Prepare your system so your team can save time with our records request management tool! Follow this two-part checklist to ensure your portal is configured to meet your agency’s needs before you Go Live.
Part 1: Minimum Portal Set-Up
Follow the list below to confirm your basic portal settings have been configured. Many settings, including users and departments, can be changed after going live.
Note:
If you wish to Bulk Upload any legacy data such as users, previous records requests, and their associated documents and messages, this must be done before going live as the process can take up to 2 weeks to complete.
Review Your Basic Portal Settings
Basic information
Your Organization's Name
Time Zone
Point of Contact (ensure this is someone from your agency!)
If desired, set up a point of contact automation to automatically assign users to a request.
Confirm that both images have been uploaded and are of good quality that fit the specified size requirements for a crisp and clean homepage.
Input the desired starting number for your new requests once you are live.
You may skip this step if you have entered real requests in the portal or were not tracking requests previously with the same numbering system.
Please note that system numbering will reset to 1 at the beginning of each year and will use sequential numbering from that point forward. For example, at the beginning of 2025, request numbering will start at 25-1.
Remember, you can’t change your request numbering after you go live.
Select how you calculate request due dates.
Input the number of days until a request is due.
Input how many days before the due date you want reminders and at what time.
Request publishing or visibility
Select the default visibility for all requests in your portal.
New Request Form | General configurations
This determines what the members of the public will see on your “Make Request” page when submitting requests. Ensure all required information for how the public should submit a request is detailed in the appropriate sections here.
Payments
Set up payment integration if applicable with your purchased plan.
Bulk Upload
If you are planning a bulk upload of users or requests, this must be done before going live and can take up to two weeks to complete. Please reach out to your NextRequest contact at CivicPlus for assistance with Bulk Uploads.
Confirm Your Users
Confirm/add in the required users that will be helping your agency manage records requests
Determine their User Roles.
Set Up Your Departments
Confirm/ add the required departments
Set your Default request visibility for the selected department.
Select each Department's Point of Contact.
Set the Department visibility.
This determines if the department is available on the drop-down for the public on your Make Request form.
Public = dropdown available to the public.
Private = dropdown for internal use only.
Assign users to their applicable departments
Customize Templates
Ensure all your internal and external Message Templates reflect pre-set, consistent verbiage
Customize your Closure Template with agency-specific information
If applicable, add Invoice Templates if you will be charging for requests
Alerts
Add alerts to help divert requests based on particular words and phrases
You can also add alerts specific to the request type to prompt requesters to provide specific information (such as an alert triggered by a permit-type request to include a permit number).
Tags
Create tags to help categorize and organize your agency’s requests
Redactions
Create standard document redaction reasons if applicable
Note: You may add Redactions Patterns with custom coding.
Establish Your Internal Workflows
Let your staff know how you expect them to operate within the portal. Determine and communicate your common workflow steps such as:
Who can release documents?
Who can close requests?
Should Staff log their time spent working on requests?
When responding to requests, should Staff notify someone or create a task for the next step in the request?
Part 2: Go-Live Checklist
After configuring your portal in Part 1, review the final go-live checklist items below.
Have you sent invitations to all internal users who need portal access?
We recommend sending invitations to all new users who need access to the portal to set up their accounts before they are assigned their first request. To do this, go to the user list, then click the Send Invite button next to each user.
Have you finished testing?
Once your portal is live, you can no longer delete requests, so complete all your testing while your portal is still in Onboarding mode. Ask your initial users to follow the steps outlined in our Request Management Guide to practice submitting a request as an internal user, creating internal and external messages, uploading documents, and closing requests. Use the testing period to get accustomed to NextRequest’s notification capabilities. Remember, you can always edit your notification settings to receive more or fewer notifications.
Do you want to update the relevant page of your agency's website to link to your NextRequest portal?
Link directly from your website to your NextRequest Portal to expedite resident requests. Add a link to your NextRequest Portal anywhere on your website that discusses public records requests. If you are updating individual department pages, we can provide links to the Make a Request page with the relevant department pre-selected.
Have you prepared an announcement for the public?
Share the news with members of your public that you have launched the NextRequest Portal to streamline the records request process. Download our editable Press Release Template to get started or reach out to your NextRequest contact at CivicPlus for helpful resources you can use for other press releases, blog posts, and social media content.
Have you deleted your test requests and documents? (Optional)
Remember, you can’t delete requests from the portal after you click Go Live, except through the Retention feature. You’ll be able to delete documents, but not all at once. Once you’ve finished all your testing, you can delete all requests from your portal by clicking the Delete All Requests button at the top of the All Requests page. To delete all test documents, you can find the same Delete All Documents button at the top of the Documents page.
Note: If you previously deleted test requests and have been practicing entering real requests in the portal and want them to be maintained when you go live, skip this step.
Go Live
Once you have completed all the steps in this document, you are ready to launch your NextRequest portal. Click the green Go Live button at the top of your portal to empower the public to request information using your new powerful technology solution!