Event Recap: End-to-End Records Management Automation: Digitizing the Records Lifecycle From Capture to NARA Transfer

Why care about records management automation? The target for M-19-21 is a just six months away, and government agencies vary in their ability to meet the deadline. When DGI polled its government agency participants and asked, “Has your agency accomplished the objectives outlined in M-19-21?”, 35% percent of responses believed they are on track to achieve outcomes outlined in EO or being close. The remaining 65% said they were hoping for an extension, not prepared or didn’t know. On June 9th, DGI brought together subject matter experts from Hyland and AWS to share ideas to help agencies navigate the world of cloud native records management — specifically, how agencies can automate and digitize their records management process from end to end, including how to securely transfer records to NARA using business rules and metadata. Key points from the webinar included:

• how NARA is expected to no longer accept paper document submissions in 2022
• key agency challenges and how cloud-based technology addresses them
• benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Autoclassification of records
• demo of how to use records management software from the agency’s perspective
• data transfer options to include records pipeline and submission architecture

New to M-19-21? Here’s a brief overview. M-19-21 is a government-wide initiative that applies to all federal agencies. The memorandum was issued on June 28, 2019, by The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Its purpose is to help the government fully transition to electronic records in order to increase efficiency and accuracy as well as improve storage. With that said, there are a number of requirements that federal agencies are expected to meet. As of 2019, federal agencies should be managing all of their permanent electronic records in an electronic format. By 2022, all federal agencies are expected to:

• create, manage, and maintain permanent federal records and metadata in electronic format;
• close their records storage facilities and transfer inactive, temporary paper records to a Federal Records Center or Commercial Storage Facility; and
• maintain a records management program that complies with the Federal Records Act.

Special thanks to our sponsor: Hyland.