This update is from the GRS Team
Back in October, the GRS Team issued its plan for updating and revising the GRS (RM Communication AC 02.2013). The plan may be downloaded (as a .pdf) at www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/grs/plan-2012.pdf. This year, the team is working on approximately ten schedules in the Finance Management, Technology Management, and Information Management sections. We wasted no time getting started on the new schedules, taking October to review existing schedules and background documentation.
In November we solicited agency volunteers for five topical working groups to aid in the development of schedule requirements. We gratefully acknowledge the 64 volunteers from 39 agencies that volunteered. These groups have been working since mid-November to draft new GRS schedules. Their work concludes in the next few weeks and will be followed by review groups that will further refine the schedules. In the coming months we will be finalizing the draft schedules, entering them into ERA, and writing appraisal reports. We are currently planning to make the new schedules available for external review in late May. For monthly updates on the progress of the GRS update, please visit our website: www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/grs/.
In the meantime, the team has also been working on other GRS related projects. The first week in December project lead Galen Wilson visited with various agencies in the DC metro area about their intranet sites. Galen is in the process of finalizing a draft GRS for web records that we hope to have available for external review in the near future.
Our training and guidance sub-team has been working on various products to assist in using and interpreting the GRS. We are in the final stages of issuing a general FAQ on the GRS and soon will be starting work on an FAQ about requesting exceptions to the GRS. We are also still working on guidance for incorporating GRS items into agency big bucket schedules. We plan to issue this guidance in early 3rd quarter.
If you have any questions about any of the projects the GRS Team is working on, please feel free to contact us at GRS_Team@nara.gov.