Agencies must manage e-mails by end of year.

• Position: COURT CASE

By Dec. 16, 2016, all federal agencies are required by the Obama administration's information management policy to manage all government e-mail that qualifies as permanent or temporary records in electronic format.

That means agencies must have in place a method of retaining e-mail records in an electronic system that allows for managing and retrieving records and supports litigation needs, open-government requests, and other archival purposes, according to FCW.

According to a report released in December 2015 by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 93% of records managers who reported said they are on track to meet the deadline. NARA said it received 84 reports, for a compliance rate of 94%.

"At this point, we're not aware of any agencies that definitively will not make it," Laurence Brewer, NARA's acting chief records officer, told FCW. "The 2016 target is an important one. We do expect all agencies to meet that target. But we do realize that it may not be realistic for 100% of agencies given the complexities of their email systems [and] funding priorities, and of course, now we have a presidential transition that's looming." Brewer said nearly 80% of agencies "report that they have policies and procedures to manage their email." A...