Records Request Software Keeps Florida School On Top of Assignments
Monday, March 26, 2018Processing requests for records in a Florida public school district is not the kind of thing anyone wants to manage from a spreadsheet.
But when you are operating an international, internet-based public school, digital solutions make even more sense. Florida Virtual School, which last year provided more than 206,000 Florida students in kindergarten through 12th grade with an online learning option and has another 2,200 students around the world, has been mostly paperless since 2010.
When Records and Facilities manager David Gonzales saw an Image One demonstration of Request Manager, he knew it was time to upgrade from the Microsoft SharePoint Records Center system Florida Virtual School had been using to process public records requests. The school receives approximately 300 records requests a year that have to be handled by a records staff of only two people.
Detailed Visibility & Reporting for Easy Tracking
The requests come in many varieties of time-sensitive: Some are subpoenas. Others are requests for public information under Florida statute. There are requests for transcripts, for vendor records, contracts, and student records.
With Request Manager, the process is easily tracked from start to finish, with features that provide detailed visibility and reporting:
- Notification and email alerts for tracking status and deadlines
- Segmented notification levels distinguished by record type and requester type
- Request tracking to monitor and reduce turn-around time
- Reporting that can show all requests within a set period of time
- Redaction process to prevent release of information exempt from request
Request Manager is much easier to use than the previous system, Gonzales says, cutting down on search time and time spent managing the system.
“The dashboard is more user friendly,” he says, under the old system, “I had to do more work as a systems administrator.”
Request Manager has made it easier to comply with Florida’s public records law, which, among other things, requires agencies to maintain a record of requests for one year. The law also sets strict deadlines for providing records.
Gonzales says Request Manager’s search and tracking capability has sped up the process and eliminated the headache of trying to locate missing records. “When the general counsel asks, ‘did we get a subpoena?’ I can go in and find it,” he says.
View a Demo
If you have trouble staying on top of records requests at your agency or you would like to streamline an unwieldy process and save employee time, contact us to see a product demonstration of Request Manager. We can arrange a demonstration in person or online.
