Executive Records Request Intake Workflow

executive records request intake

Use executive records request intake to preserve request scope, ownership, access limits, search instructions, and accountable delivery from the start.

Identify the request and its authority

Record who is asking, the business or legal basis supplied, the requested date range, subjects, systems, format, deadline, and delivery owner. Requests from counsel, auditors, regulators, board members, employees, and internal teams can follow different paths. The assistant should not assume that a senior title grants unrestricted access to every executive record.

Route authority questions to the designated owner.

Clarify scope before searching

Translate broad language into named custodians, accounts, document types, topics, and time periods with the request owner. Preserve the original request beside the clarified instructions. Do not silently narrow a difficult request or expand it into an executive's full archive.

A written scope protects privacy, reduces duplicate searching, and gives reviewers a stable basis for deciding whether the result is complete.

Use system owners for reliable collection

Identify where responsive material may live, including email, calendars, shared drives, approved chat, records systems, paper files, and delegated workspaces. Ask technology, records, legal, privacy, or audit teams to use their governed collection methods. Manual searching by an assistant can miss deleted, archived, permissioned, or versioned material and may alter metadata needed by the request process.

Separate collection from release

Collected material may contain privileged, confidential, personal, security-sensitive, or unrelated information. Send it to the authorized reviewer rather than directly to the requester unless the process expressly permits delivery. The assistant can organize sources and explain business context.

Redaction, withholding, privilege, and disclosure decisions belong to qualified reviewers operating under the applicable rules.

Document delivery and unresolved limits

Record what was delivered, by whom, to whom, when, through which secure channel, and under what approval. State gaps such as unavailable systems, unresolved custodians, inaccessible archives, or pending review. Do not call a request complete while a known limitation remains hidden.

If the deadline changes, capture who authorized the change and how the requester was informed.

Close temporary access and preserve the intake record

Remove collection accounts, shared links, exported files, and reviewer access created only for the request when the owner confirms closure. Return source records to normal governance and retain the request history according to policy. Review repeated requests for missing ownership or poor filing practices.

Improve the source process without building a shadow archive in the executive office.

Common questions

May the assistant send records directly?

Only when the approved process gives that authority and required review has occurred.

What if the request is too broad?

Ask the request owner to clarify scope and keep both the original and clarified instructions.

Should working exports be retained?

Keep them only as directed, then remove temporary copies through the approved closeout process.

Source and service boundaries

Organizations can review our executive operations support, use the records retention handoff, or contact our team about governed executive support. Source: National Archives records management guidance.