How Do I Sign Washington Terms of Use Agreement

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good morning everyone my name is Leslie cozia Burt Turner I am a CRM for Washington State Archives and welcome to our session this morning on retention schedules demystified hopefully this session will help you how to better understand read and interpret retention schedules we're going to go over some of the most common terms and the beginning slides will be a refresher on what a retention schedule really is then we're going to do some what I refer to as dissecting we're going to take some commonly asked questions about some record series and go over how to play the match game how to match titles and descriptions with what you're looking at in some tips and strategies for demystifying use of a retention schedule let's face it they're a little scary retention schedules are hundreds of pages long and it can be a little daunting if you're trying to decipher I have this type of record in my hand and I'm not finding it so the goal for this morning is to help you better locate the information you're needing to schedule and how to best use the retention schedules as they are so each every retention scheduled the first page is legalese it's the legal language that authorizes the disposal and transfers of public records and the first page of a retention schedule has the signatures of the committee members approving that schedule for use each retention schedule has a table of contents each retention schedule carries the disposition Authority numbers those numbers are your ongoing Authority for disposition each record series has a unique number assigned to that and that's your authority please exercise it each retention schedule is actually a grouping of record series and the record series are your groups of related records and a description we records management is designed to help you manage your information in bulk and your first grouping in bulk is a record series that's where you start from each retention schedule lists a retention period which is a minimum required period of time that you're required to keep those sets of records each retention schedule will have a cut-off now a cut-off is what starts the retention clock we call those triggers most common triggers are a date or an event and some triggers are some kind of an action that's going to kick a retention clock or to start the countdown on occasion there are one or more conditions that must be present either way though it's in writing and the retention schedule it tells you what to do then each retention schedule also has what we call designations each record is either going to be non archival or archival and each record is going to be deemed non-essential or essential and I'll talk about those terms in a minute there's a glossary and then there's indexes in each retention schedule which is kind of a change in prior years there were no indexes and so when our new administration came on board and we launched the process to redo every single retention schedule the first thing we do is create indexes for these things now I also like to kind of do a refresher on what records management really is records management is about efficient and systematic controls of the creation receipt maintance use and disposition of records records management is a process it's a management process and is something you really can't play at and it's really not too good to start and stop records management it should be an integral part of your business processes because it's all about your business and it's all about your business activities and the transactions in the reform of records retention of schedules actually do a lot more than people give it credit for retention schedules are actually a reflection of your business it's the types of records you create receive and use now a retention schedule just because it's listed in a retention schedule does not mean you're required to create that record what a retention schedule does is support the retention and management of the records you do create and your retention requirements don't kick in unless you create something retention schedules reflect who is doing what to whom and why they reflect the function and activities of your agency we also encourage retention schedules use them as an index for your business records to meet the requirements from 42.56 it's a listing of what you do and some agencies have found it really helpful to point to a retention schedule when I get a public records request to help the requester narrow the scope in other words point them to a retention schedule these are the types of records recreate how can we help you find what you're looking for and retention schedules are the foundational piece of managing your information in a systematic process they are your legal authority and we're constantly telling people exercise your authority and retention schedules tell you what to do they've been developed so that you don't have to do the thinking about it you just have to play the match game and figure out what types of records you're creating and using matching up the retention requirements and then going forward from there now for today the examples we're going to use from the retention schedules are from the local government side of things but everything I talk about is completely relevant and relatable to state agencies - they just use different retention schedules state and local governments have the same issues and have the same questions the other nice thing about state agencies though you can always consult with your own designated records officer for assistance but of course we're always here to help no matter what so let's take a visual look at what a retention schedule like I said typically they have a table of contents this is your thirty thousand foot view of what is contained in a retention schedule in remember lives before retention schedules are based on the motions of the agency and the activities that support those functions and you can see here now I always like to highlight my all-time favorite section of a retention schedule is records with minimal retention value that's my favorite section that indicates that this is a whole listing of records that you don't have to keep until it's no longer needed for agency business and a lot of times tabs delete it will I like to tell people memorize that section there's a bucketload of information you have no requirement to keep it's very short-term it has no value no business value to your organization and you can get rid of it talk about that a little bit more here's an example of what your typical retention schedule is going to look like remember I talked earlier that a record searing is a grouping of related records that support a function or activity I'm back in the bad old days way there were some instances where a record series was a single form and that doesn't make any sense the idea of managing information is to do it in bulk doing it together so that the related records that work together you manage the same way and then when the time comes you can dispose of it in bulk it's just much easier that way I mean you go crazy trying to manage individual documents you go crazy well people could do go crazy trying to manage individual emails but the idea again is to manage it together in related groups that work together if the title of the record you're looking for doesn't exactly match what you call it read the description and for those of you have been in the business for a while you'll notice that our descriptions are becoming a little more broader and we're highlighting and bullet pointing some examples my personal favorite phrase dropping retention schedule is may include that is not limited to if we tried to list every single bullet point example the retention schedules would be thousands of pages instead of hundreds so that frees gives you some discretion if it looks and feels and packs like that description then there's a good chance it's covered by that you may not call it the same thing because each agency tends to have its own language and its own along speak so to speak and so we can't possibly come up with every example when we do the research we try and come up with the most lowest common denominator and the most common references to these types of records so each retention schedule tells you what to do this is how long you keep this for and that clock starts when something happens a common cutoff is a particular date end of calendar year in the fiscal year date of document another type of common cutoff is an event something happens after closure after cancellation after bid award sometimes you'll see a list and/or when that occurs that means that all of those conditions need to be met before you can start the clock then we get to designations those designations mean that that particular record series may require some special attention so you're going to have two types of designations you're going to have whether the series is archival or not and whether we consider them essential or not now the non archival and archival is pretty self-explanatory what we refer to as an archival record means that the forever stuff and it's eligible for transfer to the archives it is different than the IT world when the IT world starts talking about archive it's different what they mean when they talk about archive means simply storage in our world archivists of forever stuff and oh by the way do your agency a favor if it's archival arrange to transfer it to the archives for preservation that's our line of work that's our job and of course if it says non archival it says right there retain for six years after date of document then destroy that's what our archival means eligible for destruction now real briefly an essential record is those types of records that are essential to your business those records are essential to your operations the essential records are those type of records that you should work with your IT folks to have extra protection and backup because essential records are the records you're going to want to recover and restore the fastest when a disaster hits that's what we mean by when we say essential and like I said this is all retention schedules can be a huge part of disaster planning and protection as well we've already identified essential records for you and there's an index in the back of every schedule what those are so I skipped ahead a little bit of time but this is what you need what we talked about when we're talking about a designation they just need to consider and treat those certain records a little bit differently very special okay I'm going to talk a little bit about our index in our subject index in particular now it's quite common for humans to think in terms of subjects and it's just natural subject indexes though are designed to help you locate the retention schedule in the series it's the tender humans tend to think at the top level like a library files things subject matter using a Dewey Decimal sense on system however records management is a business process and it's managing your business records and so your retention schedule is developed to meet and support your business processes and so when we're talking about playing the match game with a retention schedule we're going to talk about matching it up to a process and not the subject now just a quick refresher government agencies will use two types of schedules there is a common Records or a general schedule for each side and then on local government there is a sector schedule developed for that grouping of commonly held records by a particular sector law enforcement treasurer's offices County Clerk's and so on and so forth the state government each state agency has a very specific mission and so state government retention schedules are going to speak to a general record series held in common and a specific agency schedule so I think about the rule of two you're going to want to check two retention schedules what a kind of baseline requirement is if it has to do with the operations of your business it's likely to be found in a common or the course schedule or the state General Schedule and then if it's a very specific business process that just your agency does that's where your specific agency requirements are going to kick in I get this question an awful lot do I need to keep this and a lot of times I do know what you need to keep but the reality is I don't know what your requirements are each agency may have some specific requirements that I don't know about in our office doesn't know about yes I'm becoming the world's biggest busybody but that's where we ask you to know your business and know your processes know your requirements what may be required for one agency may not necessarily be a hard-and-fast requirement for another one it depends on what you do what are your functions and what are the activities that support those functions and then take a look at a retention schedule are you required to keep it it's going to tell you in the retention schedule not to mention am i trying to memorize all these reset records series would be acts well nevermind we only go about memory and trying to remember all these things I do like to throw out a caveat you cannot pick and choose a different record series from a schedule that you are not approved to use in other words if someone from law enforcement is looking over in land-use and they see a record series they like better they cannot use the one from the land use those record retention schedules are approved just for use by that particular sector you can't borrow someone else's Authority if you're going through a retention schedule though and you simply can't find anything or if you think there's a gap or a discrepancy please let us know it's really helpful to office to get feedback and input from those of you in the trenches like I said we were getting close but we don't know everybody's bit of business so when we're developing retention schedules we really rely on you to help us out with that at this stage of the game though there's not a whole lot of nool Under the Sun as a government entity you've been established for quite some time cities in town some of you have been around for hundreds of well not quite hundreds of years but over a hundred years you're still a city you're still a South town law enforcement still dues law enforcement what you do your functions of government hasn't changed a whole lot it's how we're doing this that's changed up and it changes very quickly but once you can sit down and establish a plan you have to change a whole lot that's going to be pretty stable there again what you do as a business does not change a whole lot I mean it might modify and maybe you take on something new our particular rule changes things but under the overall umbrella as a city as a town as a treasurer as a state agency your mission doesn't change a whole lot retention schedules are there to cover your records that mean business and when we talk about that is the execution of business occurs as part of your business process it's something we've done for quite some time and those records you create as part of a business process are what provides the evidence and provide the accountability for that process another question and even recently we're still getting questions about why don't see an email in the retention schedule I don't see a text message as part of the retention schedule what about social media all retention is driven by the content and that context about the business what's being said or done who is doing what to whom and why is this a business transaction and part of a business process is this proof or evidence that you're required to keep as part of your execution of business is there actions that need to be taken does that support accountability and transparency so when we talk about emails what's that email about we don't really care who's sending the email we're care about what is it what's the worst execution of business who's doing what to whom why was this created what's the purpose behind it now let's just talk a little bit briefly or a little further on emails it's going to depend a lot of emails are what we consider transitory its chatter a lot of emails serve as an envelope deliver attachment in a lot of instances it's the attachment that's the record and not the email delivering it but that's why it's important to know your records and your business processes there are some exceptions to that it does depend for example my favorite exercise on my favorite example is Human Resources say for instance that you're an HR and you have a job posting and it clearly defines applications are accepted by email must be closed sent in by close of business five o'clock on say January 26 well we know sometimes that emails can be sent in good faith but they get stuck in a spam filter in that instance you're going to want to keep that email along with the application or resume or whatever the applicant is sending in because that's your date and time stamp remember back in the day when you maybe go to the courthouse and file something and there is that machine that would do the clunk and stamp the date and time stamp is proof of delivery in some instances that's what an email does that's why it's important to analyze the process a little bit know your requirements going in and then establish the boundaries you can develop cheat sheets for those business units to say you know what if this is an email and it does this part of the bit of business you're going to need to keep that and here's the retention requirement on it analyze the process kind of start from thinners do the flow with people think beyond the titles what we call it may not be the same so think beyond the titles think beyond your own agency speak and specific agency terms think beyond who think what does this actually do what's the purpose behind the creation why are we getting this why are we using it and how so read the description that's your best bet when it comes to determining what a particular type of record may fall under and always remember there again we are human and we do tend to think in terms of subjects but subjects really don't talk about a business process it's different organizing and managing your records than you would organize and manage a library a library serves a purpose for reference and as a resource for research your business records support your business process and the functions of your agency so I don't know if that's helpful to think of it in that way but that to my mind is a different way to look at this stuff in a better way to help you play the match game knowing going in what those processes are will then help you better define your retention and disposition strategies it's always better to try and do this upfront trying to go back and figure it out stirring down 30 or more boxes or a thousand and one emails it's just more difficult and there again I know I feel for all of you because everyone's just kind of now in a position you know the dragon lady has left the building and now everything's a hot mess but usually retention schedules can really be beneficial yeah it's going to take some effort but once you know what your business is unless you know what your attention requirements in then it can flow better together let's do some dissection my first example was a phone call about bus tickets from a Transit Authority and this nice person could not find it mentioned anywhere she looked in the subject index she did keyword searches she couldn't find it any scheduler in any index now what well I always start the conversation why are you creating a bus ticket what does it do think it through wire bus tickets created well literally a ticket to ride the bus it authorizes people to get on a bus and go to the next destination a bus tickets provide proof for the agency that this individual paid money there was a monetary exchange there the matter was cash or a credit card or debit card someone bought the ticket in order to ride the bus that's a financial transaction and bus tickets serve as the receipt proof of purchase so that's a financial transaction cover in order the core G of 2011 dot 184 so I'm hoping this example helps you think a little further like I said this particular agency calls it a bus ticket from where we sit though it's a cash receipt it's a financial transaction like I said if we tried to bullet point every single example the retention schedules will be miles long that's why we're encouraging you to think outside of the title think what does it do what purpose does it serve next one let's talk about forms I get a lot of questions about forms I've got these forms and there's two series on forms which one do I use well think through it if you have a form that is pre numbered there's a reason for that pre numbered forms tend to be the ones that require some kind of tracking or monitoring for the purpose of accountability you need those forms to to provide proof that everything is in order that you're not missing anything that no one's doing some creative accounting and taking out sets of invoices and billing it to themselves and things of that nature you know the forms can be tickets or stubs or invoices that are issued but you need to be accountable for them another example of an accountable form would be tickets to the County Fair you know people count those to make sure that the money equals what's been coming in then you have other types of blank forms that serve no purpose other than to provide information or gather information a typical form may be an application to do something maybe a lease agreement or something like that they're not necessarily needing to be numbered that there are form or publication and the retention requirements going to be different with that because not all forms are created equal nor do all of them require the same level of accountability there again really look at that includes but is not limited to look at the description kind of if it looks like a book what kind of a box like a duck it's going to be a duck you may not call it that you may call something different internally but there again look at how that function or activity fits together with a particular description let's talk about contracts and agreements that's another one that tends to be kind of lumped together and there's some confusion around contracts and agreements so think about what they do the most common issue we run across is that a lot of folks will just lump contracts together with financial transactions and all the construction or project documents and will keep it all together as a big project file there again it's more helpful and a better approach to think about the separate and the different functions and activities involved with a project you might have you know contract negotiations and then you have a contract that you sign that contract is a separate part of that project say you're involved in a project where you're repaving a road so different aspects of that project are going to have some different retention requirements depending on what the activity and the function is as a subject file yes it's related together but they have different retention requirements and different functions so I'm hoping people will kind of do some additional dissection on these things and help them better understand and you can still split them out and keep them together as a project file but remember the days of accordion files where you could put multiple folders together in one big file and then you could separate those out okay this has a separate retention requirement when we're done with this we can get rid of it the construction documents that drawings in the ski and the schema may have a different requirement and so on and so forth same thing about agreements we get any number of questions regarding well I've got this particular form I've got a lease I have a liability waiver I have a membership someone's joining this joining to our club or whatever the case may be all of those things are examples of an agreement that agreement is you've got two parties either side agrees to do something an example is say you are authorizing automatic payment withdrawals from somebody's account you may not sign something but someone who gives you that form and signs it is giving you the authorization to do something that's the type of agreement another agreement is it permission to do something but that's also another example of who is doing what to whom and why permission to do something can be different if you're giving permission slips for minors and schools that's going to definitely have a different retention requirement from the average adult giving the permission something remember to know your requirements looking at the function activities and who is affected like I said not all this stuff is created equally like I said we try and do our best to list all the examples possible but step outside and always remember that phrase includes but is not limited to and then look at the description there's been a lot of confusion lately about misconduct records and administrative review records in the law enforcement schedule and this is another example of certain types of Records may be related but they serve a different function so for example say there was some alleged misconduct that may kick off an investigation that is something that happens an investigation occurs that may then prompt an administrative review an administrative review may happen in response to an event but it is not the investigation of the event separate retention requirements it's a separate process it's something that is done after something happens yes copies of the investigation may be part of that administrative review record but that actual process is different most personal records are going to be covered in your general or core schedules there are some exceptions like I said before that's why it's important to know what you do why you do it and to know your particular requirements so I hope this is helpful I haven't gotten any questions or anything like that so I'll just take a break in the action and ask are there any questions at this point in time this also helps me to see if there's anybody who's still listening to me let's go on to the last example I don't see any questions insurance certificates all right agencies will often get insurance certificates or finally known as proof of insurance as required contractually for liability coverage for construction or other purposes where the other party is accepting liability in that instance those insurance certificates are part of that contract agreement or part of that lease or part of that rental where the other parties accepting liability for the other for that instance the insurance certificates listed in the scores poor schedule are for a different purpose that's under risk management for the agency and so those type of insurance certificates are required to be kept by the agency because it's the agency's policy covering its own liability policies are renewed all the time and so a lot of paperwork gets generated and so those policies are like the width and length of war and peace so keeping only the certificate cuts down the amount of storage and those certificates establish your good track record supports your efforts of responsibility so there again I'm hoping that example outlines the different functions between those two types of insurance certificates there again people saying subject insurance certificates without thinking of function and activity go to the functions of activity that's what retention schedules are therefore if in doubt just do some analytics ask questions about the business process just sit down and quickly take notes who's doing what to whom and why where do these records fit as part of the process what records are you required to keep and then just some analyses and then organize accordingly okay who should I contact regarding inventory questions well what type of question do you have about inventory is that the types of documents regarding depreciation useful life I guess if you look at the retention schedule regarding asset management it's going to walk you through what that looks like regarding an inventory depreciable assets and so on and so forth if you like offline after the seminar Jackie I can answer your questions more thoroughly and help clarify things unless you can sit down as a particular business unit and do some analytics you can then match it up with your retention requirements if you think of things in terms of organizing to destroy or organizing to transfer if you can do that going in that's going to facilitate a lot of easier processes when time comes for destruction or transfer like I said going back over something is never as easy as it is knowing what you can safely pull off the shelf and the time comes another good example to look at it is you can organize your electronic information in a similar way as organizing a box in a storage room if you can somehow identify the records identify the retention requirements and put a date of destruction then we can go back in there and go through the server or the files and go oh look we've got a date destroy date here and then literally pull it off the shelf or pull it off the server and get rid of it same thing with organizing your archival records if you know going in which of your records are eligible for archival transfer and you've contacted the archives and you've got that figured out going in then when the date comes for transfer you can just get it out of there move it over send it to the archives you are not alone everybody struggling with this everybody's records are kind of in a disarray and disorganization but becoming best friends with your retention schedules can really really be beneficial for you like I said we're working really hard to make them meaningful we welcome any input and feedback are there any other questions I can answer on during this session if not I want to thank everybody for joining us this morning I hope you have found this helpful and I would like to everyone to just go forth and organize thank you very much