthly Bulletin and Chat Invitation for August 25, 2022

📓✏️📚🚸 Happy August, Records Managers! 🚸📚✏️📓

If you're dreading those Back To School sales not because you're going to spend a lot of money but because you have traumatic childhood memories of knowing they meant your summer freedom would soon come to an end, come over here and sit by me. I'll make room.

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Last Month's Chat

On MS Teams, we had our July Records Managers Chat. We met with 14 Records Managers from 12 agencies!

Attending from IARA were Amy Christiansen (County/Local RM Liaison), Amy Robinson (State Records Analyst),  Jeannine Roe (Electronic Records Archivist), and Sam Putnam (Records Center Director).

We discussed July's bulletin topics, which were "Who do I talk to about Records Management when Amy is on vacation?" ; "Yes, Amy is back from vacation, and it’s hotter here than it was in California,” and the Secret Code of how Record Series Numbers are assigned.

I've posted a link to the YouTube video of the July chat in our RM Bulletins and Chat Archive, where you can also find all of the previous bulletins we've sent out. 

 

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News You Can Use

Our Deputy Director for RM, Meaghan Fukunaga, alerted the team to this article from the Washington Post about the IRS and records management. It just goes to show you that your agency is not alone in struggling with physical records storage, emerging technologies, and having a records backlog! Feel free to read the article on your own time; it is fascinating and makes me want to give a shout-out to the records folks in our own Department of Revenue: congratulations on making sure this didn't happen to you!
Other news you can use: the date of the next Oversight Committee on Public Records meeting is August 31st. (That's why our Thursday RM Chat is so early this month: because August ends on a Wednesday this year.) Including that information in the bulletin was a request from the  Records Manager Survey, and because I think it's a great idea, here it is!

 

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News You Can't Use

My Very Serious Workspace has a new inhabitant. Because (as amply demonstrated in the article above) when you work in government, you're always putting these out. And when you work with records, half the time you're trying to make sure said records don't end up in the dumpster.

 

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RM Topic of the Month: How Do We Decide Which Agencies or Divisions Need a Retention Schedule, and When They Need to Be Updated?

This was also a question on our Records Manager survey, and it's another very good one, so here we go!

How Do We Decide Who Gets a Retention Schedule?

That's the easy answer: an agency comes to us and says "We need a new retention schedule. We [don't have one for the agency] / [need to create a specific one for this new division]."

So we work with the Records Coordinator to do that! (Or I convince the Records Coordinator that seriously, you don't need a separate retention schedule for this one new item. It can go on your agencywide schedule. And then we do that, and one less level of bureaucracy  is added to all of our lives.)

How Do We Decide When They Need to Be Updated?

There are two ways that an update to an existing retention schedule gets started.

1. The agency or division realizes that they need to make a change, so the Records Coordinator contacts IARA's state agency Records Analyst, aka yours truly. This can happen at any time; there's no restriction on when or how often you can contact me to work up a change.

2. It's been at least 5 years since the retention schedule was updated, so your trusty state agency Records Analyst reviews the schedule. How do I know when it's time to do that?

With a spreadsheet, of course! Did you expect something less nerdy from me?

I keep a list of every active retention schedule (and the deactivated ones; that's just on another tab) showing when it was last updated. 

At the beginning of each calendar year, I sort by update year, and separate the ones that have reached the five year line. Over the first 6 months of the year or so, I review all of those, usually in chunks by agency, and send them to the agency Records Coordinator with proposed updates (if IARA has any), and a request to review the schedule for any additional changes the agency would like to make.

If there are updates to make, the schedule goes into the full retention schedule update cycle.

If neither IARA nor the agency thinks any changes need to be made, the retention schedule gets refiled with a note stating that, and I update the "last approved" date on the spreadsheet, but put the information about when it was last changed over in the notes column. That schedule is still considered Up To Date, and gets reviewed after another five years have rolled past.

Which happens so fast these days. Where did 2016 go? (Wherever it was, it can stay there.)

So that's how we decide: aside from the 5-year review cycle, we mostly don't decide anything; you do!

 

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August Records Managers Chat

Our next Records Managers Chat will be happening on July 28th. 

Meeting Information 

Date: 2022-08-25
Time: 11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.  EST
Place: Microsoft Teams

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 me us all on topic, so there'll be plenty of time for your questions and records management discussion once Amy remembers to click Mute!

Adding Yourself to the Meeting Invite List

✉ Desktop Outlook

• Save the attached Monthly State Records Managers Chat.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.
• Because this meeting is recurring, you should never have to add yourself again.

✉ Outlook on the Web

• Save the attached Monthly State Records Managers Chat.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.
• Because this meeting is recurring, you should never have to add yourself again.

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

1. Dial 1-317-552-1674 at the designated meeting time, then enter this PIN when prompted: 
   707 553 068#
   
   
2. We'll let you into the meeting.
    

To Join the Meeting by Computer

1. Click here at the designated meeting time. 
   
   
2. A new tab or window will open in your default web browser. From there:
   
   
   • Choose the option to join on the web if you don't normally use Teams, then click "Join now."
     
     
   • Join through your desktop or mobile application if you're familiar with using Teams and would prefer that to the web version. 
      

If you have other questions about how to use Teams, or about the meetup, just contact me and we'll figure things out together!

. . .

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

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• Monthly State Records Managers Chat.ics
• StateRMChat-agenda-2022-08.pdf