Records Management Essentials

3.1. Find the general retention schedules and your agency's series-specific retention schedules

Retention schedules mandate the amount of time that records must be maintained, and authorize destruction or transfer of the records once the mandated time period has ended. Electronic records use the same retention schedules as any other format of the records. Retention schedules are based on the information contained in the records, not the media format of the records.

General retention schedules identify and apply to records that are common to a particular function or type of agency in order to promote consistent retention practices. General schedules are already approved by the Records Management Committee for use and you can access them via the Archives’ website, at archives.utah.gov/recordsmanagement/retention-schedules.html (shown below).

 

The general retention schedule webpages changed in April, 2018, to a search interface.

Input search terms and select search. If you don’t put any search term in and click search, it will still take you into the GRS search interface, where you will be able to apply filters, do advanced searching, and browse results.

The status feature tells you whether a retention schedule is approved by the Records Management Committee and available for current use.

• Current retention schedules can be used, and serve as the legal authorization to retain, destroy, or transfer records to the State Archives, as specified.
• Discontinued schedules cannot be used, but can be referenced to help you find the current schedule for a type of record or see what the approved retention was in previous years.
• Drafts of schedules are currently being reviewed for approval by stakeholders and the Records Management Committee, or are in the process of being updated. They cannot be used until they are approved, but you can provide feedback about the proposed retention schedule creation or changes.

The best place to search using previous retention schedule numbers is the advanced search.

You can find more search tips, video tutorials, and answers to common questions about the retention schedule search interface by clicking on “Where did all the schedules go?”

If you are not sure if you have found the correct retention schedule or need assistance, please contact a RIM specialist by calling 801-531-3863 or emailing recordsmanagement@utah.gov. It is important that you are aware of all schedules that could apply to your records, so that you can make the best choice. For instance, open meetings have two general retention schedules: one for meeting minutes and one for meeting recordings.

It is important to read the schedule description and verify that it accurately describes the records that you are scheduling. This will be further discussed as part of Step 2.

An agency may have a record series that is not depicted on any general schedule, or that needs to be kept for a longer or shorter period of time than that which is on the general schedule. In that case, an agency’s records officer can obtain approval for a unique retention schedule for that record series, referred to as a series-specific retention schedule. These can be found on the Archives’ website at archives.utah.gov/recordsmanagement/retention-schedules.html. You can find a particular schedule by inputting the series number, or you can find a list of your agency’s scheduled records by following the steps outlined below.

1. Browse for your agency.

 

2. Select the correct agency from the browse results.
   

You can view your agency’s series-specific retention schedules individually by using the links, or generate a retention and classification report (in PDF format) of all scheduled series.

 

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