The Annual Report displays information related to FOIA compliance. It can be accessed from the Annual Reports menu, as shown below.
Steps to Generate the Annual Report
Click Reports > Annual Reports > Annual. The Annual Report screen displays as shown below.
Enter information in the following fields as necessary:
Field | Description |
Select Report Type | |
Agency Overall | Generate the report for all Action Offices in the Agency. If selected, also select one of the following options: With Breakdown for each Action Office-Hierarchical Order, With Breakdown for each Action Office-Alphabetical Order, With Breakdown for First Tier Action Offices, Overall Agency Totals Only. |
Action Office | Generate the report for an individual Action Office. If selected the Individual Action Office option will also be selected. Select an Action Office from the drop-down menu. |
Year Type | |
Fiscal | Generate the report based on the Fiscal Year. |
Calendar | Generate the report based on the Calendar Year. |
Year | Year, as selected from the drop-down menu. |
Date Range Type | |
Annually | Generate the report for a period of one year. |
Half-Yearly | Generate the report for a period of six months. If selected, also select a Half Year from the drop-down menu. |
Quarterly | Generate the report for a period of three months. If selected, also select a Quarter from the drop-down menu. |
Monthly | Generate the report for a specific month. If selected, also select a Month from the drop-down menu. |
Annual Report Lock Date | |
Lock Annual Report Data for Reporting Period as of | Lock the Annual Report and prevent the creation of new Requests, amendment of closed Requests, or closing of Requests, as of a specific date, click the calendar icon and select a date. Specific date, click the calendar icon and select a date. When the reporting period is locked, the system also blocks saves on any of the report-defining date fields whose value falls within (or is being moved into) the locked period — see Date fields protected by the lock below for the full list and behavior. |
Costs/FOIA Staffing and Fees | |
Total costs (including staff and all resources) | Total cost of FOIA staffing and resources. These fields are calculated automatically. Edit them as necessary. |
Costs/FOIA Staffing | Costs for FOIA staffing. These fields are calculated automatically. Edit them as necessary. |
(a)(2) - Records Posted for Public Inspection | |
Number of Records Posted for Public Inspection | Records to be posted for public inspection |
Generated Count | Total records calculated from all closed requests in that fiscal year (data captured while closing the request) |
Other Agency Related Records Posted for Public Inspection | Manually populated number of records to be posted for public inspection |
XI. FOIA Regulations (Including Fee Schedule) | |
XI. FOIA Regulations (Including Fee Schedule) | Any FOIA regulations |
XII. BACKLOGS, CONSULTATIONS, AND COMPARISONS | |
Discuss/explain the backlog here (Optional) | Explanation for the backlog |
F. Discussion of Other FOIA Activities (Optional) | Discussion of any other FOIA-related activities |
To lock or unlock the reporting period users must have the "Annual Report-Edit" Application Permissions.Click Generate. The Annual Report displays as shown below.
NOTE: To view details for any "Other Reason" that was given, click Other Reason-Details. To submit the report to the PAL Reading Room, click Submit for Publishing. The Annual Report can be exported in multiple formats. For instructions on how to export in a specific format, click the applicable link below. Click Show Footnotes to display a list of footnote fields, which you can edit as needed.
Date fields protected by the lock
Locking the reporting period prevents the underlying counts from drifting after the annual report has been certified. In addition to blocking the creation, amendment, and closing of requests within a locked period, the system also blocks any save that would change the fiscal-year membership of a request or appeal by editing one of the report-defining date fields.
Date fields covered by the lock
The following eight date fields are checked at save time:
Received Date
Date Closed
Stop-the-Clock Start
Stop-the-Clock End
Appeal Received Date
Appeal Closed Date
Transfer Date
Original Received Date
When a save is blocked
On Save, the system checks each of the eight date fields above. If either the previous value or the new value falls within a locked reporting period, the save is rejected and a validation message is displayed. The check is applied to the individual request, request appeal, transfer, or related action being saved.
Because the system evaluates both the old and the new value, the lock prevents all of the following situations — without requiring you to think about which case applies:
Moving a request out of a locked reporting period.
Moving a request into a locked reporting period.
Moving a request from one locked reporting period to another.
Moving a request to a different date within the same locked reporting period.
If a single Save changes more than one date field at once, the check is applied to every changed field. If any one field fails the check, the entire save is rejected — no partial changes are written. Any non-violating field edits made in the same Save are not committed and remain pending until the form is saved successfully.
Boundary dates
The date you select in the Lock Annual Report Data for Reporting Period as of field is itself part of the locked period. A date that falls on this boundary date is treated as inside the locked period and cannot be saved.
If the reporting period is unlocked while you are editing
The lock state is evaluated at the moment you click Save, not when the form was opened. If an administrator unlocks the reporting period while you have an edit form open, click Save again — the save will proceed if no lock now applies to the dates you are saving.
Mass actions on in-scope date fields
When you run a mass action that updates one of the in-scope date fields (for example, Mass Start the Clock, Mass Stop the Clock, or Mass Close), the lock check is applied to each request in the batch individually:
Requests that pass the check are processed normally.
Requests where the change would fall within a locked reporting period are skipped — no changes are saved on those requests.
Each individual save in the batch remains all-or-nothing for that request, so a partial multi-field save is never committed.
If one or more requests are skipped, the following summary message is shown after the mass action completes:
Mass action applied to {X} of {Y} requests. {Z} request(s) were skipped because the change falls within a reporting period that is currently locked. To apply this change to the skipped requests, the reporting period must first be unlocked. The Annual Report-Edit permission is required to unlock reporting periods.
X — number of requests successfully processed.
Y — total number of requests selected.
Z — number of requests skipped because they violated the lock.
If every selected request passes the check, no summary message is shown and the action proceeds normally.
NOTE: The save-time lock check applies to FOIAXpress and to ATIPXpress (including the Statistical Report module). The behavior, in-scope fields, and message wording are the same in both products. In ATIPXpress, the validation message is shown in the user's selected language.
See the links below for additional information on Annual Reports: