Who can see internal notes

Internal notes are visible to staff and never to the requester. They are not emailed, they do not appear in the requester's portal, and they are not part of what a requester receives.

The separation is structural

Internal notes live on their own tab, labeled Staff-only, never emailed or shown to the requester. They are not a mode of the reply box and there is no toggle deciding where a note goes.

That matters more than it sounds. A setting you can leave in the wrong position eventually gets left in the wrong position. Because notes and replies are different places rather than different settings, you cannot accidentally send a note to a requester.

Who among staff

Anyone with access to the request. Govflo's permissions are by role and by area rather than per note, so a colleague who can open the request can read the notes on it.

Write with that in mind. A note is not a private message, it is an internal one.

Notes are part of the record

Every note is written to the request with your name and the time, and forms part of its history.

That is a reason to write them, not a reason to avoid them. A note explaining why you treated something a particular way is the difference between a defensible decision and one nobody can account for later. Write the reasoning, not just the outcome.

What a requester could still obtain

Internal notes are not shown to the requester by Govflo. That is a product behavior, not a legal exemption.

Whether a note is itself a public record subject to disclosure is a question for your agency and its counsel, and it depends on your jurisdiction rather than on where the text sits in the software. Write notes that you would be comfortable explaining, and take advice on whether they are disclosable rather than assuming either way.

Mentions

Typing @ in a note notifies a colleague. Mention people in notes rather than in replies: a mention in a reply still reaches the requester, and a colleague's name is rarely something you meant to disclose.