Flow chart displaying the that the Disposition Package gets sent to the Dept. Record Coordinator, then the Dept. Record Authority, then the RM Compliance Analyst, then the RM Director. Then the last step is the Purge Approved Documents.

Disposition Review Process for Records Coordinator

The Records Coordinator is the first to receive a disposition notification from DocFinity. The role of the Records Coordinator is to review and approve all disposition jobs. Reviewing may sometimes involve re-indexing incorrectly classified documents and, in certain instances, placing records on destruction hold. Once the Records Coordinator approves the disposition, the job advances to the Records Authority.

Note: If your office does not have a Records Coordinator, the initial notification email from DocFinity will be sent directly to the Records Authority.


Quick Overview

  1. Receive email (with link to DocFinity) inviting RC to review records eligible for disposition
  2. Once logged into DocFinity, select RC job queue
  3. Check out a specific job under “Jobs: RM Review: Record Coordinator”
    1. Review records
      1. If errors in records category, adjust records errors (use Correcting Misclassified Records). Errors that could be fixed by re-indexing include:
        1. Incorrect Record Type
        2. Incorrect Record Category
        3. Incorrect Record Retention Trigger Date (RRTD)
      2. If a hold needs to be placed on any records, contact Records Management Services at recmgt@uw.edu
    2. Approve disposition if no records require re-indexing, postponement, or holds.

Step by Step Guide to Reviewing and Approving a Disposition Job (Records Coordinator)

Step 1. Visit edms.uw.edu and log in using your UW NetID and password.

Note: For direct access to the disposition job, you can also click on the link in the disposition notification email you received from DocFinity.

Step 2. At the top of the webpage, click on the Workspaces tab – a drop-down menu appears. In the drop-down menu, click on Job Assignments.

Step 3. Four panels have populated your workspace (from left to right): Search, Jobs, Job Views and Results.

Step 4. In the Job Views panel, select RM Review: Record Coordinator, then click on the Get Job Queue button at the bottom.

Note: Your Job Views panel may look different depending on access level and role.

Zoomed in Job Views panel DocFinity displaying jobs available for the Record Authority and the Record Coordinator

Step 5. In your job queue, disposition jobs are listed by retention policy, from oldest to newest. Each row represents a separate job and disposition-eligible records are batched by retention policy (AKA record series). Select a job from the queue by clicking on it so that it becomes highlighted in blue. (De-select it by clicking on it again.) Once you have selected a job, click on the Check Out Job button at the top.

Zoomed in Job Queue panel DocFinity displaying jobs that need to be checked out by the user. The screenshot features 5 Jobs with the first row highlighted

Step 6. A new panel opens up with three tasks: Review Disposition Instructions and Notes, Review Documents via Search Result (by Disposition Queue ID), and Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement or Legal Hold Request. Tasks marked with an asterisk * are required to be fulfilled in order to complete the whole job.

DocFinity view of the Jobs - Tasks screen in DocFinity with the three Tasks needing to be completed circled in red on the left side of the screen

Step 7. Click on the first task titled Review Disposition Instructions and Notes - a new panel appears.

Zoomed pop-up panel called Review Disposition Instructions and Notes in the top half of the image. This section is circled in red. The bottom half of the image displays the Jobs - Tasks screen from image 5, with the first task titled Review Disposition Instructions and Notes highlighted in blue and circled in red

Step 8. The Review Disposition Instructions and Notes panel contains links to the disposition process guides for each role and any notes the Records Coordinator (if applicable) may have left for this specific job.

Note: With any panel you have the option to either diminish it, enlarge it, open it in a new window, or close it completely by clicking on the respective icons.

Zoomed in on the top right hand side of the toolbar where the minimize, expand, popup and exit buttons are circled in red

Step 9. Click on the second task * Review Documents via Search Result (by Disposition Queue ID) to view all disposition-eligible documents in the batch.

The top half of the image is the DocFinity view of the Jobs - Tasks screen, with the three Tasks. The second task titled Review Documents via Search Result (by Disposition Queue ID) has a checkmark next to it. The bottom half of the image is the Results panel with one example document listed.

Step 10. Depending on the size of the job, you may have to review multiple pages worth of documents. Click the icon with the small arrow to navigate to the next page. Alternatively, you may click on the drop-down menu next to “items/page” to expand the number of results per page.

Zoomed in Results panel with the button toolbar circled in black of the page counter and number of items per page dropdown

Step 11. Optional: DocFinity also gives users the option to export the metadata of all listed documents under Results to a spreadsheet. Click on the Export Results to Spreadsheet button at the top. (If you do not wish to export the results to a spreadsheet, go to Step 15.)

Zoomed in Results panel with the top toolbar button titled Export Results to Spreadsheet circled in black

Step 12. A message appears at the top of your browser. DocFinity will prepare a .csv file that will contain all the metadata associated with the records listed in the Results panel.

Note: Export Results to Spreadsheet downloads metadata only and not any actual documents.

Zoomed in popup screen displaying that These results have been sent to the server for processing; when it is finished, you will receive a user message, listed in the My Desktop panel.

Step 13. To download the file from DocFinity, select the Panels tab at the top. In the drop-down menu, select My Desktop.

Note: You should also receive a UW email with a unique link when the file is ready allowing you to download it.

Zoomed in drop down menu from Panels button in the very top of the DocFinity webpage. The drop down option titled MY DESKTOP is circled in red

Step 14. From the Export Queue, you can download the .csv file and view the metadata of records eligible for disposition in this .csv file.

My Desktop Panel in DocFinity displaying the view from the Export Queue tab. Export Queue is circled in black and the column titled File(s) to download is circled in black

Step 15. Back in the Results panel, you can also double-click on individual to review specific items.

Results panel with the one document highlighted and circled in black

Step 16. Once clicking on the record from the Results panel, the Document Viewer panel will open at the top of the screen. You may use the magnifying glass slider below the image to zoom in or zoom out.

Document Viewer panel displaying the contents of a PDF document. The slider with the zoom out and zoom in buttons, at the bottom of the panel, is circled in black

Step 17. If the file size is above 30MB, DocFinity will be unable to display the record in the Document Viewer section. Additionally, certain file formats may not be supported by the viewer. To view the file under these circumstances, select the individual document you wish to view by clicking the checkbox in the Results panel, and then clicking on the Download button in the toolbar above. Once pressing the Download button, follow the instructions from Steps 13 and 14 to locate your My Desktop Panel and to find your downloaded records in the Export Queue.

Results panel with the Download button in the toolbar circled in black

Step 18. Once your review is complete and no corrections need to be made to any of the documents in the Results panel, you can approve the job. Select the third task by double-clicking on *Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement or Legal Hold Request under the Tasks menu.

The Jobs - Tasks panel open with the third task titled Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement or Legal Hold Request highlighted

Step 19. A dialogue box will appear once you click on that task, and you will have three choices: Approve Disposition (of all records), Request Postponement (of some or all records), and Request Legal Hold (of some or all records)

Zoomed in popup screen from the Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement or Legal Hold Request button. The drop down menu in the popup displays the three options users have to choose either Approve Disposition (of all records), Request Postponement (of some or all records), and Request Legal Hold (of some or all records)

Step 20. For approval, select Approve Disposition (of all records). If you have any notes to add, type them in the notes field. Your approval and any notes are reviewed by Records Management and we will contact you if we have any questions or need to follow up.

Step 21. If you need to postpone a batch due to issues with the disposition batch you’re reviewing (such as documents that need to be re-indexed), select the Request Postponement (of some or all records) option from the drop-down menu. Selecting this option will interrupt the disposition process. Explain the postponement request in the description so Records Management can review your comments and contact you with any questions.

Note: Though we recommend postponing the entire disposition job after making corrections to any records, doing so may not be efficient with large disposition jobs where only one or very few documents are in need of correction. There is a method that allows you to isolate incorrectly indexed documents to avoid postponing the disposition of the entire job. This is particularly useful with disposition jobs that contain a large number of documents.

See more details under Correcting Misclassified Records (Re-indexing Records). For instructions on what to do in case of a destruction hold, follow the instructions on placing a record on a legal hold.

Step 22. If moving forward with approving the disposition of all records in the batch, select Approve Disposition (of all records) from the drop-down menu below and click on the Save button at the bottom of the dialogue box. You may choose to leave a note in the Describe Postponement or Legal Hold Request (if applicable) field.

Zoomed in popup screen from the Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement or Legal Hold Request button. The drop down menu selection is Approve Disposition (of all records). The open text field below it has Approved for disposition typed in it

Step 23. The last step is to click on the Complete Job button located in the Jobs panel toolbar. Once completed the disposition job advances to the Records Authority.

Zoomed in Jobs - Task panel with the button titled Complete Job with a green checkmark icon next to it, circled in black

Step 24. Looking at your Job Queue, you can see the number of jobs decreased by one, which means you have successfully completed the disposition job. If applicable, continue this process until your jobs queue is at zero.

In this example, you can view that there are no more jobs for the Records Authority and that the job was successfully completed.

Job Views displaying 0 jobs next to the Records Coordinator title and the Job Queue panel with No jobs available circled in black

Correcting Misclassified Records (Re-Indexing Records)

During your review you may discover a problem with one (or multiple) record(s), such as wrong record type or incorrect RRTD (= Record Retention Trigger Date). It is important to correct any mistakes and re-index the record as an incorrect record type and/or incorrect RRTD may result in the record being disposed of prematurely.

Note: If you require all records in a batch to be corrected and re-indexed, please contact Records Management at recmgt@uw.edu for assistance.

Step 1. Starting from the Review Documents via Search Result job task.

Step 2. Click on the row of the document from the Results panel that needs to be updated.

  1. Next, either click on the Re-Index button in the toolbar or use the context menu to click on “Re-Index”.
  2. This will bring up the Index panel on the right hand side

DocFinity with Search panel, Job Views, Jobs - Tasks, Results, and Index Panels all displayed. The Results panel has the toolbar button Re-Index circled in red, the subsequent popup window option with Re-Index circled and arrows from both circles leading to the Index-Document panel

Step 3. Under the Re-Index panel, update the "Record Retention Trigger Date" field or the "Record Type" field as appropriate.

After you are done with edits, click on the "Save" button in the top toolbar of the Index panel to save the changes.

DocFinity with Search panel, Job Views, Jobs - Tasks, Results, and Index Panels all displayed. The Index Panel has the Record Retention Trigger Date space circled in red and the Save button in the Index Panel toolbar both also circled in red

Step 4. At this point you can request RMS to postpone the disposition of the documents in this package so that DocFinity can recalculate the appropriate retention the next time it runs.

There is a method that allows you to isolate incorrectly indexed documents to avoid postponing the disposition of the entire job. This is particularly useful with disposition jobs that contain a large number of documents.

WARNING: If you re-index any documents you must either postpone the entire disposition job or place a temporary hold on the corrected documents first. Failure to do either will result in the entire job to be approved for disposition regardless of whether you have altered any of the document information or not. If this happens to you, please notify Records Management immediately at recmgt@uw.edu.

Step 5. Click on the Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement job task.

The Jobs - Tasks panel open with the third task titled Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement or Legal Hold Request highlighted

Step 6. A dialog window pops up allowing you to communicate any changes you’ve made to Records Management.

  1. Select Request Postponement (of some or all records) from the drop-down menu.
  2. Comment on any changes you’ve made.
  3. Click on the Save button at the bottom of the dialog box.

Popup from the Approve Disposition or Submit RM Office Postponement or Legal Hold Request button. The Request Postponement (of some or all records) option selected and the text field below containing Trigger date was changed to 01/02/2024 for some records typed in by a user

Step 7. At this point all required tasks are marked as complete. The last thing to do is to click on the Complete Job button in the top toolbar to send the job to the Records Authority. Records Management will review the request to postpone the disposition packet. On approval the system will update and you will receive a new but updated disposition job to review the following week.

Zoomed in Jobs - Task panel with the button titled Complete Job with a green checkmark icon next to it, circled in black

Important

In the event of litigation, public records request, audit, or investigation, you may need to place a record on hold. When this happens, you must contact Records Management Services. To learn how navigate destruction holds in DocFinity, follow this step-by-step Legal Holds Process in DocFinity.