Create and Use a Custom Redaction Pattern

You can search for specific data in documents with Redaction Patterns. NextRequest provides basic preloaded patterns that search for email addresses, phone numbers, Social Security Numbers (SSN), dates, and zip codes.

Did you know you can create custom redaction patterns to locate the specific information you need to redact? For example, maybe you don't need to redact all email addresses in a document, only the addresses that do not belong to public employees. You can do this with custom search patterns. Custom search patterns are created with regular expressions.

A regular expression, or regex, is a sequence of characters that defines a search pattern. Usually, such patterns are used by string searching algorithms for "find" or "find and replace" operations on strings, or for input validation.

Important Note

Use custom search patterns at your own risk. NextRequest support cannot debug your regular expression/redaction pattern if it does not perform as expected. We always recommend testing before using custom searches on documents for a real request.

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Tips

• Check out Regular Expressions 101 or Rubular to test your regular expressions before adding them to the portal.
• Test your pattern on realistic documents so you can be sure it will locate the data correctly.

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Create a Custom Redaction

1. Log in to NextRequest as an Admin or Department Admin
2. Navigate to the Admin header and click Redaction Patterns in the drop-down
   
   
3. Click Create Redaction Pattern
   
   
4. Enter the Name of the pattern. This is what will be displayed in the drop-down menu in RapidReview.
   
5. Enter the regular expression in the Redaction Pattern field
   
6. Click Save
   
   

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Use a Custom Redaction Pattern in RapidReview

1. Navigate to your Request
2. Access RapidReview
   
3. Select documents, then Batch Redact
   
4. Search under Redaction Type for your created Redaction Patterns and select which one you would like to apply.
   
   • Redaction Type: Select zero or more options
   • Redaction Phrase: Input a word or phrase to redact
   • Place in Folder (Optional): Select a folder or start typing to create a new folder
   • Set Redaction Reason: Select a redaction reason
5. Select Start Redaction
   

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Use Custom Redaction Pattern in Standard Redaction

1. Navigate to your Request
2. Navigate to the Documents tab
   
3. Find the file and select Redact File from the three horizontal dots dropdown
   
4. Select Search
   
5. Select the drop-down arrow next to Search Document and select your Redaction Pattern
   
6. When you have the Redaction Pattern selected, select Search
   
7. The search will show you how many results have been found in the document and allow you to review them in the document.
   
8. Select the documents, then select Redact.
   
9. Select Redact All to apply redactions
   
10. Select the Save button to burn in redactions
    

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