Accessing FOIAXpress Collaboration

When your Collaboration Portal account has been created by your Administrator, you will receive an email with login instructions. An example login screen is shown below:

To access the portal, provide your email address (the one associated with the portal, where you received the initial email) as well as your password, then click Sign In. After signing in, the Collaboration Dashboard appears:

The main areas of the Dashboard are described in the following table:

The next sections provide steps to complete Request for Documents Tasks and Consultation Tasks.

Request for Documents Tasks

Accessing a Request for Documents Task

After you log in to the Collaboration Portal, there are a few indicators that a new request is waiting for you. New tasks arrive in your Task Summary, as an unread message in your Message Summary, and in your Request for Document Tasks list.

In this example, we’ll double click the request listed in the Request for Documents Tasks list.  

When you access a request for the first time, a pop up appears letting you know that confirmation of receipt has been sent to the person who made the RFD:

Click OK to dismiss the message and view the task. The Tasks tab appears as shown below:

The Task Details page includes all the information provided by the user who sent the RFD. In the next section, we’ll cover each of the available actions on this page.

Request for Documents Task Dashboard

There are a variety of actions you can take on the Task Details page using the task toolbar. They are described in the following sections.

Upload Records

You can upload documents, add redactions, and more, directly from the Collaboration Portal when processing a Request for Documents.

Note: Make sure you have all files you’d like to submit to the RFD ready at this point. You cannot upload additional documents to the request later.  

1. To add documents to the RFD, click Upload Records from the toolbar.  

2. The Document Management interface opens in a new tab, as shown below. The document tree on the left side panel is used to navigate between folders, sections, and pages.  

3. Determine whether you’d like to create Sections to organize the pages within the folder. Sections allow you to segment the documents within a folder.

Note: If you’d like to create sections in the folder, you must do so before adding pages.

1. To add a new section, right click on a folder and click Create Section. Then, right click on the new section and click Add Pages.  

2. If you do not want to create sections in the folder, you can add pages directly to a folder by right clicking on the folder and clicking Add Pages.

4. After clicking Add Pages, the Add Documents screen appears, prompting you to upload the requested documents. You can pull files from your desktop into the Drag and Drop Zone or click Attach Files to browse your computer’s files. As you add files, they will display in the (A) Files List. When you’ve uploaded all the requested files, click (B) Add.  

Note: You must add all files for the RFD at this point. You cannot go back and add more files later.

5. Click Yes on the confirmation box.

6. The Job Progress window appears, displaying the status of your document upload.

7. Once the job completes, the pages appear in the document tree:

8. There are additional options to review and redact these records before completing this RFD. See the Document Management section for more details.

View & Send Messages

Click Messages from the task toolbar to open the Messages page. From here, you can use the (A) message toolbar to send a new message or send a reply to the user who sent you the Request for Documents. You can also view the (B) list of all received, sent, failed, and outbox messages.

Double click on a message from the list to view details.

For detailed instructions on sending messages in Collaboration Portal, visit section 5: Sending Messages Using the Portal.

View/Add Attachments

Click View/Add Attachments to upload documents to the RFD in addition to the responsive documents you uploaded in section 3.2.1: Upload Records. You can also view any attachments included with this original request from this page. For detailed instructions on Attachments in Collaboration Portal, visit section 6: Using Attachments in Tasks.

RFD Notes Log

The Notes page lets you view all notes on this task. This includes both automated notes on system processes, as well as any notes added manually using the Add Note option.

Change Status

Use the Change Status feature to track progress on this task. This status is internal to the Collaboration Portal and is not reported back to the requester.  

If for whatever reason you cannot fulfill the request, select Rejected, otherwise select Accepted. Provide Notes (required regardless of the status you select), then click Save.

Completing a Request for Documents Task

Once you’ve finished uploading and processing the documents to fulfill the RFD and are ready to complete the task, use the Submit Completed Task feature. Follow the steps below to submit a completed task.

1. In the Collaboration Portal, open the Request For Document Task that you are ready to complete

2. On the Tasks tab toolbar, click Submit Completed Task:

3. After clicking Submit Completed Task, the Request ID screen appears as shown below

4. On this screen, provide the Subject and Body for the message that accompanies the completed Request

5. In the Attachments field, use the Select button to upload documents to include with the completed request, or you can select attachments already added to the task to include in the response package

6. When you’re ready to submit the task back to the requester, click Submit Task

7. A pop up message appears. Click OK to dismiss the message

8. The Tasks tab refreshes, with the Status updated to Submitted

Consultation Tasks

Responding to a Consultation Task

When you’ve received a Consultation Task, it will appear in the Consultation Tasks list on your Collaboration Portal Home tab. Follow the steps below to receive the documents and complete the task.

1. Locate the new Consultation Task in the list and double click it

2. A pop-up appears informing that the sender has been notified that you opened the task. Click OK to dismiss this message

3. The Tasks tab appears as shown below. First, you’ll want to read the requester’s message. Click Messages from the task toolbar

4. Click View Message to view the message details:

5. Review the details of the consultation request, then click Close

6. The Status of the message updates to Read. Click Back in the task toolbar to return to the Task Details page

7. You can now opt to Accept or Reject this request. Click Change Status in the task toolbar. The Update Task Status page opens, where you can mark the request as Accepted or Rejected:

Note: There are also options to select Need Additional Info, In Process, and Cost Estimate Sent.

8. If for whatever reason you cannot fulfill the request, select Rejected, otherwise select Accepted. Provide Notes (which are required regardless of the status you select), then click Save. In this example, we will accept the request

9. The status updates to Accepted. Next, click Review Records Electronically in the task toolbar. This allows you to access the materials provided for your review in Document Management

10. The Document Management interface opens (see the Document Management section for details), as shown below. From here, you can navigate through folder(s) in the left hand document tree panel and review each document/page

11. Use the toolbar to adjust your page view and save the file

1. Save or Print the document

2. Zoom in or out of the page

3. Exit the Document Management window

Note: You can also hover over each toolbar icon to view a Tooltip with more information.

12. Once you’ve reviewed the documents, you can close the Document Management window and return to the Task page to submit the completed task back to the requester. See section 4.2 for instructions on completing a consultation task.

Completing a Consultation Task

When you’ve completed the consultation review assigned to you in the Collaboration Portal, follow the steps below to submit the completed task.

1. In the Collaboration Portal, open the Collaboration Task that you are ready to complete

2. From the task toolbar, click Submit Completed Task:

3. After clicking Submit Completed Task, the Request ID screen appears as shown below. On this screen, provide the Subject and Body for the message that will accompany the completed Request

4. In the Attachments field, use the Select button to upload documents to include with the completed request, or you can select attachments already added to the task to include in the response package

5. When you’re ready to submit the task back to the requester, click Submit Task

6. A pop up message appears. Click OK to dismiss the message

7. The Tasks tab refreshes, with the Status updated to Submitted

Messages

You can use the Collaboration Portal to communicate with the requester, share attachments, and update the status of the request. Follow the steps below to use the Messages feature:

Note: The process is the same for both Requests for Documents and Consultation Tasks.

1. Open the task whose requester you’d like to contact. Click Messages

2. The Messages screen includes an (A) action toolbar and a (B) list of all messages associated with this task

3. You can select a message from the list and click to View Message to open it, click Reply to reply to the selected message, or toggle the Read status for the selected message by clicking Mark as Read or Mark as Unread

4. From this page, you can also start a new message thread with the requester. Click New from the toolbar. The New Message screen appears as shown below

5. First enter a (A) Subject, fill in the message (B) Body, and add any (C) Attachments if needed

Note: While you can attach documents to a message from this page, you should upload responsive documents as part of the request completion process. See the Request for Documents Tasks section to learn how to submit responsive documents.

6. When you’re ready to send the message to the requester, click (D) Send Message. The message will appear right away in the Outbox, then move into the Sent messages list once it has processed

Note: If an error occurs while sending the message, it will appear under the Failed messages list.

Attachments

You’ll likely need to add attachments at some point during the task, whether it’s a requested document, an email, or another file that will provide context to the requester. Collaboration Portal has a few tools to make it simple to add and manage attachments.

Note: The process is the same for both Requests for Documents and Consultation Tasks.

1. Open any Task. Click View/Add Attachments:

2. The Attachments screen appears. Included here are a (A) Task Attachments list with all current attachments (if any), and the option to (B) Add Attachments:

3. Use the file navigator to select the document you’d like to upload. Your file will appear under the Add Attachments bar. Click Attach File to attach it to the RFD. Using Attachments in Tasks

4. The screen will refresh, and the Task Attachments list will now include the file

5. Repeat this process until you’ve uploaded all the files you’d like to attach to the task. You can also click the X next to any attachment to remove it from the Task

6. When you’re finished, click Close to return to the Task Details page

Notes Log

Both Requests for Documents and Consultation Tasks include a Notes Log to document actions taken on these tasks. You can access the Notes Log from within a Task by click the Notes Log as shown in the following example:

The Notes Log appears as shown below. This screen includes a (A) Notes Log with the actions taken in filling this request. There are also several (B) Actions you can take on the log.

You can take actions on notes by selecting a note from the (A) Log and selecting an (B) Action. These are described below:

Document Management  

Once you’ve uploaded pages to the RFD task, you can add annotations and/or redactions to the pages. Redactions obscure information that is protected from release. Annotations are review objects like highlights, notes, stamps, which can aid in document review. In this section we highlight a few of the features in DM for Collaboration.

For full details on FOIAXpress Document Management, see the FOIAXpress User Manual. Note that the linked manual described functionality that is not available to you as a Collaboration user.

Document Management Interface

Review Objects

In Document Management, you can use one of many available Review Objects available on the right-hand side of the window.  

The following table outlines each toolbar item:  

Note: You can also hover over each toolbar icon to view a Tooltip with more information.

Find and Redact

Use the Find and Redact feature to locate and redact specific content and automatically apply redactions to any matching text. You can use find at redact at the folder, section, or individual page level. To use find and redact, select the area in the document tree you want to search, then right click and select Find and Redact:

You can use the Find What dropdown menu to search for specific content or PII, as shown below:

Select the Page Range to apply redactions then select a button for the action you’d like to apply.

Apply Redactions

You can manually apply redactions and other review objects on the right toolbar, then clicking to apply in the review panel. In this example we’ll draw a Redaction:

Because we applied a redaction, the Select Redaction Codes screen appears where we’ll have to select a code to apply. Select from the list (or use the filters to search) then click Select Redaction Codes to apply the selected code to the redaction.