FOIA solution
Complying with, and fulfilling, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests remains a costly and time-consuming process. Even in the face of information technology advancements and Government-wide initiatives like the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, managing the FOIA process is fraught with frustrations and bottlenecks for lawmakers, Agency officials, and requestors alike.
Several difficulties surround handling a request including receiving a request,
capturing, assignment and processing. Manual processing is very difficult, time-consuming, costly, and frustrating for your team members. to get rid out of this The MERP FOIA solution simplifies the collection of FOIA requests and the management of response communications. Constituent intakes, acknowledgment letters, invoices, executive reviews, and responses are just a click away, improving staff efficiency and advancing decision making. Instant access enables collaboration across departments in real-time and facilitates faster processing and constituent response.
- Automates the process for Government or States to validate requests from citizens, collect the information, redact any sensitive information, perform the legal review, process payment, and distribute the information
- Provides annual, quarterly, Monthly reporting, audit, and records management.
- Correspondence to the Requester is listed in the Activities Timeline for future verification.
- Automatic SLA timers with auto-pause, resume, expire and cancel for specific days of a timeline.
- Supports automated workflows to streamline business processes.
- Automatic request assignment, task scheduling and reminders.
- Auto calculate the submissions based on working days, working hours and defined business closures.
- Auto calculate the expedite request fee-based on fee category and resource utilization
- Centralized processing from various request channels: web, Email, Postal Email, Online.
- Simplified uploads of documents, photos, and videos directly to the SharePoint.
Email Templates
MERP FOIA Solution uses dynamic email templates for notifications and reminders which can be easily customized by anyone.
Email to request
A request can be automatically created when an email is received on a specific mailbox with specific text contains into the subject.
Reporting
Preconfigured and ad hoc reports provide a 360-degree view of the entire system, including simplified creation of the annual and Quarterly FOIA Report. The resulting view can be exported to word, pdf, Excel, PowerPoint, CSV, XML etc. formats
Audit Log
One of these is the auditing feature, which allows you to track changes made to data in the system. It also tracks each time a user logs into your system. Audit history is maintained on record level as well as field level to track who changed record and when the record gets updated.
Document Management
The solution uses SharePoint for document management which is very easy to use, productive, efficient way to store and manage the documents. The documents are visible into the sub-grid of related records.
Role-based Permissions
Give users access to only the information and part of the request which they need to see.
Data Backup and Recovery
Automated, unlimited backups of CRM data up to four times a day which minimize data loss, downtime, and restore times while satisfying aggressive Service Level Agreements. Data can be Restore and access on-demand with full-fidelity recovery
Real-Time Dashboards & Analytics
Interactive dashboards which show real-time data like Pending, Acknowledged, Perfected, Estimated, etc. requests. It offers deep and actionable insights into all of these requests on a real-time basis within one Screen and at your fingertips. These analytics and dashboards are accessible on mobile phones and tablets.
Quick/Advanced Search
Search the requests, appeals, and documents with a quick and advanced integrated search engine and can export the data in excel or CSV.
FOIA Solution Process Flow
