The administration announced that each time agency employees use an online, collaborative platform to conduct business, they are creating federal records that must be properly stored, according to the released bulletin. This includes video conferences, calendars, chat functions, emails, file sharing, document collaboration and more. NARA, however, said that this list is “non-exhaustive.”

NARA said that agencies have to treat records in collaboration platforms like all other federal records, in compliance with the administration’s approved records schedules.

NARA recognized the importance of collaborative platforms in its statement and said: “Within the federal government, these platforms provide an environment that supports rapid and effective collaborations. They have become a regular part of government work culture.”

“Record management concerns should not hinder an agency’s full use of collaboration platforms,” NARA said in the bulletin. “By providing these platforms, agencies maintain more control over the systems and can then determine a strategy to manage and capture content created in those systems.”

Agencies are not required to record and capture every conference and chat but should follow the established guidelines for record management to document decisions or substantive conversations during a video conference similar to an in-person meeting. 

NARA said that when agencies implement record management into an existing collaboration program, they can consider how to handle requests for information or records that are contained in the system and if records could be migrated to a different platform if an existing system is replaced. 

Agency records officers “must work with system administrators and program managers to perform a risk-based analysis of how they intend to use the collaboration platform and ensure recordkeeping requirements are identified and met,” NARA said in the bulletin. 

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Sheena Burrell, CIO of the National Archives and Records Administration and also a term member of the TMF board, said Thursday that agencies — including her own — have found alternative ways to transfer money back to the fund even when the projects themselves don’t generate tangible financial returns.

“We’re seeing more creative ways in terms of repayment, not necessarily just saying I have investment A and I need to take the cost savings from investment A to be able to repay the TMF,” Burrell said. “I think we’re seeing some agencies where they’re being a little bit more creative.”

NARA, for instance, received $9.1 million to modernize and digitize its legacy records processing systems under the TMF. To pay that back, Burrell said, the agency used money from its revolving fund through which it collects fees from other agencies it stores and digitizes records for.

“So we’re utilizing some of the money from that revolving fund in order to pay back our TMF … loan here,” she said during an Alliance for Digital Innovation event Thursday focused on the TMF.

Other agencies have taken similar steps, getting creative with the budgeting process or pulling money from fee-for-service revolving funds to make sure they repay their loans on time, Burrell explained.

The General Services Administration received a large TMF award to support its Login.gov program. Similar to NARA’s records management program, Login.gov takes fees from other agencies it supports that it can then use to pay off some of the funding it received, she said.

But some agencies don’t have revolving funds or working capital funds that they can pull from if need be. And, as Burrell explained, some projects, like cybersecurity modernization, don’t have near-term returns on investment to pay back the TMF within five years.

“We know that sometimes with cybersecurity proposals that they don’t necessarily have that return on investment or that cost savings from the perspective of, ‘I’m getting rid of this application or modernizing this application so it will cost me less than [operations and maintenance] of legacy technology,'” Burrell said.

In cases like that, the TMF board has seen agencies use the fund as an “accelerator,” she said.

“They’re utilizing those funds to accelerate the implementation of something that was maybe already planned, but for a later time. And then because it was already planned, and they requested that from a budget perspective, they could take that money and repay the TMF,” Burrell said.

The TMF payment process has been a point of contention for both lawmakers and agencies since the introduction of the TMF in 2018. Burrell said it initially made many agencies hesitant to apply for awards for fear of not being able to make good on repayment if they didn’t find the savings that they hoped for.

“There were a lot of agencies that were very nervous to take advantage of the TMF because of the repayment and how would they pay the money back?” Burrell said. “And when would the money need to be paid back? And what if there wasn’t any cost savings from the investment that the TMF approved? How would they work those funds into the repayment process?”

She said the guidance the Office of Management and Budget and General Service Administration introduced in 2021 after the American Rescue Plan Act injected $1 billion into the TMF eased that tension for agencies as it created a more flexible system for them to repay money, requiring in some cases only partial or limited repayment depending on the project.

Some lawmakers, though, were not happy with that decision. Just this week, Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Gerry Connolly, D-Va., introduced a bill revising the TMF to sustain it long term — but also bring it closer to its original intent in terms of repayment. If passed, it would require agencies to repay any funds in full to keep the program solvent and sustainable.

A congressional aide familiar with the bill told FedScoop this week: “The problem is that … those who influence how the TMF program office operates have veered away from congressional intent and have not required the fund to remain solvent, and have given out awards without requiring even a small percentage of those awards to be reimbursed.”

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Starting Sept. 18, users from across the federal government will be able to use the system’s function for scheduling records, according to a memo NARA Chief Records Officer Laurence Brewer published Tuesday.

Agencies have been able to use the system since June in a limited fashion to submit transfer requests for electronic files.

The ERA 2.0 system will contain the majority of the data the previous ERA system did, which includes record schedules and transfer requests. All previous existing user roles have also been migrated to the updated platform.

The modernized platform will provide “the current status of all pending agency actions in user dashboards,” rather than depending on a NARA appraisal archivist to send a separate, monthly report. 

For agency users preparing to work in the new system, NARA has created ERA 2.0 training materials, along with an agency checklist for the launch.  

Though the launch date nears, NARA’s journey to get to this point hasn’t been without challenges. During a Bi-Monthly Records and Information Discussion Group meeting on Aug. 15, Sam McClure, electronic records program director for NARA, noted that bugs have been present during the migration to the new system.

“I’m not pleased to speak towards data migration errors that we’re needing to correct,” McClure said, noting that roughly 2,000 of the 104,000 forms migrated over had been affected. “We’re working hard to address these…. The basic point is your work in the system is too important, your time is too important. We’ve got to get these errors fixed.”

McClure said some errors involved an incorrect status for forms after migration and that they needed to be cleaned out and re-migrated to arrive at the correct status. 

Other forms were not able to be migrated at all.

“For various reasons related to our system infrastructure, some of these forms failed at the outset of their migration,” he said. “We’ve got to correct those issues, and get those into the system and get those into the correct statuses as well.”

The agency’s inspector general also took note of the challenges in migrating to ERA 2.0. The IG issued the results of an audit Friday of the system with six recommendations related to weaknesses.

While the report states that NARA is “making progress in the development and implementation of the ERA 2.0 system,” it says that the deployment has been delayed and not adequately planned. 

“These weaknesses may result in continued delays in timelines resulting in unexpected ongoing maintenance costs for legacy systems and hinder the ability and effectiveness of the project team to assess the nature and risks related to the system being developed in a timely manner,” the report states.

The existing errors that NARA knows about have been reported on an updated list of errors.

“We update this on a fairly regular basis in response to updates we get from users from both agency and the NARA side of things,” McClure said. “And we’ll keep this updated both with known errors and soon with fixes that are coming.”

McClure said that the problems have “proven stubborn,” and that if the migration was an easy process, the forms would have been successful on the first try. During that August meeting, he said that the agency was working with a development vendor to take corrective actions. 

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In its 2023 AI use case inventory, the agency charged with managing U.S. government documents disclosed it wants to use an AI-based system to autofill metadata for its archival documents. Similar to some other agencies, the National Archives also disclosed its interest in using the technology to help respond to FOIA requests.

While NARA shared these planned applications, it did not include any current, operational use cases of AI.

The list of AI use cases is required of most federal agencies under a 2020 executive order (EO 13960). Those inventories must be posted publicly and annually.

The agency’s public release of its AI inventory comes after FedScoop reported that the National Archives had published its list only on MAX.gov, a platform for sharing information within the government. The Office of Management and Budget later re-emphasized that agencies are required to release a list on their agency website, in addition to the MAX portal.

“The National Archives is excited about the use of AI/ML/RPA and how we can utilize these technologies to help with natural language processing, search, and process automation,” said NARA Chief Information Officer Sheena Burrell in a previous statement to FedScoop. 

Burrell also said the agency was in the process of developing a governance life cycle for AI “along with the evaluation criterias to assess our AI solutions for compliances in accordance with the Executive Order.”

While the agency provided most details required under the Federal CIO Council’s 2023 guidance for the inventories — and additional optional information — it appears to follow a format consistent with the guidance for the previous year’s inventories. As a result, it doesn’t include whether the use is contracted or consistent with the executive order. It also doesn’t include columns for dates that note when stages in a use case’s life cycle take place.

Researchers at Stanford’s RegLab reported widespread lagging compliance in the first year of agencies’ use case inventories in a December 2022 report about the country’s AI strategy. Recent FedScoop reviews of agency use case inventories found inconsistencies in reporting have persisted.

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A 2020 executive order, EO 13960, requires federal agencies to produce inventories of their AI use case, and subsequent guidance from the CIO Council requires the lists to be published both to MAX.gov, an internal federal information sharing platform, and publicly on each agency’s website. NARA confirmed that it plans to publish a public inventory in response to questions from FedScoop.

These inventories are meant to provide insight into how the government is already using AI — and help streamline the deployment of the technology in the future. Still, as FedScoop has previously reported, compliance with this executive order has been patchwork. While some agencies have invested heavily in developing rich inventories, others have, for example, included a shuttered project and an “error,” or excluded otherwise public deployments of AI.

NARA’s announcement that it will publish its inventory on AI.gov, which includes a website that tracks federal agencies’ inventories, came after the agency previously said that its use cases were only available on the Office of Management and Budget-run Max.gov portal and “not open to the public.” NARA made its announcement after FedScoop asked OMB about NARA’s decision.

An OMB agency spokesperson said: “Agencies are required to post the full version of their AI use case inventories internally via MAX Federal Community, as well as post a public version of their inventory on their agency’s website.”

The expected disclosure is another reminder that agencies that maintain large amounts of records and documents see opportunity in artificial intelligence. The State Department, for example, is considering using AI to accelerate declassification efforts. Other agencies are now looking at AI as a way to facilitate FOIA processing.

“The National Archives is excited about the use of AI/ML/RPA and how we can utilize these technologies to help with natural language processing, search, and process automation,” said NARA CIO Sheena Burrell in a statement to FedScoop. “While we have started piloting AI/ML and RPA, we have not deployed any solutions into production yet. We’re in the process of developing the AI governance life cycle at NARA along with the evaluation criterias to assess our AI solutions for compliances in accordance with the Executive Order.”

Burrell continued: “NARA is the nation’s record keeper where we maintain billions of records. We’re trying to focus on AI use cases that will benefit researchers, our archivists, and the American public. The areas of focus are related to natural language processing, search, and our backlog reduction efforts.”

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In a memo sent Thursday, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said federal agencies, where possible, should allow staff — especially those considered high-risk — to work from home.

“As much of the country experiences dangerous air quality conditions from the ongoing Canadian wildfires, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is reminding Federal agencies to be proactive in protecting the health and wellbeing of our Federal workforce,” Ahuja wrote.

She added: “OPM would also like to remind agencies of the various workplace flexibilities that may be used to reduce health risks associated with dangerous air quality levels.  Agencies are encouraged to permit employees, particularly those with high-risk medical conditions, to telework from home on a day when air quality conditions are dangerous.”

The OPM chief sent the missive to all government chief human capital officers, as thick smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed Washington D.C., along with other major cities in the northeast, Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. According to the Washington Post, air quality is likely to be severely reduced in these areas for at least the next 24 to 48 hours. 

In her missive, the director noted that agencies can deploy other measures to help protect the health of their staff, including by allowing those with flexible work schedules to adjust arrival and departure times to avoid peak commuting hours and to request the use of annual leave or earned compensatory time off.

While telework is not an option for certain government employees, including those working on national security issues or handling certain sensitive data, some agencies have retained a degree of flexibility for staff following the COVID-19 pandemic.

In January, the National Archives and Records Administration reached an agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees union, as part of which all permanent positions at the agency will now be eligible for telework.

At the end of November, the National Science Foundation signed a four-year collective bargaining agreement with the AFGE that included expanded telework and remote work for employees.

Advocates of the increased use of telework at government agencies say that it can be especially beneficial for recruiting staff in areas such as cybersecurity and IT because departments can seek potential candidates from across a wider geographic area.

However, telework has also proved politically contentious, with some lawmakers arguing that fewer employees in the office has resulted in the reduced availability of government services.

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According to Stacy Bostjanick, the head of CMMC at the Department of Defense, that’s inevitable and now in the works.

“There is a [Federal Acquisition Regulation] rule that’s going to be coming out that implements the [National Institute of Standards and Technology’s special publication] 800-171 and the 800- 172. And it’s going to go across all of federal government,” Bostjanick said during a virtual event hosted by cloud encryption company PreVeil.

The FAR already requires federal contractors to meet 15 basic cybersecurity requirements to safeguard agency information handled by those firms. But by applying the NIST standards, that would be significantly expanded to the same 110 controls that fall under 800-171, which CMMC will also enforce.

The DOD is “working with the federal CISO Council today to try to make sure that we’re consistent across all of the federal government, how we view those 110 controls [under NIST SP-800-171], so we’re not going to be onerous on the industry partners,” said Bostjanick, who was recently promoted to chief of defense industrial base cybersecurity within the Office of the DOD CIO.

While CMMC requires a third-party assessment organization to attest that defense contractors that handle controlled unclassified information meet all 110 of those controls, it’s unclear if the FAR rule would require the same or instead leave it up to contractors to self-attest, as has been the case in the DOD until CMMC was introduced.

Members of the FAR Council at the General Services Administration and Office of Management and Budget could not be reached for comment.

An OMB spokesperson directed FedScoop to a rule proposed jointly by DOD, GSA and NASA that would apply the National Archives and Records Administration’s controlled unclassified information (CUI) program requirements “in Federal contracts in a uniform manner to protect CUI. This rule is one element of a larger strategy to improve the Government’s efforts to identify, deter, protect against, detect and respond to increasing sophisticated threat actions targeting Federal contractors.”

Speaking openly to those contractors that might be hesitant to kickstart their journey to CMMC compliance as they wait to see what might happen with contractor cyber standards on the civilian side of government, Bostjanick said: “It’s coming across of all federal government — you might as well get out in front of it and be one of the first.”

The final rulemaking for CMMC is still in the works and should be delivered sometime later this year. While Bostjanick cannot comment on what will be in the final rule, she did say nothing will change when it comes to the 110 controls the latest iteration of the program — CMMC 2.0 — will be based on.

“CMMC is coming, it’s not gonna go away, the waiting is not going to make the pain any less,” she said, acknowledging the many contractors that have claimed earning a CMMC accreditation will be expensive and burdensome to them. Complying with the NIST 800-171 “is just the basics, guys — it’s not the creme de la creme protection that’s going to protect you from everything. It’s going to protect you from the basic hacker, right. And, you know, the one thing is, implementing those standards not only protects my data and meets your requirement for DOD. It also protects you.”

The Department of Homeland Security at one point explored the possibility of a CMMC-like program for its contractors, but it’s since pivoted away from that measure to instead relying on vendors to self-attest their security compliance and overall cyber hygiene.

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The funding will be used to move files to NARA’s cloud workspace from the VA, which the Archives says will allow staff to access images and conduct day-to-day processing of veteran requests.

Details of the funding were included in a strategic plan, revealed through a Freedom of Information Act Request, and follow sustained scrutiny of the backlog by lawmakers.

NARA last May received a $9.1 million loan from the Technology Modernization Fund to update two systems that are key for furnishing veterans with documents.

According to plan documents, as of Feb. 13, the backlog of unanswered requests had fallen to 404,000 down from a peak of 604,000 at the height of the pandemic.

“NARA has allocated funding for several initiatives that will transform paper-based processes for fulfilling customer requests for paper records into fully electronic processes that rapidly deliver digitized copies to customers through secure, accessible web portals,” the agency said in the plan.

The strategic plan also allocates $400,000 to support the electronic processing of record requests, which includes the purchase of laptop computers and other technology to allow NARA staff to fulfill requests electronically.

During fiscal 2023, NARA has allocated $7.1 million to the modernization of its Case Management Reporting System (CMRS), one of the two systems at the center of the agency’s plan for furnishing veterans with documents.

NARA added also that it will allocate “additional funds” to implement secure user authentication for the public using the governmentwide authentication service Login.gov.

“This modernization also includes funding to develop Robotic Process Automation solutions to expedite responses to requests for separation documents,” it said.

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In a bulletin issued Jan. 5, the federal agency set out new rules requiring the preservation of all communication about government business on electronic messaging systems.

Electronic messaging systems are defined as systems that “allow users to send communications in real-time or for later viewing,” and explicitly include texts, chats and instant messages.

“This bulletin recognizes that the use of additional types of electronic messaging often now replaces conversations previously occurring over email,” NARA said in the fresh guidance.

Under current NARA guidance, which was issued in 2013, federal agencies are required to use a role-based approach to records presentation — known as Capstone — which only applies to email records.

The Capstone approach rules that the final disposition of records is determined by the seniority of the role or position of the records creator or receiver.

“A role-based approach for managing email records, also known as Capstone, has been widely adopted by a large percentage of federal agencies,” the guidance says. “Therefore, NARA is expanding the role-based approach to include other types of electronic messages beyond email.”

According to NARA’s new guidance, electronic messages created or received in the course of agency business on personal devices are likely to be defined as federal records. Those messages must be forwarded or copied to an official account within 20 days, under the new guidance.

NARA said also that when considering how to implement the new rules, agencies must consider whether they have an approach for capturing complete electronic messages including emojis, GIFs, images and video.

The update follows heightened scrutiny of federal agencies’ preservation of digital records last year, which came as lawmakers sought evidence from agencies relating to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

In early July, the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to Congress to inform lawmakers that text messages sent by agents relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot had been deleted.

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Following a bargaining period, the National Archives and AFGE have signed a memorandum of understanding under which all permanent positions will be eligible for telework, with a maximum of five telework days per week.

NARA is the latest agency to reach an agreement with a federal government union over the post-pandemic working environment for staff. At the end of November, the National Science Foundation signed a four-year collective bargaining agreement with the AFGE, which included expanded telework and remote work for employees.

In a statement on Dec. 19, AFGE Local 2578 President Ashby Crowder said: “AFGE and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) have recently reached a telework agreement that seeks to make the agency more efficient and worker friendly.”

“Now all permanent positions are telework eligible,” he added. “This is a change from before the pandemic … this means at the very least, all bargaining unit employees can have an ad hoc telework agreement in place, and when telework happens, it’s based on business needs.”  

AFGE added that the memorandum makes improvements in other areas for staff including scheduling flexibilities and electronic monitoring.

In March last year, AFGE struck a return-to-office agreement with Environmental Protection Agency as part of which employees have the right to request telework or other flexibility in certain situations.

Agencies across the federal government moved to a telework posture where possible during the pandemic to ensure continuity of services while protecting the health of employees.

As the United States emerged from the worst of the pandemic, some agencies adopted more widespread teleworking options for staff to improve retention and expand the government’s potential pool of candidates.

However, telework has at times proved politically contentious. In March last year, Senior House Republicans sought clarification from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the agency’s plans to end telework for staff.

In a letter obtained by FedScoop at the time, ranking members of two House committees called on leaders at the EEOC to end telework for all of its about 2,000-strong workforce.

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