Six stages and a standard for each. The method describes what a good SAR process produces at every step, whether or not Redactics is used. Redactics is built to make the standard the default.
Bring together emails, documents, attachments, scans and source material.
Redactics
Turn mixed formats and scanned content into structured information.
Redactics
Identify people, aliases and relationships across sources.
Redactics
Surface the items that need attention.
Your team
Prepare the reviewed response and preserve the audit trail.
Your team approves
Every finding keeps its source. Every decision keeps its reason. The record outlives the case.
Recorded throughout
1
Search once, across everything, and record what was searched.
Bring every source into one case before anyone reviews anything. Record the sources, the search terms and the exclusions. The collection log is the answer to "have we found everything?".
What the record shows
2
Examine every document the same way, including the places people miss.
Convert every format, including scans and handwriting, into structured text with page and paragraph references. Comments, tracked changes and hidden sheets are examined. What could not be extracted is recorded.
What the record shows
3
Decide who is who before deciding what to disclose.
Link every mention into person records with evidence. Make confident links automatically and queue ambiguous ones for a decision. Infer roles so that third parties can be treated consistently.
What the record shows
4
Spend human judgement where it is needed and record it where it is spent.
Work by person and category, prioritised by risk and uncertainty. Decide clear-cut findings in bulk with individual records. Decide the difficult ones with the source and context on screen and a reason template that references the provision relied on.
What the record shows
5
Generate the package from the decisions; never assemble it by hand.
The bundle, index, redaction schedule and cover summary are produced from the decided case. Release checks confirm nothing unreviewed and no residual text leaves. Delivery is logged.
What the record shows
6
Every finding has somewhere to point. Every decision has a reason. The record outlives the case.
Provenance and the audit trail are not a stage at the end; they are produced by every stage. Keep the record for as long as the underlying data, and be able to answer the later questions from it.
What the record shows
If you run SARs manually, the checks above are an audit list. If you are evaluating tools, they are the requirements. If you use Redactics, they are what the platform records by default.
Try Redactics yourself or talk to us about your current process.