 Everyone, and welcome to our last bridge meeting for 2021. My name is Ariane Ravenbach, 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 My Monthly Records and Information Discussion Group, or bridge meetings, to present information relating to federal records management. Bridge is co-produced by the Office of the Chief Records Officer for the United States and the Federal Records Center Program, and is live streamed to the audience over our YouTube channel. Generally, bridge meetings consist of a scheduled program of presentations with an open forum. Ariane, can you please unmute your mic? Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our last bridge meeting for 2021. My name is Ariane Ravenbach, 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 My Monthly Records and Information Discussion Group, or bridge meetings, to present information relating to federal records management. Bridge is co-produced by the Office of the Chief Records Officer for the United States and the Federal Records Center Program, and is live streamed to 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 post questions in the chat, or by sending an email to rm.communications.nara.gov. Our staff will be monitoring this email box during the meeting. You are also welcome to make comments during this meeting in the YouTube chat. However, keep in mind that all comments are subject to moderation, so we ask that you keep the comments relevant to the topics being discussed. Copies of the presentation slides will be posted on the bridge page of the Archives website. That web page is also where you will find links to the transcript of today's meeting when it is available, as well as 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 those along to us. We welcome your feedback. With that, I would like to start by introducing Gordon Everett, Director of the Federal Records Center Program, to get us underway. Good afternoon, Gordon. Thank you, Ariane. Good afternoon to everyone. Last we met, it was in October prior to Thanksgiving, so we do hope everyone had a peaceful and safe Thanksgiving and enjoying their families. My name is Gordon Everett, Director of the Federal Records Center Program, and as Ariane stated, this is our first afternoon session of bridge. And we hope this effort is successful as we expand our attempt to reach those folks who are on the West Coast or in the Western time zones. We hope to get your feedback on these afternoon sessions of bridge and look forward to hearing from you. And happy holidays to all, and hope everyone has a happy new year. Today we're going to be talking about several different subjects on the agenda that we'll bring to you. We'll have a briefing from Narra's Records Management Office on leveraging enterprise technology to manage records. We'll have GRS updates for you. We'll have a 2021 annual reporting reminder. And we'll have some records management training updates for you today. But I'm going to start out and just give you a brief update on the Federal Records Center Program. And really, here's where we are. The records centers are open, although we are in limited operations as 15 of 17 of our records centers are in high COVID transmission counties, as noted by the CDC. So in those counties where we have high transmission rates, these centers are limited to up to 25 percent of their staff in the facility. So we only have two areas, WNRC and San Bruno, that are in substantial areas where there's no limitation on staff within the building. In case you want to know what high transmission under CDC guidelines is greater than 100 new cases per 100,000 population the last seven days, or 10 percent plus positivity rate during the last seven days. And in those areas, those centers are open. However, I want to remind agencies that we have up to, it could be less, up to 25 percent of our staff in those centers. So it is, I would encourage agencies to refer to FRC.gov, where we have, we update the status every day if there's a change. But normally, status on substantial or high transmission areas are changed every week. And that change comes to us from the Archivists of the United States. So at this point, we just ask for your patience. You can follow the status. If you have questions, you can reach out to your account managers. They can answer a lot of questions. And they can also go over the status with you of the different record centers if there is a specific center that you need to engage with. So with that, I do have, if there are any operational FRC questions, I do have our Director of Operations, Chris Pinkney on with me today. If someone has a few questions on FRC operations. Hi, Gordon. We do have one question that's come in. Do we know when Archives 2 is expected to begin accepting permanent record physical transfers again? You know, I'll have to get an answer on that one, because I do not have that answer. But that's something that we can get. And I guess we can post a response afterwards for the folks. Sure. Or we can bring it up. If we can track it down while the meeting is still going on, we can hold it to the end. All right. We'll see if we can't do that. And here's a question also coming in. We've seen in the news during the past months about the great resignation. Are attrition and resignations impacting NARA's FRC operations? I, you know, I don't, I'll let, I'll go to my operations guy. I don't, I haven't seen a lot of attrition yet. Obviously, you know, we haven't had an opportunity to call all of our staff back in just yet. So as we get to that, we'll see, you know, who's coming back, who is not. But I can't say that we've seen the attrition yet because NARA and the Federal Recreational Program, we have not had a recall of all of our staff back in the facilities yet. Gordon, can you hear me? Sure. Sure. Yeah, I was just going to say, to the extent I'm aware, I would, I would speculate that the number of retirements and resignations we've seen in 21 are probably roughly in line with the broader US government. We do have a number of people who are calling it a career, but we're doing the best we can to make sure that in those cases we're able to capture the professional technical knowledge that the individuals have developed over decades. And we continue to work on backfills as we become aware of vacancies at different centers. So we're, we're not seeing a huge spike yet. We're doing, doing our best to make sure we don't lose any technical expertise as part of this transition. And then we're working to do the best we can to keep centers staffed for the ultimate reopening. Right. Thank you both. Here's another question that's come in. Do you have an estimate of the amount of space at the Federal Records Center, specifically Suitland for collateral secret and top secret? I'm going to turn to Chris on that one. So I don't, I don't have the volume off the top of my head. What I can say is we do not at this point have a huge space shortage within our vaults at Suitland. And there's several things we could do to make additional space available. I would recommend that if somebody's talking about a very large volume of records in the tens of thousands, they reach out to the WNRC staff sooner rather than later, just so they can start making arrangements to coordinate receipt and ensure that we've, we've moved anything we have to move to make, make space available for your material. Okay. Thank you. That's actually a high point for us. We do have space there. Yeah. Any others? Thank you. One other question that's come in, for records that are permanent electronic records, how should we send those to NARA? Should they be burned to a disk, mailed, or will there be an online repository where they can be uploaded? I think ERA, I'm going to, I don't know if we have anybody from research services on the line, but ERA is the way to send permanent electronic records into NARA. They also have any information on that, but I'm pretty sure it's ERA as the instrument that we use. I think that's correct, Gordon. And we've got, I will note that another question that's come in with respect to M1921. Is the date to the FRCs to stop accepting new records transfers getting moved? It's not what NARA will do on behalf of federal agencies, since many were closed or limited services for the past two months. In addition, many agency staff is also teleworking. So this is the standard M1921 question. Yeah. I do know there's some discussion between NARA and OMB. However, there's been no decision on that at this point. I know we're encouraging folks to still plan to get records into us by that date if something changes, an announcement will come on that, and this still does give folks time to, if there is an exception or some sort of exception, they may need to go through that process and take a look at their systems and processes to determine if that's viable for them. But at this point, there is not a new date as we speak today. Thank you, Gordon. And jumping on the back of that, we also got the pending digitization guidance for permanent records question. I don't know if we can address that now, or do we want to hold that to the end? Do you want to hold that in case we have some others, or if someone else wants to take that? Give me a second to pop up here. Hi. We can share it at the end, and we can talk again. My name is Lisa Harris-Lampus. I'm the Director of Records Management Policy and Outreach, and I told Gordon I'd be here to help answer questions about the M1921 digitization regulations and any other substantive questions, and I appreciate we got so many right out of the gate. The answer on the digitization regulations, I should say the regulations with the digitization standards for permanent analog records or paper records, I'm afraid it's the answer we gave you two months ago at the last bridge. They are still within NARA, and they are being reviewed before they will be sent to OMB's Office of Information Regulatory Fairs for review, approval, and posting, and we don't have any further specific information we can share other than we know that 2022 is coming and we are working diligently to get them out as soon as we can. So I'm sorry I don't have a more current update, and in just the same time as before. For the M1921, I'll echo what Gordon said. NARA is in discussion with OMB. At this time, we do expect to see some movement hopefully soon that we'll be able to share in a moment, but the same thing that Gordon said, I would echo. The work that has to be done to make the deadlines real, to help transfer paper records to either the Federal Records Centers, so they can stay there and live out their lives until it's their time to be transferred to NARA, or the work of trying to make direct offers to NARA with those permanent paper records without having to digitize. The planning can still go into that work. How much do we have? How long would we need an exception for? If we can't make a 2022 date, what is the date that we would be able to make? Maybe it'll work out and an extension will feel a bit just perfect, but maybe it won't and an exception will still be needed. So we are encouraging agencies to continue their planning, even if they may not be able to get into the building to do their digitization work or to do their transfer work. NARA is very sympathetic to the need to be safe for everybody as we manage our records. And I will be here, Gordon, and you can shout out if you want me to come back in again. I'm happy to support what you have to say. Yeah, I did. Thank you. Are there any other questions for the record center? I think, Gordon, we've got a couple others that are sort of on the digitization topic. And what I'm going to do is just hold those in abeyance to the final that's fine session of the meeting. We cover everything else. All right. Well, thanks very much. Thanks, Erin. So stay tuned. So now we'll have a briefing from NARA's Records Management Office on leveraging enterprise technologies to manage records. Delivering the briefing will be Director of Corporate Records Management and NARA Debbie Armand Trout. Good afternoon, Debbie. Good afternoon, Arianne and everybody else or good morning to some. I'm very excited to be presenting today as NARA is often asked about its own records program and what we're going to meet mandates. So I'm going to talk about improvements and strategies that we have for our own internal records management program. Some of your agencies may be far advanced in these areas, whereas other agencies may not be. So for those who don't know me, I am NARA's Agency Records Officer. And as Arianne said, the Director of Corporate Records Management. I've been working in records and information management for many years. And this is my second round at NARA. Previously, I was an appraisal archivist and worked on the NARA training program. In between my NARA careers, I was the Agency Records Officer at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Well, to set this stage today, besides that, I'm going to start by explaining who we are and who we aren't, organizationally and functionally at the National Archives. Hold on that slide, please. I'm then going to discuss a critical project that must do to be successful, leveraging any type of technology to manage records, which is updating our records schedules. So full confession, we have to update our records schedules. I'm also going to talk about our project to meet in 1921. What, you know, right now it's the 2022 deadline, as we were just mentioning, and then how we're moving towards eliminating paper records and transitioning to electronic. And then I'll focus on leveraging our available tools. And I'll talk about how we're a very small program. We fall under the office of the Chief Operating Officer. Our program costs and budget all are funded in that one small office with limited funds. So I'm going to talk about how we're working towards making electronic records management work by leveraging tools that are already in house. And I will mention that this is not easy. But neither is requesting upwards of a million dollars each year for an enterprise records management application. And then hopefully we'll have some time left for some questions. So who we are and who we aren't. To understand kind of where we are with our direction and strategy, it's good to know where we sit organizationally. So our staff and we go by C.M. Corporate records management staff, we are responsible for setting and implementing the agency's records management policy. And we follow not to any greater or lesser degree than any other agency. The policies, regulations and guidance that is established by the Office of the Chief Records Officer. As I mentioned, we report to the Chief Operating Officer who has four direct programs that are somewhat oversight in nature. Our COO, J.Besanko, is also in charge of NARA's mission programs, such as the record centers, D-Class, agency services, such as the Crow's Office, research services and the presidential libraries to name a few. And who we are not, the two that you deal with the most. We are not research services who accession and oversee holdings of the National Archives. And as many you know, holdings are what your records become once they're transferred to NARA for permanent preservation. Some of our corporate records are deemed permanently valuable and are eventually transferred into the holdings. But we don't deal with that in our regular course of business. And examples of our permanent records are policies, capstone official emails and leadership records accumulated by our executives. We are also not in the Office of the Chief Records Officer, as I refer to sometimes as Lawrence Brewer's shop. And as you know, they lead NARA's efforts to meet ongoing records management needs across the federal government. And as you know, they set policies and guidance and provide training for all agencies. What you may not know is that we in Corporate Records Management work with them just like any other agency. Next slide, please. So I mentioned that, you know, full confession. There are things that we must do to improve. So before we can be successful with any aspect of transitioning to electronic records, we have to update our record schedules to be implementable in an electronic environment. It is critical to this success of electronic records management. And I'm probably not telling anybody here something that they don't know, but it is just so important to get this right. In a records management application sometimes fail. Why? A lot of times it's because the record schedules are not implementable. You know, paper records, schedules tend to be more detailed and they have too many retention triggers that require too much user intervention to be understood by a computer. So we are taking a look at all of that. We have about fifteen hundred record schedule items. We are working to reduce that to about a hundred. We are using functionally based descriptions and items. For example, we may have a schedule that's for mission access refiles records or mission governance appraisal records, mission control storage records, support finance accounting or support human resources benefits records. We're also limiting the amount of retention triggers and changing them to more generic retention instructions such as permanent cut off records at the end of the fiscal year in which they become closed, completed, obsolete. And I'll talk more about how we define those a bit later. And then we're looking to standardize our retention times to three years, seven years, ten, fifteen, etc. After we draft schedules and obtain our internal approval, we have to have them approved by NARA and signed by the archivist of the United States, just like any other agency. Once they are approved, we will then incorporate them into the program office file plans, our inventory tracker, and revise any of the rules in some of the systems that contain records that I'm also going to speak on. We also publish a records and information management guide, what we refer to as a REMG, with all schedule updates. That could be our internal NARA record schedules or that could be general record schedules. That's how we get the word out within that timeframe. We also plan to write FAQs or disposition plans to accompany these functional and aggregate schedules. It's helpful for staff to understand how to implement them. And what we have found is, though, it allows us some flexibility and some sustainability in creating these aggregate schedules. It requires a bit more instructions up front for staff to understand how to implement. And it may require a bit of hand-holding. So one of the reasons and ways that we're trying to eliminate some of that is to write FAQs or disposition plans. And the FAQs will be very similar to how the general record schedule team prints out and posts FAQs related to certain chapters. Also, when a decision is going to be made between an office and us about where our records falls within one of these aggregate schedules, we are also asking them to document this in their office file plan. This way, they're not coming back to us every year. And as the file plan gets handed off, we all know that we've come to an agreement that certain records are handled by a certain schedule and a certain item. It's also really important that we're working with the IT staff on record schedules so that implementation isn't too complicated. We have found that when we provide IT staff with a handful of record schedules to be applied to one system, it's difficult, it's costly, it's confusing. And quite frankly, I feel it sometimes that's when we lose their engagement. It's because sometimes it's just not really quite possible. And then finally, we are actually looking at a tool to help us manage our disposition authorities and all of their associated history. So we want to note when a schedule has been withdrawn, superseded and keep track of all of that. And currently, there are some potential and low code tools that we're looking at creating kind of a prototype for the tool that we'd like. Next slide, please. So surprise, just like many of the rest of you, we have paper records. We want to move staff towards having confidence in managing records electronically that did happen a bit faster than we expected due to the pandemic. However, just in case they want to fall back into old habits, we are spending out reminders and records tips about what to do when they're back in the office. At the same time, we're also in the middle of a project to collect information about paper and analog records so that we can plan for the next year. Or maybe even the year after that, since we don't really know what that deadline might be. At this point, we're still targeting for the end of 2022 to move paper and analog records out of our offices. And our information management officers who are in all of the program offices are completing a form and giving like their best estimates as to what paper records they still have in the office and what they're going to need to transfer off site or into the holdings by the end of 2022. We're not asking anybody to go into the office at this time, but just give us an idea of what they might have. And then we're also doing this so that we can follow the NARA Bulletin 2020-01, which outlines the exceptions to moving to electronic records. We want to start having that conversation with them now. You know, what are their justifications for keeping records in paper and is it truly a strong justification or not? We've actually outlined the questionnaire to coincide right with the points in 2020-01. And recall that we are just like any other agency that we're going to have to submit a business case to NARA's Office of Chief Records Officer if we do have any exceptions. As I said, this has given us a really good opportunity to look at what they're doing, answer some of their questions. It's given us a look into how knowledgeable they are about records management and then sort of targeting what we need to cover and any kind of upcoming training. And then while we're collecting this information, we are providing the approval, if appropriate, to keep the records electronically. So in many cases, they're just unsure if they can't. They read the record schedule. They're not they're not sure if that covers electronic. And then this also leads us to leveraging current technologies and agreeing and documenting where they are keeping the official record, as well as getting the record schedules updated. So this whole process that we're going through is also like a quasi inventory, along with updating our file plans, which is something that we are going to focus on once we get through this information collection, going back to the offices and in tandem to discussing their responses about the paper records, we will be updating their file plans. Next slide, please. OK, so here's kind of the heart of the matter here. In the next few slides, I'm going to talk about how we're leveraging our current technologies to manage records. So what you see here on this slide is our current environment. So as tools, platforms, systems, and contracts I underscore that change, we have to keep abreast of what is happening and make sure to include requirements as applicable. And although it would be good to eventually not piecemeal all of this together, you know, and have a tool that is easily embedded and integrated with all systems, that is just not our current reality. So our goal is to leverage tools that we have now and in the future to where as records management is an a burden to the staff or to the budget. Now, some of you may be looking at this slide and also wondering like, why don't we use NARA's electronic records archives because that is surely an in-house tool, but that is a tool that's for managing archives and not active records. And then to interject our records management requirements at this point would be very costly. And then just like any other agency, we don't use ERA to any greater or lesser extent. Now what we are doing now is that we're managing electronic records, including email, text, chat, and voicemail via the capstone approach. So as you know, capstone is permanent for executives or generally executives and then seven years for non-capstone. We use GRS 6.1 and we have a NARA approved record schedule for items that are not covered in that GRS. We use the ZEL Unified Archive, which is a traditional records management application that was only initially being used for email, but we have expanded it over the last few years to include text messages. So we often get asked this, and what we're doing with our text messages are they are captured on our NARA mobile devices and then ingested into our email system. And then they're managed as an email object with the same retentions, labeling, and ability to denote non-records. And we're now working on adjusting chat records, which are currently stored in Google Vault. It appears that this is gonna require a connector or developing like a Google API, but it is not gonna require spending funds on a third party app. And just to remind folks, we are at Google Shop at the moment. As I said, this is our current environment. And then we also can capture voicemail by forwarding them automatically to our email system depending on what facility we reside. So we have different phone systems across the country. So as we look at a recompete for an enterprise system, we've informed our IT operations unit that there will be record keeping requirements. And this could potentially remove that whole like note to file that some facilities still have to use. Next slide, please. So for permanent records, our situation looks like this. As mentioned, we've expanded our use of ZLUA in the past few years, and we now use it to manage our permanent electronic records. And leveraging this application for more than electronic messages did require building connector between the Google shared drives and the ZL archives, and also a modification to our contract and a nominal fee for increased storage. But leveraging this system that was already available and even though we did have to go through some technical challenges and a contract mod, it still was much less work and much less costs than bringing in a whole new system. And then we also have a customer relationship management system that's built on Salesforce. And we use that for our executive tracking management system, research registration and pools of our holdings. And we have embedded records retention rules into this system. And then as we expand the use of this for other programs, we will build in the rules to address those particular record series. And then also we do manage our social media records. We have a record schedule that covers social media records using that functional approach. It's mission outreach engagement and mission outreach public affairs. And we used a capstone-esque flavor where the records of major mission programs and of our capstone official social media accounts are deemed permanent. And then as such, they're captured and managed in a tool called Archive Social where we preserve them as permanent records until we transfer them into the holdings of the National Archives. Next slide, please. And so now we are addressing temporary records and how are we gonna manage temporary records? So at the moment in our current environment, we are considering how to use Google share drives for the management of temporary records. We're getting them aligned with record schedules and file plans so that they are organized. And then we can either implement retention from there, which is somewhat manual and not great, but doable, or we may move them to a designated repository such as the CL Unified Archive. Again, these are just like some contractual issues that we have to work through and some budget issues. The technology is there. Our one other challenge though is that we are nearing the end of our current contract. So we recently provided requirements to our IT and acquisition staff and we will be posting an RFI for records covering electronic messages and collaboration communication type documents. And then also to reduce some costs for using the designated repositories such as ZLUA, we are proposing that perhaps we only use that type of tool for managing our high-risk, high-value, long-term temporary records that have retentions for let's say longer than seven years. And that's just because the preservation and the protection needs are very similar to what we have for permanent records. And then we're looking at short-term administrative type records, possibly being managed just in place and whatever is best suited for the program office. The reality is that these records are lower risk. Usually they're usually only available for a short amount of time and they really might not warrant the high cost to manage them in a high cost system. And then we're also looking at some promising technologies for the future such as machine learning and artificial intelligence types tools that might help us automate the management of our records. It might allow for temporary records to be destroyed. It might help identify permanently valuable information. We're just not sure at this point. So we're just sort of exploring that. As Nora is investigating how these tools may work for holdings, we've also been engaged in the discussion and have proposed actually using some of our records to pilot for identification and culling of these tools. Next slide, please. And then we come to governance. So another aspect of leveraging technologies is having the ability to embed records management into the governance process owned by IT or perhaps another identity entity. And it can be like swimming upstream. So to figure out where the tools and the systems are being deployed, it's a really rather active pursuit. So we are a member and part of the discussion in nearly every IT governance board such as enterprise architecture, governing board, the investment review board that's somewhat pending at the moment, the technical reference model governance board, enterprise storage working group, the data governance board, many of the integrated projects teams. And I've probably missed a few more. So all of this enables us to review all the IT governance artifacts for record keeping requirements. And it basically keeps an eye on any systems where we can build either in an automated or a manual process, the ability to apply records retentions. And then we've also inserted records management responsibilities into the roles and responsibilities of data stewards. We also have developed what we call core requirements. And this is where we've defined systems into four primary categories or tiers. And then based on the system, we can identify whether records requirements may be minimal or if they might expand and define what's needed for a full complement of records management capabilities. And what this has done is it's really reduced the amount of time that our own record staff has had to dedicate to providing requirements anytime they're in standing up or improving a system. And that's also allowed our IT staff to insert the requirements and then just refer back to us for like a quick check or to help them determine what kind of tier we would identify with a certain system. And then following all of that, we are still building our own RIM certification program. And this is where we will monitor all electronic systems for record keeping requirements and schedule implementation as applicable. And currently we're working on the questions that we will use to monitor the compliance and we also have a policy entraffed. This is going to be our own swiveling in the IT arena because as I mentioned, it's often challenging trying to embed ourselves in a process for which we have no control. See quick processes change, the forms change and we may or may not always have an influence on what kind of records management information we're putting into those forms. So this RIM certification will also include like a pre-selection investment artifact that has to be completed by the business owner or proposed business owner and then also a post-selection operations and maintenance auditing type process. And then in conclusion, and basically my key message is that our programs looking to update schedules, figure out what we have to do for the 2022 deadline and even if it gets extended, we're still gonna be pretty busy. And then that we're leveraging in-house and use technologies for managing our records by keeping an eye on what's being used and what's on the horizon for use in the program offices. Oh, I see that we were still actually on an older slide. Okay, so that was my conclusion slide that I went through. Thank you, Debbie. We do have a couple of questions that your talk has inspired. I'm gonna group some of these together when the topics are kind of the same. So we got a question about the chief data officers. How does your team work with your chief data officers and what general items are being discussed with that team? So the chief, so we actually do not have a chief data officer in place yet at NARA. So I've been working with the person who was acting and what's really come out of things to this point has been policies or they've been in charge of the IT strategic plan. So we've been engaged in a lot of discussion with that and then when they set up the responsibilities and roles for data stewards, we also were able to insert information about knowing what the retentions are and keeping an eye on that retention and then again having that discussion about are you gonna implement this? So I think we've been fairly engaged. I'm looking forward to having somebody on board permanently so that we can improve and have that kind of relationship with them. But we're again like kind of really keeping an eye on on what's gonna happen with our chief data officer. I hope that answered that question. Thank you, Debbie. I think it did. What taxonomy does NARA's internal records disposition schedule follow? Like the federal enterprise architecture used by NARA's GRS? I'd say for the GRS items, we are closely aligned. Andrea and I have talked about kind of getting together when we get ready to look at our schedules that fall under the more administrative type and just making sure that we're kind of in sync with that. But what we did to develop the taxonomy is that we went out to the various program offices. And we kind of had a framework and then we just started discussing it with the SMEs in the offices and asked them to describe certain categories, certain functions sort of and some activities and really kind of beat that into where we've got a fairly stable taxonomy. So we have the mission, which is again where we've taken a lot of the SMEs in the program offices to help us formulate that. And then we have the support function, which is fairly aligned with the general record schedule. Thank you. A question about the form used or the questionnaire that is given to the offices to evaluate their existing records. Is this a NARA internal form or is it one that you are willing to share with other agencies? It is a NARA internal form, but I would be happy to share the outline of that questionnaire. I can coordinate with your group to do that. Sure, perhaps we can do a records express blog post in the future on this topic. And another one sort of related to that as a tier core requirement lists that you referenced. Can those be shared? Again, I will refer to you all of about how we wanna share that. I'm happy to do that. I would actually really like to engage in discussion. Perhaps some folks out there actually could have some input where we could refine this and maybe develop it into something that's more broadly used. Here's why and how does your team gain the NARA functional offices cooperation in updating revising a disposition? Does your team find itself having to make a decision for that functional office? Well, we have the very same challenges as any other agency and that we've got certain shoes that have the stakeholders that all of our schedules have to be routed through for approval. I don't feel like even though we have archivist and records managers, I don't really know whether that makes our job any easier, but our team does a really good job of describing why we're proposing certain revisions to the record schedule. And for the most part, once we sit down and really describe why we're doing so, we do get the buy-in. Thank you. Does NARA's internal IT systems go through a formal IT portfolio management process with involvement by your office? I get meaning your office, Debbie. So I outlined earlier all of these governance groups that were on and that's really kind of their whole portfolio. They follow like these CPIC processes and regulations. We are involved in almost every single one of those. But as I mentioned, it is still like swimming upstream. Just when we feel like we've gotten ourselves really well positioned, something changes. It's not, you know, I should have said, we're also not part of the IT group. I should have written that in my second or third slide. So, you know, it's just, it's a matter of negotiating. It's a matter of pinging the right people. And I think that we're in a pretty, like we're fairly engaged, but I think that we're gonna be much better off when we establish our own process and artifacts outside of relying on IT and IT staff for that kind of governance. Thank you. I think one more question that has come in. Are you scheduling data as a record per guidance in the white paper, October, 2020? So as we're revising schedules, we are looking at data and data that's created to support certain functions. It's gonna be a very interesting discussion because, you know, we do find that we have systems that support multiple functions. And I'm really not sure at this time if we're going to want to carve out those nuances and actually have some kind of strict shorter policy to follow based on certain data sets. So when we come up to those, we may have to kind of default to that larger or longer retention, but we really haven't had to face that yet. We just know that we're going to. But yes, by all means, we are also trying to schedule the data. Well. So thank you, Debbie. I think those are all the questions we have queued up now. As a reminder to our audience, if you have questions that have come up since Debbie's presentations won't get to those at the end, please email them to rm.communications.nara.gov or put them in the YouTube chat. Okay, thank you, Ariane. Thank you, Debbie. With that, we'll move on to the next presentation this afternoon. And this is GRS updates from the supervisor of the operations, research and support team, Andrea Riley. Andrea, good afternoon. Good afternoon to everybody who's on the call. Thank you for being here. And we wanted to come with the GRS update because we realized we haven't done one in a little while. So you can go to the next slide, please. So generally, we just want to let people know that we do post our GRS status updates on our website. So this is available at any time. If you want to know what's going on with the GRS, you can just visit our website. There's a specific site for the status updates, but you can also find it off of our main GRS website. And this will tell you what's going on with what schedules we're working on right now. It lists them out by the various transmittals that we're working on. We also try to send out an AC memo announcing when there's major updates and this page changes. So you will frequently see those as well. I mean, it's just a way that we've implemented to help agencies know what's going on and what we're working on. Next slide, please. So along those lines, we have a number of GRS transmittals that we are currently working on. A lot of the work we're doing right now is kind of maintenance related, but one of the other things we've started is a kind of a bigger project in our path forward. But right now, we're trying to wrap up our next transmittal, which we hope to issue sometime in early calendar year 2022. And this is going to include the new GRS items related to vaccination records that are currently out on the Federal Register for Comment. Those comment, that comment period closes this Thursday on December 16th. And so right now we're just gonna be looking at any comments that were received and addressing those and trying to get the schedule approved after that. And then we have a number of other schedules that are just waiting for transmittals and some changes to the GRS for library records, security management records, some changes to GRS 5.7, which is going to become the administrative management oversight records, and then some other minor updates to the schedules. And so all of that you can hope to see here in the next few months. Some of these schedules have been a long time in coming, but we're gonna be happy to get them out. Next slide, please. And then we are also working on Transmittal 33. And so you've probably seen some of it, the draft schedules that we've had out because we've been working on these for quite some time, the new GRS for original source records that have been digitized, that's still in progress, as well as changes to GRS 5.2 for transferring intermediary records. We're also still working on some other changes to GRS 2.7 related to the pandemic. One of the new things that you will be seeing probably in January is a draft for cybersecurity logging records. This was a new, some new records are required under a new EO that provided retention. And so we are backing that up with new disposition authorities. So we expect that draft to go out for agency comment here soon after the holidays. Also sort of related to that due to some other changes we're gonna have a draft change to GRS 5.7 for administrative management and oversight records that actually relates to GRS 4.2. So having to do information access and protection. So you'll see some changes there and have an opportunity to comment on them and then anything else that might come up in the meantime. We're hoping that this will come out sometime in the next calendar year, but it's all completely dependent on when those new regulations for digitizing permanent records come out. So we're trying to do that in tandem to have the GRS to support that. So next slide please. And then our other kind of our bigger picture work that we're doing right now is to make the GRS more machine implementable. And so we have a couple of things that we're looking at doing in the future and this is gonna be kind of a process that takes multiple years to get through. But our first phase of this is to ensure that we have machine implementable disposition authorities. And just last week, we posted the initial machine implementable GRS file in CSV format. This is a data format and it's available on our website along with an FAQ, just explaining it, some other information. The file is intended to be application agnostic, meaning it's not developed specifically for any one records management application. We're hoping that it can be used in any application with minor modifications. The current file only contains those authorities that we could translate into the machine implementable format. We found that there's about 70 items that are problematic for this. And so we are currently working on revising those and you will probably be seeing draw schedules related to that process here in the next few months as well. But in the meantime, we are posting a document that says what isn't included in that CSV file, which authorities, those authorities are still valid. So just because they don't show up on the CSV file does not mean that they're no longer available. They are available, the published GRS on our website are the what you should be using kind of as the authority for what is in the GRS. And so we have this additional document that kind of explains why certain things aren't in that file. Some of them will never be there for various reasons, usually because they're a filing instruction, but there's more information there. So we do expect these initial revisions to be completed hopefully by the end of calendar year 2022, although I say that with a huge caveat because you know best laid plans and all. So you don't know what might happen, but that is what we're shooting for right now. And then the next phase of this is to do a further streamlining of the GRS. And we want to look at standardizing our disposition instructions more so that instead of the, I don't know exactly how many different dispositions we have right now, but there's many of them, that we basically wanna get it down to kind of a, each item has an actual instruction that is taken from like a set of maybe 15 to 18 options. So we're trying to, Debbie had talked about how NARA is trying to get to the three, seven, 10, 15, et cetera, year retentions by standardizing that. That's kind of what we're gonna look towards doing with the GRS as well. The other thing that we would like to do is to align the GRS with the federal integrated business framework. And so we're gonna be looking at doing that more and hopefully trying to streamline disposition authorities along functions and activities and trying to keep in mind the ballot to not have too many authorities, but also to have meaningful authorities. So next slide, please. I believe that's the end. So any questions? Thank you. We do have one that's come in. Will the proposed GRS for vaccination records also cover the retention of medical religious administrative exemption records? That particular GRS won't. However, we do have an existing GRS. It is GRS 2.3 item 20 for reasonable accommodation case files that should cover those records. Thank you. And as a reminder, if you have questions, you can put them in the YouTube chat or send them to rm.communications.nara.gov. And at this time, I'm not seeing any additional. So we'll move on with the program and maybe call you back, Andrea, if there's, if something else comes in. No problem. So with that, I'd like to move on to the 2021 annual reporting reminder and bring on the director of records management oversight and reporting, Don Rosen. Good afternoon, Don. I mean, thanks, Aryan. Just a short announcement on reporting. Annual reporting will be January 10th through March 11th this year. Sorry, 2022. We're gonna have three reports that we have for the past several years. The SRO template will be somewhere last year focusing on COVID-19 information governance and M1921 goals. Next slide, please. The RMSA is mostly unchanged. The maturity model for electronic records and email management is also unchanged from last year. So you're not gonna see many changes at all in that regard. We will send out an EC memo with the SCRM template on January 10th. That will be sent to the SCRM and HG records officers. HG records officers or their destiny will also receive two separate links from the survey tool, which is all tracks everyone should be familiar with that. To complete the RMSA and the maturity model, I would encourage you to check your spam filters if you don't see the two emails on January 10th. And if you have any questions, please contact RMselfassessment at narra.gov. If you don't have any issues with the links, if you don't receive them on January 10th, or if you have any updates that you wanna share with us. So that's really what I wanna share. If you have any questions, please let us know. Our team is standing by, ready to launch on January 10th. Work with you, work with your agencies as we get you to complete these reports and reports for us. And those, obviously you've been through it before. We will, the period will run through March, then we will collect the data as we go through. We will be posting the SCRM templates, the results from those, we'll certainly post information from the maturity models as well. And then we'll roll the information up and have a summary report, hopefully out by the end of the fiscal year, which we will share findings as we have in the past of Cindy Small, but can her team do a great job bringing all the information together. So we're excited to get it launched. Again, any questions, please send them to rmselfassessment.nara.gov if you have any issues with the tools or the templates as we go through annual reporting. If there's any questions I can answer, happy to do so. And on yes, there is one, will copies of the reports be provided in advance of January 10th? At this time, potentially not. We are still trying to get final clearances. If it aligned that we could get them out, we would. But right now, we're essentially leaning at January 10th, but it is something we are always considering if we can do something in that area, we'll be starting with the holidays. It's potentially focused on launching right afterwards. Other questions, Orianna, I can answer. So here's a question. Does reporting impact possible M1921 extensions? I worry agencies under report issues, which paints a false picture of M1921 readiness. No, I mean, we're obviously collecting this data and we're using it to get, you know, summaries of what agencies are doing, get collective trends. We certainly share it. Obviously with the records management community, Congress, so to that extent, it is shared and we do post it for everyone to see what, you're doing what other agencies are doing as well. But no impact is on the deadline as far as I can think of him. This is obviously an activity that we do every year and have been doing for the last, the last decade. Going back with the RM side. There's a question to define information governance framework. You know, I think we want to see how those connections between information governance and records management, those are some of the information, things that we've been looking for in those SCR RM reports between RM, you know, IT, CDOs. So I mentioned a question about CDOs earlier. We're actually doing a CDO assessment right now. But we want to hear about how those connections are being made. Talk about what we're looking for in information governance when we have, we mentioned we have questions about that in our template. I think those are all the questions that have come in around the annual reporting. So if any more come in, Don, we'll get to those at the end. Okay. And again, if anyone has any questions, once 340 kicks off, we send it to our mailbox number. Your email address and we'll get back to you. Our team is ready to answer any questions you'll have as we go through. Thank you. Thank you, Don. The next item on the docket today is records management training updates. And we'll bring the director of records management training, Christopher Klein and supervisor, Michelle Bradley. Good afternoon, Eddie and Michelle. Thank you, our ingredients, everyone. Yes, today we're gonna talk real quick about some programs within our records management training and then also highlight some new resources we have. So next slide. All right, quickly we just wanted to talk about DAROC. That is the agency records officer credential. You have to be a designated record agency records officer for to be enrolled in this with our program, meaning when we say enrolled, you would be placed into a cohort and tracked, your progress would be tracked into our LMS. We added this new cohort part of the DAROC middle summertime of this year to increase. Oh, go ahead, Michelle, thank you. Oh, no, I was just agreeing with you. Absolutely. Yeah, we added it really to increase interactivity. Is that how I would say it, Eddie, right? Collaboration between the records officers? Yes, that and also the add support too, right? Because our credential is online, it's asynchronous in our LMS. We have about 70 modules. There is assessments and then also three level tests. Realizing that, we don't want to leave individuals by theirself to take the training partner. We, when an individual gets enrolled, our record officer gets enrolled, we partner them with one of our staff members who acts as a mentor to ask them, to answer questions on the test, to be there for support, to help guide. And when we have these cohorts, now we have weekly support sessions that it's on Wednesdays and Michelle can jump into this a little later after, but that support session too is also linking the records officers with the mentor to give that real time support. Go ahead, Michelle. Exactly, right. I just agree totally with Eddie saying. And then usually the instructors on our staff are there and Eddie and I try to be there as well. And it's really, it's a good title support session because it's there for instructional support. So if you're in the AROC and you're having questions about the material, you can bring that there. But it's also a good time to connect with other AROs going through our program. So you can make connections within the RM community as well. So we have it every Wednesday, 2 p.m. Eastern. We've scheduled it for 30 minutes, but often it goes longer. So it's been one of our success stories coming out of AROC. So and also I do wanna mention we have a new AROC credential holder today, Michelle Jordan from Treasury, just passed and finished this morning. So congratulations, Michelle. Great news, that's the AROC and that again, let me think is it's a year completion timeline and it's for designated records officers. All right, next slide. That's our contact information. If you have more contact or want any more information, it's RMT1 at nara.gov. All right, our next program we're gonna talk about is remiss, all right? And this is for nice acronym, Records Management Instruction Support. And this is working with, I don't wanna say with everyone, right? Everyone in the records profession, right? We add support. No one has to be a records officer with it, working with remiss. And the main goal of remiss is to consult and assist federal agencies on RM, Records Management Training, design development. That's saying that we're not gonna create the training for you, however, we can assist, guide and help you build a package, training package for your agency. Some of the items that you can assist with I'll cover a little bit later on is all our material is on our website that you can download. So we can work with packaging or bundling of specific items that may, that would fit a specific area of records management training you're looking for. That includes our lessons, we have some micro learning which I will cover, job aids, resources. Other stuff is helping, working with training, reviewing some material type of stuff, getting that consulting role. Then also we do have a e-learning course called RM Fundamentals that we work with agencies to do high level customization with that. I mean, very high level, we can't go and do granular changes for the agency on it, but we can provide that as a tool to support agencies training. You know, to just add what Eddie was saying is that when we first were talking about this, one of the people on the training program likened it to a meal kit. And that's the best way to think about it, right? We have all this different training and remiss, can the program can help you look through it, pick through it and maybe we can put a package together for you. So it's really a, it's instructional support that's in the name, right? We're there to help you train your people and to give you an example of what and how many agencies we've helped. So in FY21, we completed 52 projects and that was with assistance to 40 different agencies. And it was across the board, different types of things. So it was either, RM Fundamentals, they wanted a course with those high level customizations. And if you want an example of that, we have a few on our website that you can take a look at. But sometimes it was just consulting that they wanted some, just some information about what they were doing. They wanted someone to look at something for them or they wanted to take some of our courses and use them for themselves. And all of that is involved in remiss. So when you contact us, one of the first things that we're gonna do is have a phone call with you and really ask questions and see what we can do to support you. So absolutely. And definitely check out our webpage where remiss has its own webpage. And so Eddie, do you wanna go through that on the next slide? Oh yes, and I do wanna cover real quick on that working with 40 agencies. Also in FY21, we worked with eight repeat agencies. Oh yeah. So yeah, we do build partnerships that way. Absolutely. Yes, next. And this is just high level. I know it's a little bit hard to see, but it's just showing the remiss page and we added it this year on it. So and with our materials online where we're going towards and what we're working to is to make sure that everything is on the site. You can download it and go back to work and you don't even need to email us. Now again, you can email us and we can help and guide. But we're trying to make this more like almost like a self-checkout, right? What's efficient and easy to navigate, will benefit the customers. That's everyone we're working with, the agencies. So on the remiss page, like if you throw it on, this is very top level stuff, but we have some templates. We also have slides, high level slides that agencies are able to download and then put their own branding on, fine tune the wording to make it agency specific. And Eddie, if I can interrupt you for a minute, I just wanna point out that those slides really are like a starting point. If I don't know, it's hard to see on the screen capture, but right down at the bottom, it says slides to use as a starting point for developing your own training. And it truly is what it is. It's our content on a blank PowerPoint presentation. So you can take that and you can put your own images on it. You can put your own logos on it and absolutely work with your own training department to put the training together. So it is just one stop shop right there. Yes. Thank you, Michelle. And then if we're not on the screenshot, but if you did scroll down, there are examples of us working with other agencies to provide that arm fundamentals. If anyone's interested, you can go to the site. Look, we'll go on. So now we'll talk more now we're gonna get more into some products and I think that next few slides. So I wanna highlight again that at the beginning where we were saying about the AROC is only agency records officers can be enrolled into the AROC. Now, however that doesn't prevent or limit people to access the content. So on our online lessons, these are the same, I wanna say this again, this is the same modules in the AROC and the credential right on our website. You can actually take it. If you look at the column side, there's column you actually can click on that it will play or generate a certificate of these modules. So you can direct individuals to go here. However, again, working and pushing into that self help downloadable shareable content. We even have source files for each lesson on our page for online lessons. So we have the LMS, the SCORM files that's for learning management system. You can download work with your LMS administrator to upload it to your agency's LMS. We also have the source files which is done in Storyline. Again, you can download that if you have Storyline is an authoring software you can customize, edit, add, take away to make it specific to meet your needs. And then we also have the web packet. I'll roll it up or you can actually place it on your own site. Yep, absolutely. And really it is the same content that the agency records officer is taking as they're going through the AROC. So if you're an ARO and you're going through our AROC and you really, really like say on the screen, level one, the second lesson is on temporary records and you really like that and you think your staff would benefit from it. You can direct your training department right to this page and have them download the files right for their LMS or you can just tell people to go to this page and take the training and download the certificate at the end and submit it to you for credit. So it's really, it's the only differences that we're not giving people the assessments and you're not being tracked by NARA as the agency records officer yourself. Great point, yes. And with this going through with the curriculum or the online lessons, we have a level one, two, three like scaffolding system. So the more complex concepts for RM would be at that level three which would be billed from the level two which would be billed from level one in scaffolding form. All right. And once we update modules, they get also in the curriculum, it does get reflect on the website itself. So this would be the most current material. Absolutely. Yeah, all right, thank you, next slide. And also on our catalog in this year is we're looking to do our adding different delivery instructional products. So this year we started creating micro learning lessons and this is again, e-learning. However, if you go back, you would look through a traditional e-learning module, 30, 45 minutes, right? So we're looking at micro learning and it's gonna be a single topic, right? Buried to the point, concise, five to 10 minutes. And again, an experience record professional could find this useful, but we're looking at the general knowledge base a lot on these micro learning lessons. We have five right now on that I just have captured three. But again, just be aware of that and we'll update and provide more as the time goes on. Next slide. Next slide. And then again, moving forward into this FY, one of the items that the program is moving forward with is creating more videos. Wanted to make awareness again how our website is a little laid out, how to navigate. So our newer videos would be at the end. So if you can see this, it'd be on like page five. The newer videos get added in and this year we added so far three videos and we have a few more right now in different stages of development, once get completed, we will post this on here. Again, we're looking at shorter length, right, five minutes, 10 minutes. We're not looking for two hour type of videos. Again, type of stuff that you can view, get a concept and understanding and apply it or use it or go right back to work. Your job, go ahead, Michelle. And also, I just wanted to say, like one of the videos here is what is Capstone and one of the reasons we created that video is because our remiss team was telling us again and again people were requesting materials about Capstone. So we do listen when you submit us ideas. So please continue to do that. If you have a training need, let us know about it. And a great way to do that is engage us through remiss. Or you can just send an email to us at RMT1 at narrow.gov. But that is a good example of a request that came in from all of you. Right, and next slide. Here we'll be talking about social media. So that was our, you know, the courses and the training and product. Now, Michelle, talk about the social aspect that we're creating with record management training. And Eddie is kicking this to me because this was a project that was started through a fellowship that I did with the Partnership for Public Service. So we are branching out onto social media. And this is records management training. So it's a little different than the traditional office of the chief records officer messages. This is focusing on training. And what we're looking to do is to create a community of practice. Engage all of you on social media. Last year was our proof of concept that we could do it. And we had a little solo operation when we hit 1,000 followers. So now the next step to this is to really engage and create that engagement. So I ask all of you to check us out on social media. So we are at NARA RMT on Facebook. And then, yep, next slide, there you go Patty. And then NARA underscore RM training on Twitter. So we've launched on Facebook, we've launched on Twitter. We're soon to be on LinkedIn and we'll certainly let you know that at Bridge when we get there. And you can see some of the examples that our team have come up with. So we are trying to be a, like I said, a community of practice to let you know when we're launching new training concepts or artifacts, as Eddie would say, what resources we have and also asking questions and getting you to engage with us. So please check us out and follow us. And we hope to be talking to you across our social media. Did I forget anything, Eddie? No, that's all. Okay, all right. So, and to thank all of you that has already started to follow us and engage with us. So we really appreciate it. And a huge thank you to our social media team within the training team that didn't turn away from me when I showed up two years ago and said, hey, I've got this idea of us launching on social media. They didn't all mute me. So thank you very much. So there's our contact information. Of course, RMT-1 gets monitored all the time. That is the quickest way to reach us if you've got some generic questions or certainly if you wanna engage us about remiss or you have a question about AROC. And then there's Eddie. And please remember we call him Eddie, but it's Christopher.cline at narra.gov. Yeah, thank you, Michelle. All right. Thank you both. So we do have some questions that have filtered up during your presentation and some kudos. First, let me do the kudos. NARA staff did an outstanding job helping my agency update its records management training course. Thank you all so much. That was from Daryl. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you, Daryl. Let's see, and there's a sort of, Tommy says kudos to NARA on its remiss as he challenged the Air Force Records Office and others to create innovative training versus PowerPoint, but kudos to NARA nonetheless. So we'll take that, Tommy. Thank you. And he also notes memes for RM training. We're all in favor of bringing more levity to RM training, right? I have to say we've got a creative staff and we just turn them loose. So kudos, it's not anything that Eddie and I have done. I know it's certainly nothing I have done. So it's their creativity. So thanks. So a couple of the questions and then you probably might have covered some of this, but is there a cost to agencies for customization regarding remiss? No, it's a free of service. Free of service. Now there are some limitations on how much in the scope of the project, but it is free. No cost. Thank you. We have a question about AROC or several questions about AROC. And I think you covered one of them. Can agencies have an AROC backup? If only if the individual is designated by the say arm as a records officer, then that records officer could be placed in the AROC. If not, an agency would wanna have a backup to go through the same material. You would just point them through that online lessons and they can complete the same information as the primary or the records officer. Then a couple of questions about the require or is AROC a requirement? Where is that documented? And how often do AROs need to be recertified? All right, so the first one with the requirements. So that is outlined in NARA as a bulletin 2019-02 that goes through requirements that an agency has a designated records officer that would go through the AROC. And then also that is linked with M1921 that the records officer has to hold the credential itself. And I can speak to the renewal. So the renewal is every three years. So we launched AROC in January of 2020 right at the same time as the pandemic hit. And so any new records officer that has come into the position has gone to the AROC. But so many of us, or of us, yes, who had the old knowledge area certificate, certificate of federal records management that we used to teach the nine day course. What we did for them is we grandfathered them in. So they will be up for renewal in January of 2023. And it sounds like a long way as a way, but it's really just a year. So everyone who was grandfathered in will be contacted by us at the start of 2023 to do this renewal process. And then everyone else who got the AROC along the way last year or this year, you're on a three year cycle. Did I miss anything, Eddie? No, I said, yeah, three year cycle, yeah, 2023. And then more information will be following as that time approaches get sooner too. Yeah, we're crafting a whole communication strategy to get out to people. Yeah, and we would be contacting individuals before the time to renew that would start that renewal process too. You be reaching out. Will AROs that have completed the AROC training receive a certificate from the ARO or something formal? Yes, it would be, right now there is a certificate that is placed into, well, I guess, oh, let me go back, all right, all right. So what I'm thinking, again, I'll try to read here, like a physical certificate, no, digital would be the certificate in the LMS in the learning management system. And I would say that is up to the RECTS officer, anyone that completes the download that and to save that too. Now, if someone is in need of something that verifies, you know, for your agency or whatever, we can certainly contact us and we can certainly write something. But I think this might be, and I don't know if this was in the question, Arian, but I think this might be in reference to those older KA certificates where the archivist of the United States actually had a signature on it. If that's what it's in reference to, we're not doing that with the A-Rot. So all digital, yeah. Yeah, all digital. I think that covered it. And here's, sorry for repeating this question, did you say the SAORMs can designate an alternate ARO and does that require a notification? It would require a notification on it, what? I think. Yeah, record officer would be designated, yes. Okay, thank you both for the updates from the training program. Going to see if any more questions come in and we'll get those asked as they come in. So thank you. I'm gonna move to the, that was the end of the formal presentation. So I wanna move back to some of the questions that have come in for all our presenters during today's meeting and sort of a general Q&A that have come in and I'm just gonna ask these and if they're in your area from the NARA side, if you can present, answer that'd be great. So does NARA have a deadline for responding to requests for exceptions? My agency is still waiting to hear about our request. All right, Lisa Harrell-Lampus again. So let me take the first answer to this one. And I'm sorry, Darrell, the answer is no. We did not have a deadline in the guidance or in the memo that said NARA will respond to exception requests by a specific deadline. I hate to say it, but it is true that NARA's managers have been focused on working on that new memo more than they've been focused on approving exception requests that have come so far. However, we are taking those requests, we have done our analysis, we are looking at them, we've engaged with some agencies who've sent them to get more information. We will see how this plays out. We'll give agencies an opportunity to possibly resubmit their exception requests should the targets move, or if they think they're still good and want to proceed with them, we'll let you know. I believe there'll be more information coming up over the next few months. So please stay tuned, we will communicate broadly when we have information to share. So thank you for that question. And thank you, Lisa. Do we have a plan to issue a digitization standard for microforms? Oh, yes we do, thank you for that question. So back to the digitization regulations which was asked earlier, which it pains me to say it was December of last year, we posted our draft regulations with the digitization standards or permanent records in the federal register for comment. And as this community remembers and knows we're focused on the paper records which was our shorthand. The more technical answer which I repeat but I acknowledge I'm not a technical expert on this is we actually focused on reflective digitization techniques. So anything that the light hits reflects back off that's the standard that we issued. We are planning to issue technical standards for transmissive scanning. Light hits it goes through. So that will include microfilm as well as negatives, transparencies, anything that's sort of in that transmissive action. I can tell you our plan as we wrote those regulations they are full of a lot of information on preparing the records, doing inventories, establishing intellectual control and then doing validation. We expect that to be the same for both all kinds of digitization. So our hope was that we'd be able to issue the microfilm standards faster because it'll just focus on the technical piece. If you have a specific questions about the technical scanning of microfilm will you please send them to RMStandards at nar.gov? That is the team that is drafting those standards and having dialogue and conversation now will hopefully just make those standards better when we get to them. And Ari and I don't know if maybe somebody could put that in the YouTube chat as well. It's RMStandards, all one word at nar.gov. Thank you. Multicast here a little bit. Thank you. The next question is feedback on the use of tribal consultation of federal agencies proposed schedules. And I think the answer to that one is there are no updates because none have been conducted at this point. So I think that's ongoing work that has yet to move forward. So when we have something to share, we will. We've got a couple of questions on ERA and e-transfer that I think we need to clarify. For records that are permanent electronic records how should we be sending those to NARA? We were under the impression that ERA cannot accept electronic transfers. So I think there's a need for some clarity there. Okay, I remember seeing those too. So let me flip down to, as you can tell, seeing the magic behind the curtain. Thank you, Ari. I wanted to actually flip down some thoughts to share about that. So the first is that the person who asked the question, I think Chandra is correct. ERA that exists now is not really the tool that would be used to accept to accession electronic records to NARA. However, we have two links I wanted to share with you. So again, Ari, and if I can ask you to multitask, they're both links to information, one's an FAQ and one's a straight accessioning. I went to look for that information that's provided by the unit that accepts electronic records as part of NARA. And I know they've updated both of those resources recently. And it has the latest information about how to transfer electronic records to NARA now. One of the answers are as ERA 2.0 is developed, it too will have capabilities of accepting electronic records transfers, but I don't have any more depth to share at this time on like how that will happen. So I know it's, so I know that is the plan, I don't know how that will be implemented. So I would encourage you, if nothing else, like I'm full of email addresses right now, post fridge, you have more specific questions. The research services, electronic records, archiving service, I got their name wrong. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, all of our friends in RRE, their email address is e-transfers at NARA.gov. I believe again, e-transfers is all one word. And so they will help talk you through what it is you can do to transfer electronic records to NARA now. And they think it's there. And I think, I think that covers it, Arjen, unless there's anything else you can think of to add to electronic transfer transfers. I think that's the, I'm in the middle of dropping that link in there too. Well, this is why I asked Arjen to multitask. Can you drop those links and also listen to what I'm saying and then tell me if I got it correct? Yeah, the question on physical transfers to archives too, did you want to tackle that one as well? Oh, yeah. We know when archives too is expected to begin accepting permanent. So that was the question that was asked at the beginning of the meeting. And Arjen said, let's see if we can find you an answer before the end of the meeting. And I tried, but I think the best answer right now is I'd like to do some more research and get a firm answer to the depth of that question. So we will work as our bridge production team to figure out how to provide that information post-meeting. We'll talk with our colleagues again and research services, see if we can come up with an answer on what is expected, when can we start taking physical transfers and direct offers again? We'll provide more information. Hopefully before the February bridge meeting, but if not, that'll be our target goal to have some answers to that question at the next bridge. Thank you, Lisa. Question Andrea about the GRS. Is there a schedule that covers testing results done by a third party? If an employee is required to bring in proof of a negative test, is that retained? And if so, where? And what about employees who work off-site 100%? How are their results obtained and reviewed? So the GRS only covers records that an agency actually has in its possession. So if a third party is conducting the test, that information is being provided to the agency, then the GRS will cover those testing records under the new authority that we'll have for testing records. But otherwise, there really isn't anything for an agency necessarily to dispose of. In terms of employees bringing in proof of a negative test and how that's retained and where, that is up to the agencies. We're not telling agencies where to file these records basically or who holds onto them. As our understanding, different agencies are doing different things. Sometimes it's more centralized than others, but any guidance as to requirements and what's supposed to be held and how is gonna be coming from OPM, not from us. So please check the guidance related to vaccination, proof of vaccination and all of that stuff that's coming out of OPM. We're just providing disposition authority for the records. And so that also applies in terms of offsite workers. We can't say how their results are obtained and reviewed because that's outside the scope of the GRS. So just please see the OPM guides as far as those things are concerned. Thank you for that. Do you have some questions for the FRC team? If you get a transfer, an SF-135 approved in December of 2022, but don't have a chance to send the records to the FRC before January 23, can you still send them? I'm sorry, give that to me again. Sure, it's a question about getting a transfer approved in December of 2022, but you didn't have a chance to send the records before January 2023, can you still send them in? Those records, yes. And Gordon, this is Lisa. I'll amplify your yes by saying, I think we've been asked this question almost at every bridge. Sort of the recognition, if I can get a transfer into ARCIS and approved, the timing of when that will happen or some leeway into the following year, and I believe that position would hold true, even with a new date, like we would still have these dates if you can get them in by the deadline and approved, NARA and the agency, the federal record center program, the agency will work out how we're gonna take that after the date because the goal, I love to remind you, the goal of the whole memo and what we've been working for for the past decade is that transition to fully digital government. Not all these pieces are steps along the path that get us there. And so the goal is to say, aha, you didn't quite make it in time to turn your records to the federal record center. The goal is to say, we're happy we can take those paper records off your hands, store them in a place that's under control by the National Archives and eventually accession them to NARA. And we will continue to work towards fully digital government. So I just wanna put that positive reminder of why we're doing it and why that answer is yes. But if it's not approved, then we'd have to have some conversations and possibly get an exception. Thank you both. I'm searching for other, any additional questions that have come in. Yes, we got a lot. How long can agencies go without a records officer? Throw that up as a jump ball. Yeah, thank you. It's like, so I'll dribble and then hopefully my colleagues will come in and help. I do not believe there is a requirement in our regulations or law that says how long somebody can be acting or how long the position can be vacant. I would go back and say the requirement is to have a person. And that is interesting because that does tie into the topic on training as well. You know, we haven't, I don't know, we would train somebody who was acting unless they were actually officially appointed. So I think the answer is I don't have policy to say, aha, you can have three months or six months and after that the position must be filled. But I know that in practice, we talk often to senior agency officials for records management. I think that's where it's been left so far to get that position filled. It is a critical role for the success of the digital transformation and for the success of records management and agencies. Missing leadership is a serious problem. But yeah, I don't think I can give you a policy answer. Does anybody else had a chance to thought about that and maybe have another, a better response? I'll ask the team. And if not, then that is the answer. A policy is that we don't have something written that thank you for giving me something to consider for future updates and regulations. We will take that on your advice. Thank you, Aryan, for the proper words. We'll take that on. And then I guess this is another one for Gordon and I believe the answer, well, does the FRC have a plan on how they will be able to receive the massive amount of boxes of records who are trying to meet the 2022 deadline with limited staff capacity? Just sort of amplifying all your messages from earlier. Yeah, we are working on a plan to receive, hopefully, we will be back at full staff at that time, but we do, or I shouldn't say we do have it, but we are working on a plan. Yes. Thank you, Gordon. Take a moment, Aryan, because these are really rich and important questions. I'm glad we have an opportunity to talk about it at the British Forum. So I'm happy to give that little space for people to think and perhaps submit a follow-up or ask us to clarify if we've spoken. Any latest word on ARCUS 2.0, the capability to allow federal agencies to create and generate reports. Gordon, do you want me to take that one? Yeah, Chris, would you? Yeah, so I don't have anything terribly definitive. I can tell you that we have a team that includes individuals from both AFO and AFN who are working with NARA's IT folks to help develop system requirements for the new system. That is certainly something that we are keeping in the back of all of our minds and we hope the new system will not only duplicate our existing capabilities, but give us the ability to generate additional reports we've wanted for the last decade or so. So I'm cautiously optimistic, but please stay tuned. Thank you, Chris, for that answer. I think, and we did get a couple more kudos for Chris and Eddie and Michelle, who seem to have won the award for the most kudos after our presentation at Bridge at this meeting. I'll put out a final call to the audience for any questions, any additional questions. And a reminder that if we don't get to your question at run out of time or you don't feel we've answered it, please reach out to us at rm.communications.nara.gov and we will get that answer to you. Can we please restate the email address for the transfer mailbox? E-transfers.nara.gov. All, and when I say that, yep, it is. E-transfers.nara.gov, all one word, no dots, no spaces. Okay, with that, can we pull up the next slide? I see Tommy acknowledging, thank you, Team Nara, seasons greetings to all of us. Thank you to you as well, to all the viewers as well. We'll close out this meeting now and remind folks that the next bridge meeting will be Tuesday, February 15th, Tuesday, February 15th, 2022 at 1.30. We're gonna stick with the 1.30 in calendar year 2022. So look forward to seeing everybody then. And thank you all. Any last words, Gordon, or anyone? Thank you and happy holidays. Have a safe, happy, healthy new year. Good old.