Cities, counties, clerks and courts
For clerks, records managers and the people who answer public records requests. Minutes, permits, plats and contracts in one library, in the cloud or on servers you control, kept exactly as long as your retention schedule says, with a record of who touched what.
Who this page is for
The paperwork
Federal agencies answer FOIA. Cities and counties answer their state's public records law, and keep records on the retention schedule their state archives or records commission approves. Here is how the usual records map.
Periods differ by state and record series. Content Central applies whatever periods your schedule sets.
Where it goes wrong
A resident asks for everything about the Elm Street rezoning. Planning has the application, the clerk has the minutes, the attorney has a memo and public works has the emails. Nobody can say for sure that the response is complete.
When the schedule lives in a binder, destruction runs on memory. Destroy too soon and you have a records law problem. Keep too long and every old file becomes something you must search and produce.
The attorney asks you to keep everything about a lawsuit. Three months later the annual destruction run goes ahead anyway, because the hold was an email, not a setting.
It is in a flat file drawer in the basement, filed under a contractor name nobody remembers. The homeowner is at the counter now.
How Ademero fits
CapturePoint 6 · the backlog
Put a mixed box through the scanner. CapturePoint 6 finds where each record starts, tells permits from minutes from deeds, reads the permit, parcel or case number and names every file. The reading happens on the PC next to your scanner, so the records never leave your building.
Finished records go straight into Content Central, or to folders as searchable PDF or PDF/A.
Content Central · the records program
Scanning the backlog
Scanning is the quick part. Splitting, naming and filing every page is what stalls a backlog project, and that is the part CapturePoint 6 does on the PC next to your scanner.
Permits, plats and minutes before the boxes nobody has opened in years. The first months of scanning should answer next month’s requests.
Parcel number, permit number, meeting date, case number. Those become the values CapturePoint 6 reads and the fields Content Central searches.
It finds where each record starts and tells permits from minutes from deeds. Use separator sheets where folder boundaries matter more than the pages show.
Many state archives set rules for imaging records and destroying the paper originals. Permanent records can be exported as PDF/A.
Records are read on your own PC, never sent to an outside service. Earlier scans in PDF or TIFF can be split and named too.
A request, start to finish
The rezoning request from above, step by step. The words in blue are what each step is called in Content Central, so your IT team can find it in the help library.
Content Central watches the mailbox (Microsoft 365, Gmail or any IMAP account) and files each message as a records request. Requester, subject and date received fill in from the email itself.
Email capture
The coordinator enters the due date your state law sets. A scheduled rule emails a reminder a few days before it is due, and again if the request is still open.
Content Query trigger with a date offset
One search reads every word on every scanned page you are allowed to see, across the clerk, planning, building and finance libraries. Narrow it by date or parcel number, save it, and export the result list as your index of what was found.
Full-text search, Power Search, export to Excel
The responsive records go to the city attorney as one approval, with a deadline and an automatic escalation if it sits. Notes carry forward to the next reviewer.
Approval process with deadline messaging
Email the release as a password-protected ZIP. The audit log records the email and its recipients, and the response is filed with the request, so the next person who asks what was released has the answer.
Event Viewer and document history
Retention schedules
Enter each series from your state's schedule once, as a retention policy on that document type. The Retention Policies page lists every record with the time it has left, and anything due for removal shows in red, so the records manager sees the month's destruction list before it runs.
When the attorney calls, place a hold: set the records to Retain Indefinitely and the schedule skips them until the hold is lifted. Only people you give the override permission can do it, and every override records who made it.
Two desks, two routines
Use Content Central in the cloud, or run it on your own Windows servers and SQL Server so public records stay in your building. Staff sign in with Active Directory or SAML single sign-on, and you can require an authenticator code for everyone. Permissions go down to the document type and even a field value, so the court clerk's sealed files and HR's personnel files stay with the people allowed to see them. Turn on Require Reason for Access and every view of a sensitive record carries a stated reason.
Government agencies and Fortune 500 companies review Ademero's security every year. Ademero has served 1,000+ organizations since 2002.
Keep going
Free live demo
Book a free demo and we will show you around, answer your questions and run your real paperwork through it. No cost, no pressure.
