Records Requests
Requests from your website, your records e-mail and the phone land in one inbox with their due dates. District Focus finds what they ask for in the records you already keep, and your staff decide what goes out.
Records requests to a district often ask for paperwork it already holds: a vendor’s contract, its amendments, and the purchase orders and invoices paid under it. District Focus finds them in your Library and lists them on the request before anyone opens a shared drive.
One request, start to finish
Most of these screens follow a request for a bus contract and the invoices paid under it. Every request moves through the same five steps: received, gathering, review, sent and closed.
People fill in a request page with your district’s name on it, or the same form on your website. Mail to your records address opens a request on its own, and staff log calls and paper letters by hand.
Each request gets a number and a due date the moment it arrives. An admin hands it to the person who holds the records, so nothing sits in a personal inbox.
The inbox sorts open requests by the time left, so the one that’s two days over sits at the top. Each row shows the step it’s at, who has it and how many of its documents are ready.
If you need longer, take the one 14-day extension and pick the reason. The notice to the requester is written for you.
Pick what the district found: records exist, some are exempt, there are none, or another agency holds them. The letter fills in the request number, the dates and the code section in your wording, and it goes out when you press send.
Your point person stops retyping the same four letters.
It reads the request, names the vendor and lists the agreement, amendments and paid invoices it found. Staff check the list, add anything it missed, or upload the one file that isn’t there yet.
An uploaded file is read and filed in the Library, so it’s there the next time someone asks.
See the Library
District Focus proposes boxes over details it finds by pattern: Social Security numbers, birth dates, license and account numbers, e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Your staff accept or reject each one, draw their own, or find a name and redact it across a document. Student records and legal advice are flagged so a person decides on the whole document.
The release copy is rebuilt from the redacted pages, so the words under a box are gone from the file the requester gets.
Every box carries one, and the redaction log shows it to the requester.
When your staff send the records, the requester gets the letter and a private link to everything at once: the redacted files and a log of each redaction’s page and reason, never the words removed.
The release can’t go out until every document in it has been reviewed. Records you withhold are listed in the letter with their legal reason.
The Activity log records each step, who took it and when, and every message with the requester stays on the request. Months later, search finds it next to the contract it released.
An admin sets up the request page, the e-mail address, the letters and the team in Settings. Admins see every request, and other staff see the ones assigned to them.
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It carries your district’s name, logo and color, and the same form embeds on your website.
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Mail to it opens a request on its own. When a requester hits reply, the answer lands on the request it belongs to.
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Edit the template for each outcome once. Every letter you send is saved as a PDF on the request.
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See how many requests came in, what people asked for, who asked and how often the district answered on time.
A contract filed once serves the records request, the spending report and the board question.
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Your contracts, purchase orders, invoices and board items are read and filed in one place, including the files you upload for a request.
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The vendor in today’s request already has its contract, its spending and its renewal date on one page.
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The Assistant reads the same Library. When the board asks about that vendor next month, it starts from the same contract and invoices.
A receipt when the request comes in, and the sign-in codes the requester asks for. No letter and no record goes out until someone on your staff sends it.
No. It proposes boxes from patterns, and a person accepts or rejects each one. Patterns miss things, so your staff can draw a box anywhere or find a name and redact it across a document.
Student records and legal advice are flagged for a person to decide on the whole document.
Yes. The copy the requester downloads is rebuilt from the redacted pages, so the words under a box aren’t in the file.
Their own request on a private page, opened from the link in their e-mail: the letters, the messages and the records to download. A new device needs a six-digit code sent to that address.
District Focus doesn’t publish an archive of requests or of the people who made them.
Admins see every request. Other staff see the requests assigned to them. Each step is recorded in the request’s Activity log, with who took it and when.
We’ll walk it through District Focus with you, from the form to the release, and answer your privacy questions on the same call.