When you saw the headline pop up on your phone, you knew it was going to be a bad day at work.

City schools ignore Tribunes document request

As the administrator of a public school district, its your job to respond in a timely fashion to requests made by the public and the media under the Freedom of Information Act. Specifically, its the districts legal obligation to acknowledge receipt of those requests within five business days, then fulfill the request as quickly as possible.

Sheila, the district clerk, is normally on top of those things and has never missed one before. Unfortunately for you, youre missing Sheila, who has been out of work since last week, the day the paper made its Freedom of Information request.

The email from the reporter was sitting in Sheilas inbox, unopened, the whole time — and no one knew it had arrived.

Its an honest mistake, but the negative publicity makes the district look bad, and now the superintendent wants to know what went wrong and how to fix it.

Thankfully for you, Datamation has the answer: automated document forwarding.

We offer software programs that can set up online request forms and immediately forward incoming requests to the appropriate personnel. The workflow automation request forms eliminate the hazard of emails going unread or being accidentally deleted. Those incoming request forms can be automatically forwarded to as many people within the district as needed, meaning Sheilas coworkers would have been aware of the request and brought it to your attention. Additionally, they can be tracked and our software can even create alerts in the event they have not been addressed prior to the deadline.

As part of your districts obligation to communicate effectively with the public, online contact forms eliminate the need for a member of the public having to figure out who the right person is to contact to have their question answered or their request filled.

A reporter is probably smart enough to figure out a Freedom of Information request should be sent to the district clerk, but that reporter couldnt know she was out of work for two weeks. And when emails and phone messages went unreturned, the reporter did what reporters do: write a story about it.

The timely response to FOIA requests is an important part of your school districts responsibility to serve the public in a transparent fashion. To do so, you owe it to the community to implement the best possible technological solutions to facilitate that interaction.

Bad headlines give the public the impression youre indifferent to legitimate requests for information — or worse, that youve got something to hide. You know it was an honest miscommunication, but once its happened the damage is already done.

Implementing an automated workflow in your office will enable you to avoid those kinds of mistakes, and help you earn the confidence of taxpayers that you are accountable and responsive to their requests.