FOIA Phobia: Inbox or Penalty Box
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests can be a time-consuming and costly undertaking for any organization.
In today’s technology-rich world, where information is literally everywhere, organizations need to communicate accurately and easily with their customers. Knowing what these challenges are and having the right solution in place can help you efficiently and consistently manage your correspondence.
Organizations have information— usually more than they think. Eventually someone will want to see a particular piece of that information, and the organization will be expected to respond in a timely manner. Without a strong correspondence management (CM) solution, finding a single document among all others can take significant amounts of effort, and cost the organization both time and frustration.
How the information is managed makes all the difference in the correspondence world. The goal is to produce a response that meets the expected statutory timeframes, is cost effective and is verifiably accurate.
Why invest in a correspondence management system?
In December of 2006, extensive changes were made to the discovery chapter of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), to make it easier for courts and litigating parties to manage electronic records. These changes stemmed from a growing concern over the increasing volume of electronic data, and the inefficiencies in retrieving this data for
use by both the organization internally, as well as for external use, such as public and court requests.
In the case of FOIA requests, the ability to efficiently locate and retrieve data is necessary if an organization is to meet statutory response-time constraints while keeping costs low. Government agencies alone receive hundreds of thousands of requests each year. Processing these requests costs organizations millions, whether the number of requests is small or large.
FOIA requests are not the only requests that involve penalties. Aside from the regulatory penalties and customers’ expectations for responses, organizations also have to consider that their correspondence is an official record. Knowing what information was released, and to whom, is just as important as the release process itself. There is always the possibility of multiple individual requests for the same information, and a robust CM solution will help identify a duplicate request quickly. Further still, the organization will have verification on what information was sent out, and to whom. Organizations which utilize a robust CM solution will be able to avoid costly errors that can lead to even more costly legal actions.
What should organizations look for in a correspondence management system?
A CM solution must support basic information management tasks and extend the organization’s ability to package and publish its information efficiently and consistently.
Chris Harris-Jones, from the analyst firm Ovum, defined “information management compliance” to usually refer to the following tasks: finding and retrieving information on demand, controlling access and confidentiality, monitoring and reporting for enforcement, comprehensive auditing, secure retention and destruction.1
Therefore, the first and most vital part of a correspondence management system is not the response process, nor the features and abilities of the environment; it is, in fact, the enterprise content management (ECM) system itself. Without a solid means of organizing and searching an organization’s content, having the best content in the world is meaningless if the users can’t find what they’re looking for.
Aside from storing the information effectively, authenticity is crucial as well. A single network repository where users put all the files they create may be an archive, but it means nothing if the information within the archive cannot be easily catalogued and retrieved with accuracy. Ensuring the latest version of a document is the one that’s found can be a real nightmare if an organization has no system for tracking, auditing and maintaining revisions. The only way to be certain that the copy being sent to a customer is the latest version is to examine each and every copy of the document in the archive.
Just imagine a baggage claim at the airport where every suitcase looks the same. Without opening each bag it is impossible to know if you have the right one. Correspondence management systems demand that efforts be made to ensure authenticity of the records, otherwise there is risk of releasing superseded or false information.
Often requests are delayed simply because the appropriate data cannot be found in a timely fashion, or there are difficulties in publishing the data because the current version cannot be easily determined. Organizations need control over who has rights to create documents, modify documents and view the overall lifecycle management of the documents. Making sure only the right people have access to create revisions and edit responses can help avoid confusion and inaccuracy down the road. The key to maintaining successful correspondence (while making the best possible return on investment) is choosing a correspondence management system that is robust enough to handle the unique business needs of the organization.
Recycle and reuse content: Organizations should look for solutions that offer a document-assembly feature. When dealing with correspondence, maximizing the effectiveness of staff is key to the response process. A truly powerful CM tool can not only provide a robust user environment, but can also help reduce the amount of work for the user by automating certain tasks. A manual process means getting the content from the organization’s information environment, and assembling the content into a response, requiring users to be highly involved. An automated CM solution with a document assembly feature can help users rapidly produce responses, while ensuring accuracy and consistency.
Process best practice/workflow: CM solutions which are backed by dynamic and flexible workflow tools will assist
with consistency and maintaining proper business procedures. Knowing where a document is at any given moment is important in assuring response completion. The path of a response to a customer can change instantly and unexpectedly. At any given point a response may need escalation or rerouting for editing, declassification, legal actions, holds and more. Enabling users with workflow tools that will allow them to know precisely what to do in a given situation reduces delays and lowers the cost of handling each response.
Standards compliance: Having a compliant CM solution, where information can be stored and managed according to industry and federal standards, is essential. Organizations should look to CM solutions from companies whose products are compliant with standards and regulations, and which have a firm foundation in records management. Proper retention management and standardized archiving methodologies allow for prompt data acquisition and ensure record life cycles. Organizations need to be consistent in order to assure no obsolete or superseded records inappropriately get released to
customers.
Is it easy to use: Ease of use can make or break the success of a correspondence management solution. Organizations tend to look for solutions which require the least amount of training while providing the greatest functionality. Having a solution which can perform thousands of functions, yet requires highly trained users to use
it, may be “fully functional” but probably limits effectiveness to only those users.
To get content out: Organizations should look for CM solutions that provide some form of a thin-client interface, and that not only provide easy accessibility to the users, but allow for a highly customizable interface. If the organization can seamlessly integrate their CM solution into the user’s everyday environment, managing and using the organizations’ information becomes synonymous with the user’s other daily tasks.