Last week, we announced that our office has developed a version of the General Records Schedules in a comma separated values (CSV) format. We hope this will aid agencies in automating records disposition. The CSV format is software agnostic and agencies should be able to convert data fields as needed for implementation in their specific applications.
Please note that not all GRS items can currently be translated into a machine-implementable instruction and we are actively working to revise about 70 disposition authorities. There are also a number of GRS items that are filing instructions or were not appropriate for inclusion in the CSV file for a variety of other reasons.
We are also issuing a Frequently Asked Questions related to the GRS CSV file. If you have additional questions or suggestions for improvement of the file, please contact GRS_Team@nara.gov or leave a comment below.
This is great news! The GRS and the VA’s RCS need to have retention trigger points that are able to be activated by a machine/computer. Many of the retention periods currently documented in both the GRS and RCS are too complex and require too many decision points to be easily enacted by computer systems.