Severance and unemployment, do they overlap? (update)

My employer is paying severance in instalments and I am not sure whether to file now. I worked as an office manager before this. I also wonder about the job-search requirement. Did you file straight away?

Keep everything in writing and save the confirmation numbers. It saved me later.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it last year, and it settled down once I kept a simple log of every call and form.