A question came up on the FOI listserv this week asking how people track their public records requests. Here are some of the responses:

• One requester said he uses an Excel spreadsheet with each request and the fields: request number (he assigns his own ID number for each request), agency, subject, the agency’s request number, date sent, date received, date of first office action, status, and notes. Paper letters and correspondance are clipped together with a Post-It note on top with the request number to find it easily.
• Try the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press FOIA Project Tracker. It doesn’t update requests for you, but it will provide a central place to store information about requests. You create a login and password and then can store letters (with links to their online letter generators), add journal entries with date/time to track communications, reminders and contacts.
• I’ve heard of some people using Google Documents to track project information, since you can log in from anywhere and you can share it with a co-worker if you are on a team project.
• Google Calendar is another application that lets you enter reminder dates that will alert you to check back on a request. It might be a good option for people who don’t use calendar alerts on their cell phones, Outlook, or similar software.

This entry was posted by David Cuillier on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 9:41 pm and is filed under FOI strategies and tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.