 of our bridge meeting for August 2023. My name is Ariane Robenbach and I will be serving as the moderator for today's meeting. As a reminder, the Office of Agency Services at the National Archives and Records Administration hosts these bridge, these bi-monthly records and information discussion group or bridge meetings to present information relating to federal records management. Bridge is a co-production of the Office of the Chief Records Officer for the United States and the Federal Records Center Program and is live streamed toward the audience over our YouTube channel. Generally, bridge meetings consist of a scheduled program of presentations with an open forum at the end of each meeting to ask questions of the presenters or of any related federal records management topic of interest. Viewers are encouraged to ask questions by sending an email to rm.communications.nara.gov. Our staff will be monitoring this email box during the meeting. You're also welcome to ask questions and make comments during this meeting in the YouTube chat. However, please keep in mind that all chat messages are subject to moderation. So we ask that you keep them relevant to the topics being discussed. Copies of the presentation slides used today will be posted on the bridge page of the archives website. That webpage is also where you will also find the links and information about previous and upcoming bridge meetings. If you have general comments about bridge or suggestions for future topics, you can use that same email address, rm.communications.nara.gov, to pass these along to us. We welcome your feedback. With that, I would like to start today's meeting by introducing Lawrence Brewer, the Chief Records Officer for the U.S. government. Good afternoon, Lawrence. Hi, Aaron, thanks for the intro and good afternoon or good morning, everyone. It's August, so we're in the middle of vacation season. So I appreciate all of you joining today, whether it's from your office, your home, or the beach house. We have a lot to talk about today. As we get closer to the end of the fiscal year, there are some products and things that we're going to highlight today and a couple of things that I can announce that will be coming in September and then over the next couple of months. So I'll start with just a couple of quick announcements and updates in case you missed it. On Records Express, if we go back one slide, we're not quite ready for the agenda. On Records Express, just this month, we posted links to the annual report, our records management consolidated report with the RMSA, the same arm reports, and the maturity models. And it's, as always, a great summary and yardstick for how all agencies are doing in terms of meeting key goals and managing electronic records and email and other strategic initiatives related to the OMB NARA memos and other guidance that NARA has issued. So if you haven't seen the 2022 annual report, I encourage you to take a look there. Also, in the same post, we released our semiannual report of records management oversight activities where we summarized for the past six months the key inspections and assessments that we completed with some recommendations for all agencies on things to consider on a number of topics which we developed out of the engagements that we have with agencies. We also include as part of the report a summary of our in progress activities. And I wanted to highlight one of those activities that you will hear more about very soon. We are in the process of finishing up a records management assessment, working with 10 agencies to evaluate their practices around managing social media records. We expect that report to be issued sometime in September. And we expect that we will be talking about it soon, probably at an upcoming bridge meeting in October. And it covers a lot of things which I know agencies are struggling with and looking for best practices and recommendations. And this assessment will share some of the best practices and lessons learned that we've identified from the 10 agencies that we engage with. So keep an eye out for that. We will certainly be posting it on Records Express. You will see it there. And it will be on our records management oversight and reporting webpage along with all of our other assessments and inspections. Another topic I wanted to touch on and I know I've mentioned this before and I guarantee you I will talk about this again. But as we prepare for the next year's annual report and 2023 reporting, we always wanna make sure that we have contact list accurate for all of you. So whether it's annual reporting or agency records officers who need to get their credential, appraisal contacts that we work with and just for general distribution reasons, we really do need and encourage all of you to send us formal designations consistent with the procedures that are in NARA Bulls in 2017-02, which describes how agency say arms and agency records officers should be designated to NARA. So just another reminder for us to get the information to the right people at the right time, we need to have those formal designations and make sure that we keep them up to date. So just a reminder, please keep that in mind anytime there's change over in your agencies to please send us an email to prmd at nara.gov for new ARN designations and ro.updates at nara.gov for new AROs and acting ARO designations. So next slide, please. As you can see, we have a lot to talk about here in our August meeting. We will have some updates from the Federal Records Centers Program. We will talk in detail about records management annual reporting and following up on that, we have our colleagues from OGIS are going to talk about the data that they captured and reported out from questions in the RMSA related to FOIA. We'll also have an update on the recent release universal ERM requirements, version three, and we will wrap things up with updates on ERA 2.0. I do want to note that we did have previously GRS on the agenda for GRS TransMittal that was just recently issued, but due to unavoidable circumstances, we had to do a late scratch on that and we will bring you the GRS update when we meet again in October. So with that, I will introduce Scott Thompson who is the acting director for the Customer Relationship Management Branch in the FRCP to give us some updates on the FRCP and other related topics. Scott, over to you. Well, thank you, Lawrence. Hello and welcome, everyone. For those that don't recognize the voice, I'm Scott Thompson. I'm honored to be a part of the Customer Relationship Management Team and I'm currently serving in the acting AFC director role and I'm very proud to be here today. I'm here to speak briefly about current operations and then provide several updates related to next year's funding and payment processing and the development of the FY24 rates. First, we'll start with operations. Most FRCP sites remain focused on the backlog elimination and many of our headquarters offices are deep into the job of preparing for FY24. Here are some highlights. FRCs have received and shelled in excess of 808,000 boxes and we have an additional 13,874 transfers covering about 207,000 cubic feet in approved status. We have the space, staff and resources available to receive records that agencies would like to retire to the FRCP before the end of June 2024. Exposal continues at pace at most FRCs. As of this week, FRC's P staff have destroyed more than 1,253,000 cubic feet of records during FY23. The total disposal backlog has been reduced to just under 1,172,000 cubic feet and we remain on target to dispose of between 1.3 and 1.4 million cubic feet this fiscal year. The warehouse nine transshipment continues and the movement of records to the Lenexa FRC is now approximately 50% complete. We'll continue to move records during the fall and winter and we anticipate closure, full closure of the annex by next spring. That'll wrap up the operations updates leading us to the next topic. G-invoicing, our financial management shared services provider at the Bureau of Fiscal Service Administrative Resource Center won't be able to integrate our performance and settlement functions into G-invoicing in time for the FY24 kickoff. So for the new fiscal year, you'll continue to see our monthly invoices via email and payment processing will continue via the IPAC for intergovernmental payment and collection system. Like last year, we can process the general terms and conditions and orders documents inside of the G-invoicing system or we can utilize the newest versions of the legacy forms 7600 A and B or DD forms 448 and 448-2 based on your agency needs. We'll work hard to minimize any challenges this may cause. Our next update is on the FY24 unit rates. They are still in the review process on their way to the approval of the 11th archivist of the United States, Dr. Colleen Shogan. We anticipate having them available soon so that we can begin sending out the annual interagency agreement packages to our agency customers. Thank you for your patience on this. I'll close out with this short topic. If you need help getting records ready for transfer to the FRC or if you have questions about the record you already stored with us, contact your account manager or email us at FRC at narra.gov. That's FRC at narra.gov so we can help you. Thank you for sharing your time with me today. I will remain available to answer any questions or feel free to send them to FRC at narra.gov. Thank you. I'm gonna turn it back over to Ariane. Thank you, Scott, for that update. We have no questions in the queue for you so, but please stick around and if any come in we'll be sure to tag you at the end. With that, I'd like to turn over the program to our records management oversight and reporting team and my colleague, Cindy Smolovic, to give a presentation on the RM annual reporting. Cindy. Thank you, Ariane. Next slide, please. I wanna thank everyone for this opportunity to update you on the Federal Agency Records Management Annual Report. For anyone who might be new, this annual reporting process is our way of gathering as uniformly as possible information about the state of records management across the government and report that to Congress as required by the Federal Records Act. This year, the annual reporting period was from January 9th through March 10th, covering activities in calendar year 2022. We again received a great response rate for all of you who participate. This is very much appreciated. Any survey that can get close to 100% in the high 90s percental for response rate is doing pretty well. The annual analysis and summary report was sent to Congress. It's been posted to our website as Lawrence mentioned and distributed to the Say Arms and Agency Records Officers via the AC memo. There was also another AC memo that shared the link to the reports on our website with the larger community of other records management professionals and interested individuals. So some of you may have received this information twice. Next slide, please. For the last several years, we've asked for these three pieces. The Say Arms report is the only one that changes substantially from year to year. This narrative report provides senior official perspectives on progress towards various initiatives or actions to promote fully electronic record keeping, providing leadership support and resources for records management in their agencies. The Federal Electronic Records and Email Management Report, also known as the maturity models, and also the records management self-assessment both provide information related to compliance with regulations, the success criteria that NARA has promulgated for electronic records management and email policies and also includes implementation of records management principles and practices. We do get asked, does NARA do anything else with this information besides summarize it in the annual report to Congress? And the answer is yes. We post the Say On reports online so that anyone interested can review them. We also provide data from the maturity models in a spreadsheet format that's downloadable online for the same reason. We also use the combined information from all three reports to influence policy and guidance, look for important trends that help us identify areas of risk or upcoming challenges, as well as good practices and initiatives. It is our hope since this is all self-reported data that agencies see this opportunity for self-evaluation as a way to identify their own needs and trends too. We also do use the information to provide us all sorts of information and now I'm going to give you a few highlights. Next slide, please. This time around, we are interested in knowing if some of the challenges initiated due to the COVID-19 pandemic to access and use of information and therefore records have any longer-term impacts. From the Say On reports, we found that the shift to telework, remote work, is turning into more of a hybrid work environment. So the changes that allowed access remotely are going to remain in place. There were some processes that were already electronic prior to the pandemic and didn't need any changes and other ones that required updating of their business process to become electronic environments and these will now continue going forward. Also the increased use of collaborative tools, aids and platforms is noted, it's continuing and expanding. Next slide, please. The transition to electronic record keeping and the changes to hard copy storage for M1921 and M2307 target goals were again covered this time. Most agencies feel that they will be able to make the changes to both permanent and temporary records, that's the orange and blue bars that you see, hopefully by the June 2024 deadline. Changes for the storage of hard copy records, which is the gray bar, is a little less certain that 65% definitively responding with a yes, 20% said they don't operate records storage facilities and so no changes were needed or they were already fully electronic and so if you combine these two numbers, it looks a little better by saying that 85% are going to make the change or perhaps didn't need one. Next slide, please. The scoring of the RMSA and the maturity models is all about risk to the records management program in terms of compliance with regulations, statutes, policy and guidance, that if not implemented properly can mean risk to the records themselves or the ability to access or rely on them. The strongest low risk area is the maturity of email closely followed by electronic records management. For the one that covers everything, which is the RMSA, agencies lean more towards moderate risk. There are agencies that are within a point or two of being in either high or low risk. So landing in the middle, being a good thing or not, depends on where on that moderate scale and agency scores. The RMSA is less nuanced in its scoring than the maturity model. It's more of a yes, no, you have it or you don't. So this can also account for the variation in the comparison between the RMSA and the other two. For more on how these are scored, there is an appendix in the report itself. Next slide, please. As mentioned earlier, annual reporting also helps us spot trends. So we often add questions related to new things to watch for. This one, for example, is the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning or other cognitive technologies, which is spreading quickly. There are ways to use such tools for records management purposes. So far though, most agencies are not using these to identify permanent versus temporary records or applying retention and are not exploring the possibilities yet. This does not mean that they are not using these technologies for mission or other program functions as we all know these are being used for a wide variety of purposes now. This question specifically asked about records management uses, not whether records are being created using these tools. That is another matter entirely and perhaps for future data gathering, we'll ask a question to understand if records management principles are being applied to records created using these tools. Next slide, please. For a long time, best practices for records management have included the need to include records management obligations, including records ownership language into contracts for all sorts of services, not just records management contracts. This year, we asked whether or not this is happening within agencies. The response, well, under 70% does show a majority of agencies said yes. Probably the more critical number here though is not necessarily the 19% who said no, but the 12% that responded do not know. If as a records officer, you aren't sure if this is happening, it is probably something you should be looking into. Next slide. Thank you. Digitization efforts are a big part of the transition to electronic record keeping. So this year, we asked whether or not strategies include temporary records with the intent of changing the record copy from hard copy to digital copies. And our agencies identifying any permanent records that will need to be digitized and whether or not analog formats like microfilm, microfiche, other audio or video formats are also being included in the digitization planning. The blue bar indicates that the majority of agencies are working towards all three of these things, either fully, which is a clear yes answer, or they're at least have this to some extent. Next slide, please. It is also important to note that whether temporary or permanent digitized versions, if they're going to replace the original source records must be of suitable quality in order to replace the original source. It is good news that 86% of agencies feel that they are digitizing to this level of quality. Next slide, please. We are still watching the downward trend towards a print and file shown in red for printing and filing for emails, meaning filing into a paper-based system. We know that emails can be printed to PDF and then filed into electronic case files. So in answering this question, it is important not to confuse print and file in this case as anything but printing to paper and filing it. That's the focus of the question. Note that these are not percentages, but actual numbers of responses to the question and the answers options provided. Agencies are allowed to pick more than one option because different records are handled in different ways. We've been asking this question since 2013. And as you can see as the 2016 deadline, for managing all email in electronic format approached, there was a big drop-off. And thereafter, the shift downwards accelerated and continues today to be almost all email being captured electronically. If we continue to follow this trend, we will expect to see that the two cloud storage options, which are the smaller arrows that started to be asked in 2019, we expect for those to be of interest in the future and may even be of more interest than the original question about printing and filing. Next slide, please. This was just a glimpse of what is covered in this year's report and what we asked. The report has an appendix that shows statistics for all of the questions that are asked. And if you wanna see those, it is in the back of the report. So you can pick a topic that you're interested in and be able to see some of the statistics. End reporting as the name implies is a continuous cycle. We're now working on the preparations for the next round covering calendar year 2023 activities. So stay tuned for future AC memos. In the meantime, if you have any questions or if contact information for responding to end reporting changes, please let us know by using RM self-assessment all run together at narah.gov. Thank you. Thank you, Cindy, for that report out on the records management reporting. I don't have any questions in the chat for you at this moment, but we'll keep the chat open. As a reminder, everyone, you can use the YouTube chat to leave your questions or email us at rm.communications at narah.gov. With that, I'd like to turn the program over to my colleagues from the Office of Government Information Services, Daniel Levinson and Kimberly Reed. So Daniel and Kimberly, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Dan and I are happy to be with you today to talk a little bit about the records management self-assessment reporting to follow up on what Cindy covered. Dan and I are both part of the Office of Government Information Services compliance team. And so we're very interested in a lot of that data that was just presented and we're gonna drill down into that here for the next few minutes. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Dan. Thank you. Next slide, please. Thank you. So OGIS, the Office of Government Information Services, began a collaboration with the Chief Record Officer starting with the 2016 RMSA when they began to, when they were generous enough to start including questions about FOIA. And this collaboration allows us to assess government-wide issues related to FOIA compliance in the management of records. It is a completely natural fit for OGIS because strong records management allows agencies to find records that are responsive to a FOIA request. And that is essential to a successful FOIA program. So the RMSA and our participation in the RMSA has helped OGIS understand FOIA administration across government better. And in this understanding compliments observations we make through our other activities, such as artistry resolution services for both requesters and agencies, and our FOIA compliance assessments, as well as our leadership of both the FOIA Advisory Committee and the Chief FOIA Officers Council. So in the 2022 RMSA, we were able to include six questions relating to FOIA. One that asked directly about how the COVID-19 pandemics was continuing to impact FOIA operations. A second question, which we repeated from the 2021 RMSA, in which we sought to assess how agency records officers work with Chief FOIA Officers across the government. We included three questions to assess the use of e-discovery in FOIA searches because this is a very pertinent topic nowadays with the appending arrival of AI or AI has arrived, but it will continue to grow in its use in FOIA processing, FOIA administration, as well as everything else will continue to grow. So this is an important topic right now. So e-discovery is related to that. So, and it's something we've been interested in for a while. So we included that one in here as well. And finally, we asked about proactive disclosure under FOIA. In our questions, FOIA questions received responses from 261 respondents, including all cabinet, all 15 cabinet level departments and departmental components and independent agencies. Next slide, please. So our first question about COVID-19 and how the pandemic continues to impact FOIA processing, the results from the RMSA show that a majority of agency, 79%, have rebounded from the pandemic, reporting either minimal or no pandemic related impact to their FOIA processing backlog. However, a sizable minority, 18%, of agencies reported a continuing moderate or significant negative impact to their backlog caused by the pandemic. So in this question, we had 261 respondents, more specifically, breaking it down a little bit further, 53% of our respondents answered that there was no pandemic related backlog. They completely meet or exceed pre-pandemic levels in terms of their backlog, with further 26% answering that there's a minimum negative impact. So in the 18%, or of the 18%, who said there was moderate or significant, so 13% of all respondents answered there was a moderate negative impact and 5% answered that there was a significant impact. And again, 3% of agencies are not subject to FOIA. 3% of agencies responding to the RMSA are not subject to FOIA. From the agencies that do have a moderate or significant impact, their responses when they chose to volunteer additional explanations, they're indicated there was generally two main areas in which the pandemic continued to impact their FOIA processing, one of which was that the pandemic exacerbated resource challenges with one agency commenting that several senior information management staff members did not return after staff were expected to start working on site, which is somewhat of maybe a warning to different government offices in terms of how resources may be impacted in terms of reintegration and coming back on site. And another office responded that they were down to one officer handling all their FOIA requests. So the first main theme that we discovered in terms of the continuing impact of the pandemic was that it exacerbated resource challenges. The second main way the pandemic has impacted certain FOIA offices and created a moderate or severe backlog was that there are new requests about pandemic activities. So a lot of agencies that deal with health policy or practice receive additional FOIA requests now in the wake of the pandemic from civil society groups or citizens or media who are seeking to understand in more depth the government's response to the FOIA 19 or COVID-19 pandemic. So one agency in particular said that COVID-19 cases account for approximately 40% of their FOIA workload. And in FY22, COVID-19 related cases accounted for 20% of all new FOIA requests. So in that way, we understand that COVID-19 pandemic while officially over still is having significant impacts in certain agencies or processing for FOIA. That Kimberly over to you for the next slide. Thank you, Dan. And I would suspect we will see ramifications from COVID for the next several years. This slide talks about, as Dan mentioned earlier, the questions we asked regarding the agency records officer working relationship with the chief FOIA officers. And he mentioned and Cindy alluded to as well that good records management program is the backbone to being able to successfully fulfill FOIA requests and try to ensure that there is not a significant backlog. And so as you can see here, 44% of respondents reported that the ARO and the CFO work together to identify programs or offices most likely to have responsive records. I will point out this is actually a 6 percentage point decrease over the 2021 last year's response of 50%. Actually all three of these statistics that we have here have had a 5 to 7% percentage point drop year over year. Year over year. So the next one, 43% indicate that they do work to provide training on records management and FOIA to each other's staffs or offices. And 42% of respondents reported that those training programs include the importance in relationship between understanding FOIA, the Free Development Information Act and records management and how the two intersect. This last statistic here on the screen is a 7% percentage point difference between last year's 49%. So this is one of those areas that we are paying attention to as we wanna see positive and successful working relationships between these two areas across all federal agencies. And so that's something that we take special interest in and making sure that we can help provide assistance with training and tools and other resources moving forward. Next slide please. Dan mentioned at the beginning a little bit that we asked three questions regarding the eDiscovery. And so here we have several things that we wanna point out. 70% reported that they are using eDiscovery tools in their FOIA searches with the most common involving email records. That's not surprising. At all, we do expect that this statistic will increase over time especially as AI technology, the usage of chat GPT and all of those tools become far more prominent in our day-to-day lives and work. And the one question we asked about why eDiscovery is not used, you'll see here that 63% of FOIA offices that do not use it is because it's not necessarily something that is available at certain agencies. So this is one of these areas that our FOIA advisory committee has paid attention to and recognizes that each federal agency is different and how they may be managing and have access to some of their electronic records and eDiscovery tools. And we know that some agencies have more resources to use those tools and implement them than others. And so this is something that we're aware is can be a challenge at times for different federal offices across the government. Next slide, please. And I'm gonna turn it back over to Dan to talk a little bit about proactive disclosure. Thank you, Kimberly. Proactive disclosure is an important tool that the government uses to communicate with the public. It is something in a requirement of the Freedom of Information Act and it ideally helps agencies release their records proactively before there are any FOIA requests for them and potentially preempt the FOIA requests so that the public does not have to, the media, civil society groups do not have to make FOIA requests because in an ideal world, the government is able to make records public with redacted before anyone has asked for those records. So we have included this question or a question about how often agencies are able to make proactive public, make records public proactively and there were 260 responses to this question. The most common response receiving 57% of responses was the agencies make proactive disclosures as needed. Furthermore, 13% of respondents reported making proactive disclosures annually and 5% reported making proactive disclosures monthly. Further 7% reported a quarterly cycle of proactive disclosures. The further percentages were 12% said other with an explanation, 3% did not know and 3% were not, or agencies that are not subject to the FOIA. So our takeaway from this data was the agencies whose missions involve public outreach are generally more proactive, more aware of making data routinely available and we've also in the comments and both in the agencies explanations, we saw trends that support what OGIS teamly observes that agencies often have limited resources and they devote their resources to responding to actual FOIA requests which limits their capacity to identify records for proactive release. Other comments indicated that agencies are aware of and prepared to follow the rule of three which is a requirement under the FOIA that an agency publicly post a record that has been requested three times or more. So agencies generally seem to be aware of that requirement and willing to follow it when it becomes applicable. One or two agencies also mentioned that they have embraced a release to one as it released all policy which philosophically aligns with the FOIA. It is not always applicable. There may be other laws protecting certain information in certain circumstances where a release to one is released all would not be appropriate or lawful but in certain agencies where it is appropriate and lawful, they have embraced that. Those are our main takeaways from this question. I encourage everyone to look at the entire OGIS's entire report on our findings from the RMSA which is available on our website, narra.gov slash OGIS. And with that, Kimberly, do you have anything to add? I do not. Dan, I do wanna mention it's actually archives.gov slash OGIS. Thank you, Kimberly. And so with that, I yield the floor. Thank you both for the deep dive on the FOIA questions. We did have one come in on the YouTube. Just what does eDiscovery mean? So if you wanna give a simple definition, that would be helpful. So e is electronic, that's the electronic records essentially and I know that for the purposes of this meeting, conversations around electronic records and there's more coming up later on. I don't wanna give away our full agenda, but being able to access the information found in those becomes really important as we continue to move forward in federal government work and as well for the National Archives and our policies and mandates at the moment regarding accepting electronic records over paper, analog would be the right term records. And so being able to search those and find information for our requesters is that's what we're referencing when we say eDiscovery, electronic systems, tools, emails, the list goes on and on. Thank you for that. We did get a couple of other questions, but they're directed for the Federal Records Center. So Scott, I'll put you on notice and we'll bring you back at the end of the meeting. We've got a few that have trickled in. Again, thank you both for presenting. And with that, I'd like to move the agenda forward. Call on my colleague, Beth Cron from the Records Management Policy and Program Support Team to provide an update on the Universal ERM Requirements version three. So Beth, you're up. All right, thank you, Arianne. Good afternoon and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to join you today to talk about the latest version three of the Universal Electronic Records Management Requirements. My name is Beth Cron. Like Arianne said, I'm on the Records Management Policy and Program Support Team in the Office of the Chief Records Officer. Next slide, please. So the Universal Electronic Records Management Requirements document is the basis for our Federal Electronic Records Modernization Initiative or FURME. We are seeking to enable agencies to acquire the services and solutions they need to manage their electronic records. We consider this document to be a living document that's based on regulations, standards, policy, and guidance. So as they change, we will also update this document. As we've had several updates over the last couple of years, we've now made these changes in version three. Our first version came out in August 2017 and version two in April 2020. So now we have version three in June 2023. I'd like to make a note that we are so appreciative of the working group that was made up of representatives from several agencies who provided important feedback to us on what should be included in this next version. Agency feedback and input is a critical part of this process to make a useful requirements document. So if you are interested in assisting us with work like this in the future, please let us know. Universal Electronic Records Management Requirements are just what they sound like. They identify a high level business needs for managing electronic records. They are baseline ERM program requirements that are derived from existing NARA regulations, policy, standards, and guidance. We intend for them to be a starting point for agencies to use when developing system requirements and they are a building block. We know that records management staff should work with their acquisition and IT staff to tailor them to their specific agency and system requirements. As there could be a risk that a one-size-fits-all approach may not fit completely and so you're gonna need to include agency-specific requirements. The document itself contains a few tabs within an Excel file. They include an abstract, a change log, the list of life cycle requirements, a glossary, and now two new tabs to address digitization requirements. So today I'll give you a brief overview of those changes that we've made in version three. The new regulations for the digitization of permanent records were finalized in June and so we took those and summarized them in two new tabs for digitization of permanent and temporary records. So these are a summary of what is in the regulations. We also revised the abstract to include born digital and digitized analog records. We consolidated the records types that are in, within the document, there's the life cycle requirements tab that has a number of columns with different record types. These were intended to convey which requirements apply to specific types of records like electronic messages or social media. And so in version three, we removed cloud services as any type of record could be stored in cloud services. So it wasn't as helpful of a distinction. We also removed engineering drawings and we consolidated the record types along audio and video as well. Under that life cycle requirements tab, we also added new requirements on metadata needed to support search and maintenance of electronic records, including electronic messages. We updated authoritative sources, including adding digitization regulations and the expanded capstone bulletin for electronic messages. And then we removed a duplicative requirement on preferred or acceptable file formats. Another thing you will notice is that we removed the transfer requirements, transfer format requirements tab as this content changes much more often than the universal ERM requirements document. The authoritative source for the transfer formats is that appendix A, it's a table of file formats that is a NARA bulletin 2014-04 and that's format guidance for the transfer of permanent electronic records. So that's the place to look for the latest. And then we updated the glossary with all of the other changes that I mentioned. Next slide please. Now that version three is out, we're working on several next steps. First, we are working with the multiple awards schedule team at GSA to incorporate this new requirements document into the GSA multiple awards schedule. We're doing this in two different ways. So we've had a long existing electronic records management solutions, special item number or notice SIN and that's 518210 ERM. And there are currently 98 vendors on that list who self-certify that they meet NARA's requirements in the universal ERM requirements document. So the vendors that are on that list have to self-certify that they can meet the requirements in order to be added. They do this with a vendor certification form where they can check what types of records they can manage and GSA is updating this form with the, there's now eight record types, like I mentioned, the consolidation of the columns. And so they'll now have the eight boxes and we're going to include a new part of the form with a section asking vendors to provide a narrative description of how they manage the various records types. This will be very useful for market research purposes as these are very common questions that all agencies have. For example, how do you meet the requirements to manage social media records or electronic messages? So the second change, second way we're working with the multiple award schedule team at GSA is making a change to the document conversion services SIN or special item number. And that's 518-210 DC. So what we're gonna do, well actually what GSA is doing is creating a subgroup called NARA compliant digitization services for federal records. This will be within that SIN. So subgroups were created to give buyers the ability to more clearly identify smaller subsets of contractors that offer specific products or services in that bigger schedule. So they can identify more specific requirements for technical products, services and solutions. So we hope this will give more clarity and specificity on what those contracting officers, excuse me, those contracting offerings are under the document conversion services SIN. So it will display as those vendors who wish to be included in that subgroup will self-certify that they should be on that group because we aren't able to change or expand the scope of the awarded contracting offerings at this time, but we're always open to suggestions on how we could work with GSA in the future. And so by requesting additions to this subgroup, the contractors will be self-certified, self-certifying that they meet NARA's digitization requirements. So if you have any questions about the multiple word schedule contracts or vendors, you can contact recordsmanagement at gsa.gov. Next slide, please. And so the second part of our next steps is that we're going to be updating our electronic records management federal integrated business framework or ERM FIBF. We're going to incorporate the updates that we've made to the universal ERM requirements. This framework has standards for what shared services need to do to manage records throughout their life cycle. NARA is the standards lead for electronic records management. And in this role, we've been able to make records management recommendations for all the other standards leads, like travel, financial management, human resources and real property. And so this has been a very valuable role for us at NARA to be able to provide those records management recommendations. So we will be updating these with our requirements. And now I am happy to take any questions. Thank you, Beth. I don't see any have come in yet. Please stick around and we'll see if any come in. We'll ask you those later. Okay, thank you. So next on the program is our presentation on the updates to ERA 2.0. With that, I'd like to call David Lake and Sam McClure up, gentlemen. Thank you, Ariane. David Lake here, Program Manager for ERA. Hello everyone. Sam and I are pleased to be here in what now seems to be our regular spot here on the bridge agenda. Happy as always to give updates on ERA and that's what we're doing today. We'll give a short update on where we are with ERA 2.0. As we continue the rollout of the system, we know activity is starting to pick up and ramp up in the system. We've worked on some tweaks to performance of the system recently. And anecdotally, we're seeing that that's improved the user experience. That said, we know there are a number of issues that we're still working related to the system, whether universal issues for all users or certain situations with certain agencies that we continue to work. And Sam is going to kind of go through some of the known issues and migration cleanup work that we're doing now. Next slide. Thank you. So I'm just going to provide a brief status on where we are. If we step back in mid-April, we opened up the system for users to come in and test out their user accounts. It's the first time that users have had to use PIV to access the system and to authenticate through max.gov. So we went through that kind of period. In mid-June, we then started work on the transfer requests invited users in to begin work on their transfer requests. And that continues today. Obviously a major milestone with the transfer request work each year is the annual move. And so preparations for that are underway. Of course, preparations begin outside of the ERA 2.0 long before now. But specifically related to ERA 2.0, we've begun testing in the system of the load of data to create in bulk the many thousands of transfer, draft transfer requests in the system. So we're going to starting that testing right now. And of course, NARA will be providing updates on the annual move just as we do every year through those means. In terms of schedules, also back in mid to late June, we started work with a small number of agencies. Scheduling work, that list has grown over time. And I think soon we'll be able to announce when all agencies can be in scheduling work. I would expect within the next month, we will have more firm information on the timelines related to opening up ERA 2.0 for all agencies and scheduling. And so we're working on to get that out as soon as we can. With that, I'm going to pass it over to Sam McClure to talk about migration cleanup and known issues. Thank you, David. As David said, I'm also pleased to be here just to give you an update on ERA. However, I'm not pleased to speak towards data migration errors that we're needing to correct. And some of the issues we'll discuss on the next slide. We're working hard to address these. We'll get into a little bit of detail here. But the basic point is your work in the system is too important. Your time is too important. We've got to get these errors fixed. And by the time of the next bridge, when we'll be back at our usual spot in the agenda, we'll have better updates to provide across the board and all of these issues. But to go over where we are with the data migration, we have encountered a fair number of forms of the 104,000 that were migrated. We're looking at maybe 2,000 thereabouts that have been affected in one form or another with an error. In some cases, they were migrated into 2.0 but in an incorrect status. In other words, they did not complete the workflow process, did not arrive at an approved status of their record schedule or a custody accepted status. In many cases, if there were a transfer request, so they need to be cleaned out, remigrated and arrive at their correct status from there. We have a number of forms also that were not able to be migrated at all. For various reasons related to our system infrastructure, some of these forms failed at the outset of their migration. We've got to correct those issues and get those into the system and get those into the correct status as well. We maintain a list of the known form errors. It's available here. We shared about systems notice a few weeks back from the ERA help desk. We update this on a fairly regular basis in response to updates we get from users from both agency and the NARA side of things. And we will keep this updated, both with known errors and soon with fixes that are coming for the errors that we're confronting. We do have a set of priorities for data correction. Those include record schedules that are affecting transfer requests. In other words, the appropriate authority is not available in ERA 2.0 for transfer requests, meaning which were in process at the time of data migration. We've got to get those fixed immediately. There are a number of schedules also that were in process that have been hung up during the data migration. Those need to be addressed. So those that we know are affecting current work or at the top of our priority list will be correcting every error, getting all the data into the system as soon as we can. The problems have proven stubborn. If it was easy to get them into the system, they would have been part of that initial migration and been successful in the first place. But we are working with our development vendor on correction activities. There are, again, a variety of errors that prevented the correct data migration. We'll have a variety of solutions to address those errors that work to start correcting the errors and migrating the forms in and get them to their correct status with the correct information will be starting very soon. At the time of our next bridge update, we'll have a very different story to tell on the status of the data migration. In the meantime, as you begin your work or continue your work in the year 2.0 and if you're looking for a specific authority in terms of a legacy schedule or a transfer request that should be in a particular status and you can't find it, please contact our help desk, give as many details as you can about the form, the ID, including if it's just the N1 number that you were looking for, anything else about the form that you're not able to find and we will take that in, we'll edit to our list, we'll add it to the errors that we're gonna be correcting and we'll get a response to you as soon as we have progress to report. Next slide. We also have a number of configuration and code issues we've been dealing with as the system has come into broader use. One of the first major blockers we encountered was the inability of the system to generate PDFX ports of record schedules in particular beyond having a number of items, a certain number of items in the form. That's obviously a critical blocker for the federal register process for those schedules that include temporary items. We have a code fix for that that will be coming out in a deployment in the coming weeks. We also have had a set of agency users from a number of organizations who've been consistently unable to log in. Been in contact with many of those. We're looking at a variety of root causes for that. We're looking at anything from the IP addresses that would be needed from our permission standpoint to grant access to ERA, to other configurations that need to be changed within their particular browser sessions that would allow them to gain access to the system. Is it something in a disconnect with their max.gov profile versus ERA? So we're working to get those resolved. Each one of those seems to be a slightly different problem as well. So we'll be working specifically with each agency that's reported an inability to log in to try to get this done. One of the bigger problems we face on the transfer request side is when agency users go in to reassign forms that are on their dashboard under my team's task, they see a boatload of NARA users from the custodial units to whom their transfer requests are intended. They're not seeing their own colleagues, their own agency users in there. Our development vendor has identified a fix for this problem. It should be coming out in September. We'll be working to test and deploy that as soon as possible. And so we know that that is having a big impact on the ability to make progress on migrated TRs. New transfer requests that are started within an agency seem to be working reasonably well, but these migrated forms are really being affected by this reassignment problem. We had a couple of issues where our help desk has gotten better at remedying those situations immediately. In a number of cases when folks went to go take actions on a form in the system as part of the workflow, they would get a little indicator that form was blocked. If you see that message and you're not able to take action on a form that's in your dashboard, open a ticket with our help desk. They should be able to resolve that problem, get that form up and available for your use in relatively short order. We've also gotten better at making those corrections that are needed for account setups. I've been contacting a number of agency users as well to make sure we get their accounts set up properly, but they have become much more rapid in their ability to make those updates that are needed to get accounts working in the expected way. Our first code fix deployment will be coming in the next couple of weeks, as we mentioned with the PDF fix. And we'll be looking to continue these deployments on as close to a monthly basis as we can hit to continue to provide fixes and enhancements. We have to move from agencies making progress in the system in spite of some of these issues to the system becoming the real enhancement to these processes that we've intended it to be. We're making progress. There is a lot of good work going on in the system already. We need to continue to remove these obstacles and enhance the ability for agency folks to use the system. Next slide, please. We end with some of our standard slides. We make the standard pitch in terms of accessing the ERA 2.0 if you've not tried your account since we've rolled out in April. As David said, it is a big change from how we provided access to the original ERA system. You need that max.gov profile in an active account in ERA. For those folks who do not have the PIVCAC option, you can use a user ID and password with max.gov to log in. You will need to get an authenticator app. There's some details about that that have come out from the max.gov help desk. We can also get that information to you through the ERA help desk where necessary. And we can get you set up regardless whether you have a PIV or not, as long as you get that max.gov profile. Next slide, please. Lastly, I'll make the standard pitch for the online resources that we've posted online in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Records Officer. The account request page gives basic details on the roles that are available in the system. You have a lot of really good training materials down to the subtask level within record schedule and transfer request processes. The user manual available with that third link is very comprehensive if you want to see the soup to nuts. And what we're most hopeful about on that page is we're adding more sort of specific job aids and tailored user guides in response to feedback we're getting from agency users. We've put up a troubleshooting guide where you encounter an issue with the system. This will walk you through some of the basic questions in terms of what sort of issue you may be having, ways to remedy that, what to report to the help desk in some cases to sort of accelerate the process of getting those problems fixed. We've also gotten a number of questions from agency users who say, I know the N1 or NN number that I need to use from the legacy schedule. However, I can't find it in ERA. And in these cases, it's not a data migration issue per se. They just don't know how the search is an intuitive for how to provide responses that tell you the DAL identifier to use those N1s to get deep into the jargon for a moment. So we put up a job aid that a couple of different or we will be putting up a job aid with a couple of different approaches for how to take the information you do know about your legacy schedule and run various searches to pull up the authorities you need in ERA 2.0 to do your work, particularly on the transfer request side. With that, I think with the next slide, we're at overall questions. And so obviously, David and I are happy to take any ERA questions. We'll pass it back to Aryan. Yes, and there are a couple of ERA questions that are populated through. One was about the link in the sort of the presentation where the known error list URL is, I guess it's on slide 33. I assume that's public since it's in our bridge presentation. The easiest way to get that link would be when we post the slides, you can download the deck and pull it from there, I think. And because the question was to put it in the YouTube chat, I just can't joke with that many balls in the error one time. And also sending it to the ERA help desk, we can get that link back to you if you don't see it. And if you can't get to the slide deck in time, we're happy to get that link to you. Okay, here's another one. Who else can we speak with at NARA if we are encountering issues in the ERA 2.0 that the ERA help email group has not been able to assist with? So sort of what's the escalation? So you're saying that if I've been a roadblock to progress, who to go to above me? That's a great question. If it's you need help with the question you've asked to the ERA help desk, please contact me, Sam.McClure at NARA.gov. I've worked with a number of NARA and agency users with issues that have come up with the help desk, try to clarify what's being communicated on the user side, what information we need on the help desk side, whatever I can do to help ensure that you get a good response from our help desk, I'm happy to do. So Sam McClure, Sam.McClure at NARA.gov. Thank you. Since there are delays with the input, with inputting the schedules into the system, how does this affect a new retention schedule waiting for the archivist signature? Will we be receiving the signed schedule anytime soon? So the classic NARA answer first from the system perspective is it depends. It depends on the nature of where was that schedule in the workflow? Is it still in the workflow now? Is it caught up in a data migration error that's on that list? We have seen a number of schedule go through the workflow, get signed by the archivist. We'll be working to get some more of those done this week. We know that a number of agencies have created certified schedules and sent them over to NARA for review. So it really does get down to the specifics of a particular schedule, whether it's on the error list or where it is in the workflow. And from there, we can give a better answer. That's at least from the system perspective. Are agencies able to submit transfer requests now? Oh, yes. Yes. And here's one I think that may be a little higher up on the records management chain. Are we able to apply the new record schedule while we wait for signature or are we required to wait for the approved authority? I don't know if one of my other colleagues wants to chime in. I could answer that if I can. I think we all probably could answer that. And I think the short answer is agencies must wait. You must have an approved disposition authority. Yes. Thank you, Lauren. Yeah. And I'll just add, we have over 30 schedules queued up for the archivist to sign and should be signed later this month. There's been a handful of them signed already as we were working through system issues. So if you send your schedule number, we can probably hunt it down and figure out where it is in the queue. Thank you both. I think that's the ERA questions. Now I want to call Scott back up sort of for some FRC issues that have been coming in throughout the meeting. First, please have any updated rates approved in a timely fashion as the IAA should be in place by October 1st. I guess that's sort of reiterate the timeline for that when absolutely. And I know as you can imagine, there's multiple levels of review and approval. They've already made it past the program review and now they're up even further still. So I know they're working hard and steady on those. And that is definitely our goal to get those packages out well in advance. Okay. What is the expected response time for transfer requests to the FRC at this time? We've had some recent requests take over a month and I'm just wondering if that is still the average or if that is abnormal. Well, I can definitely say that is abnormal and that is not what we would accept. The delay of the month is way too long. I would say that if you experience more than a three to five day delay, I would encourage you to reach out to the record center that you're working with at their general mailbox at the transfer mailbox. Short of that, you could definitely contact your account manager or FRC at narra.gov. We definitely wanna know if you're experiencing any delays. So please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Thank you. Again, another FRC for tribal partners who have contracted with the FRCs for their record storage for just federal partners. Well, as I understand it, it is all of our partners. And so unless an agency or partner has received an exception to the OMB memo, June 2024 is the deadline for sending in any further paper or analog records. Thank you. I think that's the FRC questions, but don't go far. Here's another one for Sam and David. Can the help desk assist with populating legacy schedules when doing a direct offer or is that a development issue? Short answer is no. The longer answer is it depends on the nature of the issue there. If it's a question about being able to find the legacy schedule, it could be that they can help you with that job aid to be able to search for your N1 number to pull up the relevant authority as a DAL in the system to use in your transfer request. If it's an issue of a data migration error, we need to get that reported. We work with a separate vendor who's gonna be doing the effort to fix those corrections. The help desk can't, that all they can do is report problems to us that are related to data migration. We're working with a separate vendor who has the ability to start to make those changes that are necessary to get those forms into the system. So it really depends on the nature of whether they can, they're searching for it and can't find it. And if it's a search issue or it ultimately the ones that being that the schedule is in there as expected. I hope that answered the question. We can only do our best. Can our provide examples of how agencies should implement a validation component for digitization of permanent records? So I'll jump in on that one. Not the expert on digitization, but what I would like to do is point everybody to our new website that covers all of our digitization standards and supplementary products. We do have some things in the queue that are gonna be coming out soon that will cover validation, quality management and other complementary aspects of what a digital digitization program should have as we go forward to be compliant with the new standards. So in the meantime, until we get all of our products up on the website, I would encourage you to reach out to RMStandards at narrow.gov and they'll be happy to assist you. Will an upcoming bridge meeting or other NARA webinar cover the new scheduling records regulation? So that's a good question. As you know, we've been working on revising all of 36 CFR sub chapter B records management. It's gonna be a multi-year project to get everything done but we've started to issue smaller pieces of what's gonna be part of that overall revamp, including the requirement to review schedules every five years. So the answer is yes. We are going to be talking about that at future bridge meetings. And we're, once we have sort of like a nice chunk of regs done, things that we want to spotlight, we'll be doing similar to what we did when we released the digitization standards and regulations, we'll have separate briefings to review what we've issued, to talk about some of the context and requirements that will be in the new regulations as we issue them. But of course, there's a wide review process for all of those regulations. So agencies should be familiar with what we've been developing and we'll have a chance to do a closer look as we do interagency review. So stay tuned for more on that. And this is, I guess, I'll throw this over to our colleagues at OGIS if they're still around. How will FOIA be affected by those permanent records that have to be accession to NARA but still carry restrictions? ATF's Waco records are an example. They now belong to NARA but are restricted because they contain law enforcement sensitive information and PII. Thank you. So I do want to point out that archives.gov forward slash FOIA, FOIA covers this in terms of how individuals can make a FOIA request related to archival records and as well as our own agency operational records. So right in the middle of that webpage, there are two boxes and each one explains that process. So I think that answers that question. I think it does. Thank you, Kimberly. Can you talk a bit more about ERMs, FIBF? So I'll call on Beth for that. If you want to talk a little bit more about the FIBF. Sure. The FIBF is the Federal Integrated Business Framework. And what this is is there's a business standards council that is made up of standards leads who have the subject matter expertise or the regulatory authority for different standards leads. Like I mentioned, travel, human capital is within OPM, real property within GSA, financial management within Treasury, cybersecurity within SISA. So they all have these standards and they're all identifying their functions, capabilities, use cases and standard data elements for what all of their systems need to do. And electronic records management is actually what we call a horizontal function in that it touches all of those other standards areas as they are all creating records. And so the goal with creating a FIBF for electronic records management is that we can be sure that all of the records created in those other shared services are managed for as long as needed. And so we've made recommendations to other standards leads and pointed them to the general record schedule and said you should be able to identify these records that you're creating in your processes and keep them for this specific period of time. So if you'd like to learn more, it's at ussm.gsa.gov and you can see all the standards leads there or if you have any additional questions just send them to RM Communications and we'll be sure to answer them. Thank you, Beth. Here's another one maybe for us, Lawrence. Does NARA have a list of the federal government's officially approved record keeping system? If so, where can I find it? I'm interested in knowing if GSA's federal document management system is one of these systems. So the answer to that is no, NARA does not keep a list. NARA does not endorse any specific tool. That is why we have the universal ERM requirements for agencies to take a look at those and compare what services and solutions out there meet those requirements. That's also why we've worked with GSA to create that list of vendors who do self-certify that they meet requirements. So I know that's a self-certification but it's a very good starting point when looking at vendors and doing market research. And I'll say that GSA also has a number of helpful tools in that market research space. GSA's federal docket management system is a good example of a shared service. There is a regulation standards lead who's in charge of that. They're identifying all of their functions, capabilities and requirements. And I cannot speak to today if records management is fully incorporated in that system, but that would be a question for the FDMS. I think this one's a Scott question. I know there's a long-term plan to overhaul and replace the current iteration of Arcus, but in the meantime, are there any plans to fix the current inability for users to run reports? The option is there, but it's not functioning with our M2307 deadline coming up. Has server capacity been considered? As it is, the system is slow and crashes more than it should. Well, that's a very good question. Arcus 2.0 should address those bandwidth and reporting issues, as you can imagine. But until then, if you're having issues, you could email the frc.nara.gov. You could contact your account manager or you could send a message into the Arcus Help Desk at ArcusHelp.nara.gov because we don't want you experiencing those delays. So if there are problems, perhaps there's something we could do to work through those, but please let us know. Thank you, Scott. I also want to note that in the YouTube chat, there's been a conversation about a particular piece of software and John Mencini chimed in with the offer to help. So thank you, John. ERA, so Sam and Dave, is it possible for an agency to have two agency-approving officials for ERA accounts? Is it possible to account managers for the user accounts that you manage in ERA? That is not a typical setup, right? The role of the account manager is simply to be the person who says that the following accounts from our organization are currently valid and that these folks still require access to the system. It's two agency-approving officials. I don't know if that changes your answer or not. So you said accounts, right? Agency-approving officials. Well, what was the last part of the question? I want to make sure I'm answering the right question. Is it possible for an agency to have two agency-approving officials for ERA accounts? If you want two approving officials to work on transfer requests and knock yourself out, you can have as many approving officials as you want to propose TRs to the National Archives to be able to draft TRs within that role, propose them, take the terms of agreement and move forward. If it's speaking about the person who approves accounts, which is a separate thing, they get more into the realm of sort of our annual accreditation and making sure that accounts are done in a proper way. But from an AO standpoint, approving official in the system for transfer requests, several agencies already have multiple folks in that role and there's no reason why another agency who needs it more than one person to be able to submit transfer requests to the National Archives to have people with that role. I'm sorry if I watch the question, but focus in on accounts first. It's all right. I get the IT security often, so I want to make sure I stay on the line. You covered both cases. And I think that's everything I've got. No, wait a minute. Will there be any updates? Will there be any updates to speed up ARCIS? So maybe another ARCIS related question for Scott. I'm sorry, Arian, could you repeat the question for me? Will there be any updates to speed up ARCIS? Or what is your timeline for ARCIS 2.0? It is still in the review process. And I would say that I can't really give you a clear date quite yet. I would imagine we'll have further updates as things progress, but currently it is still in that review process. Okay. I think Sam and Dave, this is more follow-up on the account manager question. Thank you for the response. But the problem is that I have to contact my account manager every time I want to make a report. I would like to be able to do it myself. What, what, what kind of report? And like, Sam, right to RM communications at nard.gov, send us the specifics. We'll try to help you out. Yeah, I think that's the case where there's some specifics here that we need to unpack and see what exactly is going on. So if you reach out to us at RM communications or reach out to the ERA help desk, we'll get that sorted for you. Absolutely. Our agency is limited to one user for their disposition schedule. I'm not sure I understand that question. I think it's an ERA question. And you can have multiple record schedulers, but generally one certifying official. That, that tends to be the typical setup. You have multiple people who can draft schedules and submit them internally for review by a certifying official who within certify those schedules and send them to NARA. In some cases we have a couple of agencies with multiple CEOs, a little more complicated from an agency workflow, but you can have as many people in, in whatever roles you need to support your business. I'm just doing one last survey. I think we've got all the questions and all the loose issues taken care of. So thank you everyone. And I'll turn it over to Lawrence. All right. Thank you, Aran. And thank you everybody for attending today and having so many questions. We're always happy here to answer them and find out what are the things that are on your minds and the challenges that you're facing in your agency. So please keep the questions coming, keep the conversation going and let us know if there are topics that you would like to hear us talk about in October as we plan for our next bridge meeting, which will be on October 17th. So let's talk as we get through the summer and into the fall and next fiscal year. Hope everybody has a good transition and enjoys the rest of what's left of your summer. And we will see you again in October. Thank you all for attending.