Uploading files, and understanding your deadline

Once you know what you have been asked for, there are two things to get right: putting the files somewhere they will actually be used, and knowing when they are needed.

How to upload files to a request

1. Open the request you were asked about.
2. Go to the Case/Media tab.
3. Upload your files there.

That is the place records belong. A file attached to an internal note or a reply is not part of the response and will not go through review, which means it will not reach the requester and may not be considered at all.

If you cannot see Case/Media, your role does not have access to Documents. Tell the records officer rather than sending files another way.

If your role does include it, the Document Workspace is where records are found and organized across every request rather than one at a time.

Do not send records by email

It is the obvious shortcut and it causes three problems.

The record is not on the request, so it is not in the audit trail. It has not gone through review, so nobody has decided whether any of it must be withheld. And if you leave or are away, nobody can find it.

Put it on the request.

Upload what you hold, in the form you hold it

Send the original files rather than tidied extracts or a summary. The records officer needs to see what actually exists, because that is what the request is for.

If a file is too large or its type is refused, the limits are set by your agency under Document Management. Tell the officer rather than converting the file into something else, because converting can change what the record is.

Your deadline

The request carries a statutory deadline that started when it arrived. Open the request and look at SLA Details in the right rail to see how long is left.

Two things follow.

The date you were asked is not the start of the clock. Time has already passed before the request reached you, sometimes a lot of it.

Your part is not the whole job. After you hand records over they still have to be reviewed, redacted where necessary, approved and packaged. If you deliver on the deadline itself, the agency misses it.

Work back from the date rather than to it, and tell the officer early if you cannot make it. A known delay can be managed; a silent one cannot.