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Alex Tabing edited this page Aug 19, 2024 · 7 revisions

Welcome to the eRulemaking wiki!

Our Product

The eRulemaking team develops the key systems for managing public notice and comment for proposed regulations - a critical and mandated part of the the rulemaking process.

Through the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS), we currently provide agencies with shared services for managing dockets through the rulemaking process and collecting comments from the public. Through regulations.gov, we currently provide the public with ability to find and comment on rules that matter to them.

Product vision

eRulemaking connects the public and regulatory agencies to empower public participation and improve agency efficiency in the rulemaking process by making regulatory information open, accessible, and simple to work with.

Modernization Overview

We are currently in the process of modernizing our platform in order to deliver a service that better meets the changing needs of agencies and the public.

Goals and Outcomes for Modernization

  1. Increase system capacity and processing efficiency

  2. Unlock agency efficiency in processing and analyzing public comments

  3. Enhance the public user experience and engagement in the rulemaking process

Modernization Product Domains

Our team conducted a capabilities mapping to document and audit the current functionality of both FDMS and regulations.gov. Using the current state capabilities and layering on potential new and future capabilities, we developed product domains that encapsulate our current and future services. This provides a framework to communicate areas of focus on our roadmap and to organize how we think about the product and what it does. These domains and their high-level capabilities are listed in the sections below.

1. Docket and Document Management

  • Prepare docket - create new docket, add FR documents and upload documents
  • Manage phase and status
  • Create and manage team assignments

2. Public Commenting

  • Write and submit a comment
  • Commenting API
  • Stay updated on the rulemaking process - tracking comments, updates on a rulemaking action

3. Comment Processing and Analysis

  • Process comments - receive, review, approve, post comments to regulations.gov
  • Upload comments received from other sources
  • Sort/Group comments by similarity - identify mass mail campaigns
  • Analyze comments - categorize comments, identify substantive comments
  • Exporting comments - download comments in a usable format, API

4. Search, Browse, & Filter

  • Find dockets, documents, comments via - browsing; keyword search, filter, sort; advanced search queries
  • Extensibility and interoperability across government systems - linking to related information from Federal Register, reginfo, GPO

5. Reporting and Compliance

  • Custom, self-service reporting

6. Learning, Training and Customer Support

  • Get help with an issue or feature - knowledge base, helpdesk
  • Learn about the product - in-product tooltips, guides, announcements, trainings
  • Learn about the rulemaking process (public users)
  • Stay updated on the latest changes

7. User and Access Management

  • Add and manage agency users
  • Assign roles and permissions
  • Request API keys
  • Public user accounts - for advanced features