Free tool · for HR generalists & small-team managers
Free Single Accommodation Request Log
This is how you document one accommodation request end to end: a free log that holds it on one record tab — the eight stages of the interactive process as dated rows, the contacts under them, the decision and what was provided — plus a Read Me. Otherwise the conversation scatters across email, a corridor and two meetings nobody wrote down. It is not the medical file and has no diagnosis field, on purpose, and it opens on an invented worked example.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the file.
What it does
- Lays out eight dated stages — recognized, begun, information requested, options explored, implemented, monitored, confidentiality verified, reviewed — each with what it is and a common miss. Those eight follow the sections of the Job Accommodation Network's free Accommodation Process Documentation Log (askjan.org/toolkit), whose eighth, audit and review, it marks optional. The ADA itself enumerates no stages.
- Marks a stage that carries a date but nothing written down. "Dated, but nothing written down" is the state that turns a process you genuinely ran into one you cannot show you ran — a narrative form has no way to compute it; a spreadsheet does.
- Counts the days from the request to each stage, and the gap between contacts. It counts and stops there: no target, nothing marked late, no deadline stated, because there is no fixed private-sector clock for answering a request.
- Records the decision so it reads a year later: outcome, who made it, what was provided, whether the employee accepted, and the five questions a denial commonly draws — essential functions, alternatives, the basis, the written notice, the route to ask again. It asks for them; it does not score them.
- Has no diagnosis field, no condition field and no provider-note field anywhere in it. This is not the medical file — that stays separate and confidential, and the sheet says so on its face, twice.
- One request per copy, pre-filled with an invented worked example so nothing opens blank. No macros, no signup, and nothing saved anywhere but your own copy.
Related reading
- HR templates for small teams The rest of the people-operations workbooks, for the HR generalist with no department behind them.
- What is the interactive process? The eight stages this sheet records, defined — including why there is no fixed private-sector clock.
- Spreadsheet vs HR case-management software Where a dedicated platform genuinely wins, and where a file you own does.
Own it, don't rent it
Running more than one accommodation request at a time?
This sheet holds one request. The full workbook is fourteen tabs that compute across all of them — a different job, and only yours once more than one request is open at a time. It works out how long each open request has gone without a documented contact, against day counts you set and label as your own policy. It finds where the same kind of request got opposite answers from two managers, and names both. It measures how much of that evidence each denial actually has, and names what is missing. It derives every review and retention date, and stops the retention clock the day a charge is filed. Around those: 60 curated accommodation options across 10 functional limitation areas, a trends view that hides any group too small to be anonymous, and eight fillable documents — including a letter to a treating provider that asks about function, never a diagnosis.
A one-time purchase you keep and reuse for every request you ever handle — no seat fee, no per-employee fee, no subscription, and no sales call.
Not advice: this is a record-keeping sheet and general guidance, not legal advice — it applies no legal test and reaches no conclusion about any request. It is built on the federal ADA interactive process, and state law can add steps on top of it (California's FEHA carries its own separate interactive-process obligation), so check what applies where you employ people and have a qualified employment lawyer review anything contested. This sheet is not the medical file: medical information belongs on separate forms in a separate confidential file (42 U.S.C. section 12112(d)(3)(B) and (d)(4)(C), implemented at 29 C.F.R. section 1630.14(b)(1) and (c)(1)). A filled-in copy is still a confidential employment record — keep it need-to-know. Every person, request and date in the worked example is invented. Free to use; please don't resell or redistribute.