Question

"Designate these records for transfer or accession to NARA"?

Records Management

Updated April 20, 2015

asked on April 17, 2015 • Show version history

We see that the select checkbox called "Designate these records as permanent" can also be called "Designate these records for transfer or accession to NARA" and that NARA records are handled somewhat differently and have additional checks. Not sure what these checks are exactly, as the help files are only a blank placeholder on the topic of NARA records, but it seems to us that any government body accessioning to NARA will likely follow a similar process to what we should follow here when accessioning to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick in Canada. Is anyone using Laserfiche set up in the NARA compliant manner?

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replied on April 17, 2015 • Show version history

I don't have any input about how to configure or use Laserfiche to conform with the requirements of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, but I thought I would clarify what exactly changes in Laserfiche when the NARA handling mode is enabled. In short, it does very little, and the details are as follows:

1) The labels in the user-interface which read "Designate these records as permanent" are changed to read "Designate these records for transfer or accession to NARA". The meaning of the checkboxes, buttons and other controls do not change.

2) Attempting to confirm a final disposition of "destroy" on a permanent record folder fails with error "A final disposition type of destruction cannot be assigned to a records management object that is marked for transfer or accession to NARA. [9386]" instead of error "A final disposition type of destruction cannot be assigned to a records management object that is marked as permanent. [9118]". Besides the displayed error message, there is no other difference when this operation is attempted.

3) When exporting a briefcase, the client will check if a PDF is being exported, and if so it will pop up a message box warning users that NARA electronic archival standards require embedding fonts in PDFs. Users aren't actually prevented from exporting a briefcase with non-compliant PDFs, and this warning message pops up even if the PDFs are compliant.

Since the changes in Laserfiche are so minor, there is no need or benefit to enabling the NARA mode in Laserfiche unless you are a U.S. Government customer and need to comply with rules that mandate this behavior. The above behaviors were required to pass the U.S. DoD 5015.2 certification tests, but we (at Laserfiche) decided not to make these behaviors the default, so we provided an option to enable them.

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replied on April 18, 2015 • Show version history

I think I may just have answered my own question. If I do not select the permanent checkbox, then I can accession and keep only metadata. But still wondering about accessioning in some format other than lfb? Is there another option or must I export from repository first outside of records management actions? Thanks.

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replied on April 20, 2015

I think you'll want to export your records and folders in a Laserfiche briefcase, and then run the briefcase files through a separate converter program which prepares the files for your receiving agency for transfer or accession.

Laserfiche briefcase files are .tar.gz files, so if you download a compression utility like 7-Zip which can decompress those files, just rename the .lfb extension to .tar.gz and then you can take a peek inside.

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replied on April 17, 2015

Good question.

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replied on April 18, 2015 • Show version history

Great, thank you for your response, Michael. I know you said that you "don't have any input about how to configure or use Laserfiche to conform with the requirements of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick", so I'll keep the questions generic. We have records which must be transferred to another public body after 12 years. In order that these records not be exposed to access under our equivalent of FOIA, we want to transfer them and only keep the metadata in our repository. Its a bit counter intuitive, but I understand this to mean that 1) we do not want to identify these as permanent in Lf and 2) we want to choose a final disposition of destruction. In addition, should we perhaps build in an alternate event (say, "Export for transfer before destruction") or is that going to solve an immediate problem and create more longer term as we mature and increasingly want to automate the process of dispositioning records? Lastly, when we "Export for transfer", is it possible for the product to be something other than a briefcase file? Your feedback is appreciated.

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replied on April 20, 2015 • Show version history

Given your scenario, you should be able to mark them as permanent, and then set up your retention schedule so that the final disposition is "accession". This will give you the same transfer-via-briefcase options as a transfer, and confirming the final disposition will still remove the record content from the repository.

(edited to add: rereading your response below, I see you've found this, although as far as I know you can accession even if you mark the records as permanent)

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replied on April 20, 2015

Thanks for the timely response. We are presenting at a local ARMA conference and will share this information. Laserfiche Answers is awesome.

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"Designate these records for transfer or accession to NARA"?

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