States typically have one or two earlier spec versions available when they change reporting requirements, giving agencies time to make the switch. Hard deadlines are increasing, however. For example, Missouri (MO) is asking agencies to collect immigration status on incidents and expected to be fully in compliance with the new spec at the end of 2025.
Once an agency starts using a new spec, all its rules must be followed, including required fields—even for past incidents that lack the needed data. One potential improvement would be to make required fields conditional on incident date, but this needs to be expressed explicitly in the spec. MO attempted this approach but ultimately turned missing data into a warning rather than an error.
When a spec is unsupported, submissions using it are rejected regardless of incident date. Agencies must resubmit full incidents for any updates as partial updates to historic incidents are generally not allowed.
Exceptions are:
Adding new values to current fields, where the RMS capability is not always obvious.
Flat file submissions rely on segment length to determine spec compliance.
Old values are still accepted for past events if there is a cutoff date specified—though XML submissions are stricter.
Certain specs allow segment lengths of different sizes, but as soon as a longer size is discovered, shorter ones are discarded.
For XML submissions, accepted versions are kept in a database and may be temporarily reinstated if agencies so desire if the versions expire. Flat file management is harder since there is no versioning embedded, but segment length is utilized instead.