1 · Introduction & Project Initiation

This manual is the reference for administrators of InsightOptix v5.0. It documents the configuration surfaces behind the Administration interface — everything reached from the blue admin bar under Tenant, Instance, and Matter administration. It is written for the people who stand up and run an environment: instance and tenant administrators configuring the platform, practice-group and matter administrators building and running individual matters, and Insight Optix staff assisting during onboarding. It assumes you already understand your legal-hold and discovery obligations; it explains how the product expresses them.

Operators who only work inside a matter (the non-admin User role) never see these screens — their guide is the User Manual. This manual is the admin companion: heavier on setup, reference tables, and the reasoning behind each option than a click-by-click walkthrough.

1.1 · The Tenant → Instance structure

v5.0 replaces the legacy "Company / Group / Instance" language with a cleaner two-word model: Tenant and Instance. If you administered an earlier release, read this section carefully — the concepts map across but the boundaries are firmer.

Settings cascade

Tenant-level settings flow down to instances with per-setting override control. For each cascading setting the tenant administrator decides whether instances may override it or must adhere to the tenant default. On the tenant security page this is the Allow instance override switch: when it is off, the tenant defaults are enforced everywhere below.

1.2 · Platform security structure

The platform enforces a role hierarchy in which higher levels inherit full access to every level below them. A single person can hold different roles at different scopes — for example practice-group administrator over Employment matters and matter administrator on one specific Litigation matter.

Note and attachment deletion

Deletion follows ownership rules that vary by role, and every deletion is immutably logged with the original content, the action, and the acting user. Instance Admin and above can delete any note or attachment within their scope; Practice‑Group Admin, Matter Admin, and User can delete only items they created themselves.

1.3 · Initiating a new instance

When a new instance is provisioned it arrives with its identity in place and its reference data seeded from defaults. Standing it up for real work is a short, ordered pass through the tenant and instance settings pages. The steps below assume the instance already exists and you have Instance Admin (or higher) access to it.

2 · Matter Administration

A matter is where the work happens: custodians, legal holds, surveys, data sources, and reports all hang off it. This chapter covers creating a matter, choosing its tier, and every configuration surface an administrator touches while setting it up. Each editable page uses the standard save pattern — a teal Saved button when nothing is pending, an orange Save Changes button when you have unsaved edits.

2.1 · Creating a matter and choosing its tier

Create a matter from the Matters list with Add Matter. The creation dialog asks three things, all required: a name, a matter category (the dropdown lists only categories you are allowed to create in), and a matter type — the tier.

Opening a matter reveals its administration tabs: Matter Details, Legal Hold Settings, Group Composition, Data Sources, PDA Configuration (Full only), Notes + Attachments, Questions, Users, Reports, and Data Importer. The sub-topics below walk the configuration surfaces in the order you typically set them.

2.2 · Matter Details

The Matter Details tab holds the descriptive and party information for the matter, plus the people responsible for it. The left column carries the case facts; the right column carries the role assignments.

The right column assigns system users to matter roles, each of which accepts one or more people via an add/remove picker: Matter Administrator, Responsible Attorney, Responsible Paralegal, and Question Recipient (who receives custodian-submitted questions). A status toggle in the header flips the matter between Active and Inactive, and Close Matter releases all non-released custodians and closes the matter after you supply a required reason.

2.3 · Survey Time Frame

The Relevant Timeframe fields on Matter Details define the date range custodians should consider when answering surveys and identifying responsive data — the matter's survey time frame. Set a Start and an End date, or tick Ongoing (no end date — still happening) when the relevant period has not closed. Ticking Ongoing clears and disables the End date.

2.4 · Data Source Burden Group Details

A burden group is a named cost-and-effort profile that the PDA module uses to score and rank data sources. Burden groups are defined at the instance level (Instance Administration → Burden Groups) with a name, a region (US / International / Other), per-category Low / Medium / High cost estimates, and a per-category Burden Score from the scale 1 — Low Effort, 2 — Medium, 3 — High, 4 — Burdensome.

On a Full matter, the PDA Configuration tab lets you tailor those instance defaults for this matter only. Pick a burden group on the left, then edit the Per-Category Cost & Burden grid: Low Cost, Medium Cost, High Cost, and Burden Score per data-source category. Leave a cell empty to inherit the instance default (shown as the cell's placeholder); a value you type overrides it for this matter.

2.5 · Data Source Status Definitions

The Data Source Status Values panel on the PDA Configuration tab lists the approval statuses available to data sources on this matter. The values are seeded from the instance defaults (Value Lists → PDA Configuration) into a per-matter copy, so edits here affect this matter only. Add a value with the inline field (for example "Collect — Forensic"), and mark which values allow approval and collection so the approval workflow can act on them.

2.6 · Custodian Status Definitions

Directly below it, the Custodian Status Values panel lists the review statuses a custodian can hold on this matter (for example "To Be Reviewed"). Like the data-source statuses, these are seeded per-matter from the instance defaults and edited independently here.

2.7 · File Uploads

Matter files are managed on the Notes + Attachments tab. Pick or drag a file, optionally give it a display File Name and a Description, and upload it. Uploads larger than the instance's Max Attachment File Size are rejected, and attachments are stored in the database. Deletion follows the ownership rules from Chapter 1 — you can remove attachments you created; Instance Admin and above can remove any within scope — and every deletion is logged.

2.8 · Report Scheduler

The Reports tab manages scheduled reports for the matter and shows recent outputs. Use Add Report to open the Schedule Details form, then set:

• Report Template — a built-in report or one of your custom definitions (the dropdown groups them under Built-in Reports and Custom Reports, private ones marked as such). Built-ins include Custodian Change Management, Custodian Relationship, Custodian Relevancy Ranking, Data Source Preservation / Collection, Data Source Ranking, Departed Employee, Legal Hold Communication, Legal Hold Non-Compliant Custodian, Legal Hold Release / Retain, and Legal Hold Status.
• Report Name — a free-text label for the schedule.
• Recipient Email — where the generated file is sent.
• Date Filter — 1 week, 2 weeks, 30 / 60 / 90 days, 1 year, or All.
• Frequency — Daily, Weekly, Bi-Weekly, or Monthly.
• Report Type — PDF or Excel.
• Active — whether the schedule is currently running.

Save with Save Schedule. Active schedules send at 1:00 am EST on their cadence. Generated files appear under Recent Outputs with their format, generated and expiry timestamps, and a download link; outputs are auto-deleted seven days after generation.

2.9 · Legal Hold Settings

The Legal Hold Settings tab configures the four notices the matter sends to custodians, each with its own email content and follow-up cadence. A left sidebar selects the notice; the right panel edits it.

Email content and cadence

Each notice has three phases, each with its own Email Editor and a "Mark Email Complete" indicator: an Initial Notice, an Escalation (email sent to the custodian and their manager), and a Non-Compliance notification (email sent to the custodian and the matter administrator). For each phase you enable follow-ups and set:

• Repeat — how many times to send (must be at least 1 when the phase is enabled).
• Frequency (# of Days) — the interval between sends (must be at least 1 day when enabled).
• Continue to Notify — keep sending up to the instance reminder cap.

Initiate Survey on Acknowledgement

On the Legal Hold Notice only, the option Upon Acknowledgement: Initiate Survey automatically starts the custodian's survey the moment they acknowledge the hold. If this is enabled, the page runs a readiness check and warns you when the survey is not yet ready to send.

FYI-only notices

The Custodian Release and Matter Closure notices offer No Acknowledgement Required — an FYI-only mode that sends a single message with no portal link and no follow-up phases. Selecting it greys out the reminder, escalation, and non-compliance controls for that notice.

Configure to Instance Defaults

Configure to Instance Defaults overwrites all four notice configurations on this matter — email subject and body, cadence, and flags — with the instance-level Legal Hold Defaults, then saves. The result is a one-time snapshot: after applying it, edits on the matter are independent of the instance settings and vice versa.

2.10 · Group Configuration

The Group Composition tab organizes a matter's custodians into groups and drives the bulk legal-hold operations. Custodian groups let you apply notices and preservation actions to a defined set of people, and — where needed — configure legal-hold notices differently for one group than for the rest of the matter.

Add and configure groups

Use Add Group on the top bar to create a group, then open it to manage its membership. Add Custodian adds people to the group; on Full matters the custodian picker also surfaces the burden-group column so you can see cost context while assigning.

Bulk actions on group custodians

Selecting custodians in a group exposes a bulk-action menu covering the full legal-hold lifecycle:

Group-specific legal-hold settings

Opening a group reveals its configuration cards. The Legal Hold Group Settings card links to Configure {group} Workflow, which opens the group's own Legal Hold page — the same four-notice, three-phase editor as the matter-level Legal Hold Settings, but scoped to the group. This lets one group run a different cadence or different email content from the rest of the matter; group-scoped configuration overrides the matter defaults for that group's custodians only, and group edits do not affect the matter defaults.

Sending notices

You issue notices two ways. From a group's cards, Send To All Custodians in {group} and Send To New Custodians Only batch-send the initial legal-hold (and, from the survey card, the survey) to that group. Alternatively, select custodians in the group table and use the bulk-action menu — Send Legal Hold Notice or Schedule Legal Hold Notice — for a targeted send. Configure the group's cadence and email content first on its Legal Hold page so the notices go out with the intended follow-ups.

3 · User Administration

User Administration is where you grant, adjust, and revoke access to InsightOptix. A person who can sign in but holds no grants sees empty lists everywhere — access is always the sum of the scopes you assign here. This chapter covers the two Users pages, the invite and edit workflows, and the role ladder that determines what each user can reach.

Where users are managed

There are two Users pages, each scoped to what the signed-in administrator is allowed to grant:

Both pages share the same layout: a searchable, resizable list on the left with Active Users and Deactivated Users tabs, and a detail pane on the right split into User Information and Permissions. The list columns (name, email, role, phone, Active, Verified, MFA, Last Login) are configurable and exportable to print or Excel.

Inviting a user

Click Invite User on either Users page to open the invite dialog. You supply the person's email, first name, and last name, then set their access directly in a permission hierarchy — there is no separate role dropdown. The stored role is derived from the highest tier you check, so a user's role can never drift out of sync with the scopes they actually hold.

The permission hierarchy shown depends on the page you invited from. The Tenant Users invite exposes the full tree — Tenant Admin → Instance Admin → PracticeGroup Admin → Matter Admin. The Instance Users invite caps at Instance Admin for the current instance and lists only that instance's practice groups and matters.

Editing, resending, and unlocking

Select any user to load the User Information pane. First name, last name, email (username), and phone are editable; Email Verified, MFA Enabled, Last Login, and Account Created are read-only status fields. Edit the fields you need and click Save — the button reports “Saved” when it is clean and “Save Changes” while there is unsaved work.

Three account actions live in the header of the Information pane:

• Resend Invite / Send Password Reset — a single button that adapts to the account state. For a user who has never signed in it rotates the invite token and emails a fresh accept-invite link. For a user who has logged in before it instead emails a 24-hour password-reset link (their current password keeps working until they complete the reset).
• Unlock — appears only while an account is inside a brute-force lockout. Clicking it clears the lockout and the failed-login counter so the user can sign in immediately, without waiting out the cooldown.
• Deactivate / Reactivate User — revokes or restores the user's access at the current scope (see below).

Deactivating and reactivating

Deactivation is scoped, not global. On the Tenant Users page, Deactivate User revokes the user's access to the current tenant — they lose every instance, practice group, and matter within it, but their access to other tenants is untouched. On the Instance Users page, it revokes access to the current instance only, leaving other instances in the tenant unaffected. In both cases the underlying global account flag is left alone. A confirmation prompt spells out the blast radius before the revoke is applied, and deactivated users move to the Deactivated Users tab, where you can Reactivate them.

Editing permissions

The Permissions panel beneath User Information is a cascading tree of checkboxes. Each tier — Tenant Admin, Instance Admin, PracticeGroup Admin, Matter Admin — lists the scopes at that level. Checking a higher tier automatically greys out the lower tiers it already covers, with a tooltip naming the covering grant (for example, “Covered by Instance Admin”), so you can see at a glance why a redundant box is disabled. Make your changes and click Save Permissions.

If the user is already a Tenant Admin, the Instance Users permissions panel shows an amber banner explaining that any grant made there is redundant — that level of access can only be changed from the Tenant Users page.

Roles & permissions reference

InsightOptix uses a single ranked ladder of roles. A role granted at a scope covers everything beneath that scope: an Instance Admin administers every practice group and matter in the instance; a Tenant Admin administers every instance in the tenant. The role stored on a user is always the highest tier they hold.

Technician (new in v5.0)

The Technician role is built for external vendors and IT staff who need to work data sources on a matter without seeing anything else. It is the lowest-privilege grant in the product and deliberately sits off the normal ladder: a technician satisfies no ordinary role requirement on its own. Instead it is applied as an additive, per-matter flag that grants exactly one thing — reach into the Data Sources area of the matters it is assigned to. Every other surface stays closed.

Because Technician lives below Matter Admin, it can only be granted from a matter-scoped invite (the Invite User dialog opened from a matter's Users page). That dialog shows a dedicated Technician — Data Sources only tier listing the matters you may grant. A given matter holds one grant per user, so checking a matter as Technician clears any Matter Admin grant for that same matter, and vice-versa. When Technician matters are the only scopes checked, the new account's role is created as technician.

4 · Custodian Administration

Custodian Administration manages the people and the non-person data sources an instance tracks: the employee directory, the custom fields you record against each employee, non-custodial data sources, and the administrative overrides a matter admin can apply to a custodian's workflow. Custodians are shared instance-wide — the same employee record is referenced by every matter they appear on.

Custodian management

The employee/custodian directory lives at admin/instance/employees. It is a table-heavy list with per-column sort and filter, a star to pin favorites to the top, a configurable column set, and print/Excel export. Rows open to a multi-tab employee record (Data, Matters, Data Sources, History). The same list is mounted read-only under Matter Administration (admin/employees) for matter admins, where Import, Add Employee, and field-setup controls are hidden.

Adding and editing a custodian

Click Add Employee to create a record, or click any row to open and edit one. The employee record captures the structural facts InsightOptix uses across matters:

• Identity — first, middle, preferred, and last name; Employee ID; custodian type; status (active, on leave, departed).
• Organization — company, department, job title, office location, hire date, and departure date.
• Contact — business email, personal email, and the business mailing address (street, city, state, postal code, country).
• Relationships — manager (name and email) and an assistant/proxy.

Custom employee fields

Beyond the built-in fields, an instance can define up to ten custom employee fields — for a cost center, a badge number, a region code, or anything else your organization tracks. Configure them from Additional Field Setup on the directory toolbar, or from Employee Fields under Instance Administration. Enabled fields appear on the employee record and are available as optional columns on the directory list.

Non-Custodial Data Sources (NCDS)

Not every source of relevant information belongs to a single person. InsightOptix classifies data sources three ways, shown as a badge in Data Source Administration (admin/datasources):

Add a non-custodial source with Add Data Source and set its classification to Non-Custodial. NCDS carry the same category, type, location, and URL fields as custodial sources but stand on their own custodian count of zero. Filter the Classification column to Non-Custodial to review just the NCDS in an instance.

Administrative Override

Administrative Override lets a matter admin mark a custodian's workflow phase complete without the phase actually running — for a custodian who responded out-of-band, who has left the company, or whose status is already known. You reach it from the Administrative Override button on a custodian's information panel in the matter Evaluation grid. Each phase is independent; you may override one, several, or all at once.

A final Is the custodian departed? checkbox lets you record a departure (with a required date) in the same action; this updates the underlying employee record and is written to the employee's history.

5 · Instance Configuration

Instance Configuration is where you build the reference data and templates that every matter in this instance draws on. A matter is only as good as the catalog behind it: the dropdown values custodians pick from, the categories that scope who can see what, the burden and cost tables that price a preservation, and the survey, interview, assessment, and notice templates that get copied into live work. Configure these once, well, and matter setup becomes a matter of selection rather than authoring.

You reach every screen in this chapter from Instance Administration. The landing page groups its tiles into sections — General, Employees, Data Sources, Matter, Templates, Legal Hold Configuration, and Integration Settings — and each tile opens one of the editors described below. This chapter walks the reference-data and template tiles in turn; integrations and general settings are covered in their own chapters.

5.1 · Value Lists

Value Lists are the central catalog of dropdown values used across the app. When a data-source category exposes a value-list field — Computer Make, Drive Type, Mobile Device Make, Phone Carrier, and the like — the New Data Source form renders a dropdown populated from the matching list here. Maintaining these lists is how you keep data entry consistent and reportable instead of free-text.

The screen opens with a tab strip. Each tab groups related lists, and every list is a card of inline, editable values:

PDA Configuration tab

This tab does not edit ordinary value lists. It maintains two instance-level status templates for the Proportional Discovery Assessment® workflow, shown as coloured status bubbles:

• Data Source Status Values — the approval/collection statuses a data source can carry (for example, "Collect — Forensic"). Each value has an Allow Approval and Collection toggle that marks it as a status which permits the source to move forward.
• Custodian Status Values — the review statuses a custodian can carry (for example, "To Be Reviewed").

5.2 · Matter Categories

Matter categories group matters by domain — Employment, Litigation, Regulatory, and so on. They do two jobs: they classify every matter, and they are the unit that Practice Groups use to scope access. A matter category is required to create a matter, so build these before you expect anyone to open a matter.

The list is a simple table: Name, Description, Status (Active / Inactive), and row actions to edit or delete.

5.3 · Data Source Categories & Types

Data source categories are the backbone of evidence work. A category — Email, Workstations, Phones, Network Shares, and the like — defines which fields appear when someone adds a data source of that type, how that source may be preserved and collected, who stewards it, and what its default burden and cost look like. Get these right and the New Data Source form asks for exactly the right details every time.

The editor is a two-pane screen: a left sidebar lists categories alphabetically (with an Add link), and the right pane holds the selected category's configuration in cards. A sticky save bar at the bottom shows "You have unsaved changes." in amber until you save.

Available Fields

Check the fields that should appear on the New Data Source form for this category. Name, Classification, and Data Source Type are always shown and are not togglable. Everything else is optional and falls into two kinds:

• Standard fields — dedicated columns such as Description, Serial Number, Path / UNC Path, URL, Location, Computer Name, Model, Storage Size, Size Type, Mobile Phone Number, Mobile IMEI, Mobile MAC Address, Mobile SIM, and Mobile ICCID.
• Value-list fields — these render as dropdowns populated from the matching list in Value Lists (§5.1): Computer Make, Computer OS Version, HD Manufacturer, Drive Type, Drive Interface Type, Drive Form Factor, Encryption Method, Mobile Device Type, Mobile Device Make, Mobile OS Version, Phone Carrier, Removable Media Type, and Removable Media Device Type.

Under Custom Fields, click Add Field to define a labelled free-text input specific to this category. Each custom field has an enable checkbox and a label; empty labels are dropped on save.

Survey Follow-up Questions

Add numbered free-text questions that are shown to a custodian on the survey when they mark a source of this category Contains Relevant Data. Use these to capture the extra detail your team always ends up asking for.

Default Burden & Cost

Set a Burden Score (1 — Low Effort, 2 — Medium Effort, 3 — High Effort, 4 — Burdensome Effort) and three text estimates — Low, Medium, and High Cost Estimation. These assist matter setup and can be overridden when the category is priced inside a burden group (§5.4).

Preservation & Collection Methodology

Two cards side by side — Preservation and Collection — each with an Allowed Methods checklist and a Default dropdown. The built-in preservation methods are Preserve via M365, Preserve via Google, Preserve — Internal Team, Preserve — External Vendor, and Notify Data Steward; the built-in collection methods are Collect via M365, Collect via Google, Collect via Image, and Collect External. Any custom methods you define on the Preservation and Collection Methods screen appear here under a Custom Methods subheading.

Notification Recipients & Data Stewards

Notification Recipients holds two optional addresses — External Vendor Email and Forensic Team Email — used by notify-style methods and release workflows when a source needs manual handling. Data Stewards is a multi-select of employees; at least one is required to save. Every source in the category inherits its stewards (read-only on the source), and those stewards receive the category's preservation and release notifications.

5.4 · Burden Groups

Burden groups turn the abstract "how hard is this to collect" into money. A group defines, per data-source category, a low / medium / high cost estimate and a burden score. Matters attach one or more burden groups and can override them locally; matter cost calculations resolve each source's rate by its category against the group's overrides, then fall back to the category's own defaults (§5.3).

The list shows Name (system-default groups carry a lock icon), Region, Status, and actions. The built-in Burden1 / Burden2 system defaults cannot be deleted — mark them inactive instead.

5.5 · Practice Groups

Practice groups scope which matters an admin can see. A group links one or more matter categories (§5.2); an admin assigned to the group can only see matters whose category is in that group's linked set. This is the mechanism behind the practicegroup_admin role's restricted visibility.

The list shows Name, Description, the linked Categories as chips, and Status.

5.6 · Custom Employee Fields

Every instance gets ten custom employee-field slots to capture details the standard employee record doesn't — cost center, badge ID, region, whatever your organization tracks. Enabled fields appear on the employee (custodian) record and as optional columns on the employee list.

The editor is a fixed list of ten rows, Field 1 through Field 10. Each row has an enable checkbox, a label, and a type — Text, Number, Date, or Dropdown. Choosing Dropdown reveals a Dropdown options editor where you add the option labels.

5.7 · Custom Matter Fields

The matter equivalent of §5.6: ten custom matter-field slots. Enabled fields appear on the matter details page and as optional columns on the matter list. The editor is identical in shape — ten rows, an enable checkbox, a label, and a Text / Number / Date / Dropdown type with an options editor for dropdowns.

5.8 · Merge Fields

Merge fields are the {{Token}} placeholders you drop into notice email templates. Activating a field exposes its token in the email builder's side panel; at send time the token substitutes against the matching column on the recipient's custodian or matter row. A header counter shows how many of the available fields are active.

Fields are grouped into four sections — Custodian Fields, Matter Fields, Custom Employee Fields, and Custom Matter Fields — the last two drawn from the slots you defined in §5.6 and §5.7. There is no create form here; each field is simply toggled on or off, and each row shows its label and its {{Token}} chip.

5.9 · Templates

Templates are the reusable starting points every matter copies from. There are four kinds — Email / Notice, Survey, Assessment, and Interview — each with its own tile. The unifying rule: templates are deep-copied at use time. When a matter uses a template, the app clones its content into a live matter entity with no link back, so later edits to the template never reach matters already built from it.

Email / Notice Templates

Reusable notice emails for the legal-hold workflow. The list shows Template Name, Description, Category, and Subject, with Configure and Delete actions. The category is one of Legal Hold Notice, Survey Notice, Release Notice, or Closure Notice. Configuring a template opens the email builder — Name, Subject, and Body (rich HTML) plus attachments — with the merge-field side panel populated from your active merge fields (§5.8). Save is blocked if Name, Subject, or Body is empty, so a template can't be accidentally wiped.

Survey Templates

Reusable survey definitions, edited in the full survey builder (Builder, Preview, and Logic tabs, plus Settings, Disclaimer, and question categories). The list shows a favourites star, Configure, Template Name, Description, and a Questions in Template count. Creating a template opens the builder; Save as Template / Clone to New Template deep-clones an existing survey into a fresh template row without touching the original's responses.

Assessment Templates

Reusable assessment definitions. What sets them apart from the other template types is a Scoring Mode shown in the list — Proportional (auto) or Manual ranges — with new templates defaulting to Proportional (auto). Configure opens the assessment builder, where you edit questions, the scoring matrix, and release rules.

Interview Templates

Reusable interview question lists, edited in a streamlined single-page builder. The list shows Configure, Template Name, Description, and a Questions in Template count, plus two create paths: Add Template for a blank template, and From Survey, which snapshots a chosen survey's questions as locked, read-only rows on top of which you add interview-only questions.

Each editable question row carries a question type, a Required flag, an Identifies data source flag (answers can be promoted into a data source when the interview is finalized), optional help text, reorder controls, and — for choice questions — a Choices editor. Survey-sourced questions show a "Survey" lock badge and cannot be edited or reordered.

The shared question-type palette, used by both the survey and interview builders. Choice-based types (Radio, Checkbox, Dropdown, Multi-Select, and similar) expose a Choices editor.

5.10 · Question Bank

The Question Bank is not a template list — it is an aggregated view of every question across every survey in the instance, templates included. Use it to find where a question is used, tidy question metadata, and bundle a handpicked set of questions into a new survey template.

Columns include a favourites star, a bulk-select checkbox, Question (click for a detail modal), an inline-editable Description, Type, Source Survey (with a "Template" badge when the source is a template), and Required. Type and Required filter by exact match; other columns are text search.

5.11 · Legal-Hold Defaults

Legal-hold defaults set the notice cadence every matter inherits unless it carries its own override. You configure four notice types independently, each with its initial notice, reminder, escalation, and non-compliance behavior.

A left rail selects the notice type — Legal Hold Notice, Custodian Survey Notice, Custodian Release Notice, or Matter Closure Notice — and the right pane holds three sections:

• Initial Notice Settings — an email editor for the notice (subject, body, attachments, mark-complete), plus follow-up reminder controls: Enable Custodian Follow-up Reminders, Repeat n Times, Follow-up Frequency (days), and Continue To Notify (up to the instance reminder cap). The Legal Hold notice adds Upon Acknowledgement: Initiate Survey; the Release and Closure notices add a No Acknowledgement Required option that makes the notice a single FYI send with no portal link or follow-ups.
• Escalation Settings — an escalation notice sent to the custodian and their manager, with its own email editor, repeat count, frequency, and continue-to-notify.
• Non-Compliance Settings — a non-compliance notice sent to the custodian and matter admin, with the same repeat / frequency / continue controls.

5.12 · Consolidated Reminders

Consolidated reminders replace a flood of per-matter reminder emails with one digest. On its schedule, each employee under a legal hold receives a single email listing every matter where they still have an open preservation obligation.

The screen has an Enable consolidated reminders switch (when off, no digest sends but per-matter cadences keep running), a Cadence block, and a Legal Department Contact block. Cadence lets you set a Frequency (Every X days, Monthly, Quarterly, Bi-Annually, or Annually), an Every (days) interval for the "Every X days" option, a Send Day, and a Send Time; a plain-English summary line confirms the resulting schedule. The contact block (Name, Phone, Email) is rendered into the closing of every digest, falling back to "the Legal Department" when blank.

5.13 · Release Workflows

A release workflow is the approval step-stack a matter runs before custodians are released from a hold — for example, Outside counsel, then Legal lead, then Compliance. Steps run in order, and each step waits for every selected approver role to approve before the workflow advances.

The editor is an ordered list of numbered Steps. Each step is a card offering three approver-role checkboxes — Responsible Attorney, Responsible Paralegal, and Matter Administrator — with controls to reorder or remove the step. Every step must select at least one role, or the workflow can't be saved.

5.14 · External Approvers

External approvers are saved email addresses for people outside the platform — outside counsel and the like — who need to approve a release step but don't hold a platform account. The intent is a reusable address book you draw on when a release-workflow step calls for an external sign-off, so an external approver doesn't need a login to participate.

6 · Integrations

Integrations are the connections between InsightOptix and the external systems that actually hold your organization's data — Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Box, Dropbox, Zoom — plus the service systems that route work and keep your people records current: ServiceNow and your HR system. They are what turn a legal hold from a notice into an action. With a connector in place, InsightOptix can discover a custodian's mailboxes, drives, and shared folders; place a preservation hold on that content; and collect it — automatically, from the same workflow that sends the hold notice — instead of asking an administrator to log in to each platform by hand.

Each integration is configured once per instance. You enter the credentials the provider issued you, choose which capabilities to switch on (custodian listing, data-source discovery, automated preservation, collection), and then run a Save & Test step. Saving does two things at once: it stores the configuration (secrets encrypted, never displayed again) and immediately exercises the connection against the live provider — acquiring an access token, then probing one API endpoint for every capability you enabled. The result is a row-by-row report telling you exactly what the provider accepted and, where a call was refused, the most likely fix. Nothing is left to guesswork: if the token succeeds but eDiscovery holds are rejected, you will see that distinction on screen.

6.1 · Microsoft 365

The Microsoft 365 connector reaches Exchange Online mailboxes and OneDrive through the Microsoft Graph API, and places preservation holds through Microsoft Purview eDiscovery. It enables three things: discovering which employees exist in your Azure AD / Entra directory, mapping each custodian's mailbox and OneDrive to a data-source record, and issuing an in-place hold on active email, archive email, and personal OneDrive.

Credentials

InsightOptix authenticates as an app registration in your Entra ID tenant using the app-only (client-credentials) flow — no interactive sign-in. Register the application in the Entra admin center, then supply:

Graph permissions and the eDiscovery role

InsightOptix requests the token with the .default scope, which means it inherits exactly the application permissions you have consented to on the app registration. Grant admin consent for these:

Features and timing

Under Integration Features, enable Custodian Listing, Data Source Mapping, and Automated Preservation. Turning on Automated Preservation reveals two further groups:

• Auto-preserve source types — Active Email, Archive Email, Personal OneDrive. Each is probed independently on test.
• Timing — Separate Process makes preservation a manual batch action, so an administrator triggers it from the Group List before or independent of a hold notice; Preserve When Sending Hold Notice fires preservation automatically the moment a custodian's initial hold notice is sent. You may enable both — the automatic send then acts as a stop-gap behind the manual option.

Save & Test

Save & Test first acquires an app-only Graph token. If that fails, you get a single authentication error and no further probes run. If it succeeds, InsightOptix probes one endpoint per enabled feature and reports each as its own row, showing the exact Graph path that answered (the eDiscovery probe automatically retries against the beta endpoint when v1.0 reports the surface is unavailable in your tenant).

6.2 · Google / Vault

The Google connector covers Google Workspace: it lists Workspace users, discovers each custodian's Gmail mailbox and Drive corpora, and places preservation holds through Google Vault across Gmail, Drive, Chat, and Groups. Collection also runs through Vault and Drive.

Credentials — service account with domain-wide delegation

InsightOptix authenticates as a Google Cloud service account that impersonates a delegated Workspace admin. It builds a JWT signed with the service-account private key and exchanges it for an access token whose sub is your delegated admin, so every Vault and Admin SDK call runs with that admin's authority. Create the service account in Google Cloud Console, enable the Vault, Admin SDK, and Drive APIs on its project, and supply:

Delegation scopes and admin role

In the Google Admin Console, under Security → API Controls → Domain-wide Delegation, authorize the service account's client ID for these OAuth scopes:

Features and Save & Test

Enable Custodian Listing, Data Source Mapping, and Automated Preservation; the preservation sub-toggles are Gmail, Drive, Chat, and Groups, with the same Separate Process / Preserve When Sending Hold Notice timing choices as Microsoft 365. Save & Test signs the JWT, exchanges it for an impersonated token (the success message names the admin it authenticated as), then probes the Admin SDK, Vault, and Drive endpoints for each enabled feature.

6.3 · Box

The Box connector uses native Box Legal Holds for preservation and Box's own search, folder traversal, and server-side ZIP for collection. On discovery it maps each custodian's own Box drive to a custodial data source and every shared folder they collaborate on to a group data source, de-duplicated by folder so one folder held once covers every custodian who touches it.

Credentials — a Server Authentication (JWT) app

Create a custom app with Server Authentication (with JWT) in the Box Developer Console, grant it the App + Enterprise Access scope plus Manage legal holds, generate a public/private key pair, and have a Box enterprise admin authorize the app under Admin Console → Apps → Custom Apps Manager. Then supply:

How preservation works

A Box legal hold is a policy shared per matter (named InsightOptix — <matter>), created as an ongoing hold so it covers all existing and future content with no date window. Each custodian is attached to that shared policy as an assignment; releasing one custodian deletes only their assignment and leaves the policy intact for everyone else on the matter. Shared folders receive a folder-level assignment so the hold survives any single owner's release.

Features and Save & Test

Enable Custodian Listing, Data Source Mapping, and Automated Preservation (the single preservation sub-type is Box Drive). The header also carries a Sync Accounts button that bulk-resolves Box user IDs for every custodian. Save & Test acquires an enterprise-scoped token and probes GET /users, GET /folders/0/items, and GET /legal_hold_policies. On an access error it appends a reminder to confirm the App + Enterprise Access scope, the Manage legal holds grant, and enterprise authorization of the app.

6.4 · Dropbox

The Dropbox connector uses native Dropbox Legal Holds for preservation across a Dropbox Business team. On discovery it maps each member's own Dropbox to a custodial data source and every shared or team folder they can access to a group data source.

Credentials — a team-scoped OAuth refresh token

Create an OAuth app in the Dropbox App Console with the Team Member File Access scope, then complete the offline-access authorization flow as a Team admin to obtain a long-lived refresh token. InsightOptix exchanges that refresh token for a short-lived bearer at send time. Supply:

Features and Save & Test

Enable Custodian Listing, Data Source Mapping, and Automated Preservation (preservation sub-types: Team Folders and Member Files). Save & Test exchanges the refresh token for a bearer, then probes the Dropbox Team API — POST /team/members/list_v2, POST /team/team_folder/list, and POST /team/legal_holds/list_policies — one row per enabled capability.

6.5 · Zoom

The Zoom connector reads a custodian's cloud recordings and team chat for preservation and collection. It resolves Zoom users, discovers recording and chat content as data sources, and records a preservation reference of that content.

Credentials — Server-to-Server OAuth

Create a Server-to-Server OAuth app in the Zoom App Marketplace and supply its three values:

Grant the app the scopes matching the capabilities you enable — for example user:read:admin, recording:read:admin, and chat_message:read:admin.

Features and Save & Test

Enable Custodian Listing, Data Source Mapping, and Automated Preservation (preserve source types: Cloud Recordings and Chat). A Sync Accounts button resolves Zoom user IDs for every custodian. Save & Test obtains an account-credentials token, then probes GET /users, GET /users/me/recordings, and GET /chat/users/me/channels for the enabled features.

6.6 · ServiceNow

The ServiceNow connector hands preservation and collection off to your ITSM queue: when a data source is approved with a ServiceNow method, InsightOptix creates a ticket in ServiceNow describing the work to be done, and on release it adds a work note recording that the preserved or collected source is safe to delete. Use this where the platform itself has no API-driven hold and the action is performed by an IT team from a ticket.

Credentials and ticket configuration

InsightOptix connects to your ServiceNow instance (or a Personal Developer Instance) through the Table API using Basic authentication. Supply the connection, plus the template that shapes every ticket:

Save & Test (verify configuration)

The header Save & Test button saves the configuration and verifies it in one round-trip — it reads a single row from the incident table, which confirms the URL, the credentials, and ITSM read access together. A green row means InsightOptix connected and read the table; a red row carries the specific reason it was refused.

6.7 · HR Data Importer

The HR Data Importer keeps your employee (custodian) records current by pulling a roster file from your HR system over SFTP on a schedule, and upserting it into InsightOptix — creating new employees and updating existing ones by a matching key you choose. It accepts both CSV and XLSX files and can be run on a schedule or on demand.

Connection and file

Sync behavior and column mapping

• Matching Field — the key rows are matched on (Employee ID, Business Email, and any built-in or custom employee field). This decides whether an incoming row updates an existing employee or creates a new one.
• Check For New File — Manual only, Hourly, Every 6 hours, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Daily/weekly/monthly schedules add a Time of Day (ET).
• Abort threshold — if unusable rows exceed this percentage, the whole import is halted rather than partially applied, and the bad rows are quarantined.
• CSV Column Layout — define every column in the file, left to right, mapping each to an employee field or to Skip / Ignore. The editor flags any field mapped to two columns; the layout is saved with the integration so every upload is parsed the same way.

7 · Reports, Dashboards & Scheduler

This chapter covers the administrator side of reporting: scheduling reports for recurring delivery, building the dashboards your teams see, and controlling who can see custom reports. End users generate and export individual reports on demand from the matter Reports page — that workflow is documented in the User Manual. Here you configure the machinery behind it.

Report Scheduler

The scheduler delivers a saved report definition to a list of recipients on a recurring cadence. It never re-defines a report — it references one that already exists, so the content is always generated server-side from a known definition. A schedule can point at either kind of saved definition:

• Built-in reports — the ten packaged report generators (for example Legal Hold Status, Legal Hold Release / Retain, Data Source Preservation & Collection, Custodian Relevancy Ranking, Departed Employee). A matter-scoped schedule selects one of these by its report name.
• Custom report definitions — a saved custom report authored in the report builder is referenced by its definition ID.

Each schedule carries these settings:

• Report Name — a free-text label you assign the schedule. This is a description of the scheduled job and is distinct from the underlying report template it runs.
• Frequency — Daily, Weekly, Biweekly, or Monthly. The scheduler determines the run day from the frequency.
• Data window — the date range the report body covers: last 1 week, 2 weeks, 30, 60, or 90 days, 1 year, or All (no date filter).
• Output format — PDF, Excel, CSV, or EDRM XML.
• Recipients — one or more email addresses. A schedule with no recipients is skipped at run time.
• Active — a toggle that pauses delivery without deleting the schedule.

Dashboards & Widgets

Dashboards are assembled from configurable widgets. A widget is a saved chart definition — you choose a dataset, a chart type, what to group by, and an optional measure and filters. Nothing is hard-coded per chart; the same engine drives every widget.

Dashboard scope

Every widget belongs to one of two scopes:

• Instance dashboard (scope instance) — the admin-level dashboard. Widgets aggregate across all matters in the instance.
• Matter dashboard (scope matter) — a matter-scoped dashboard. The same widget definition is run with the matter's ID so every count is filtered to that one matter.

What a widget can chart

A widget draws from one dataset — Custodians, Evidence Items, Data Sources, or Matters — and groups by one of that dataset's dimensions (for example Hold Status, Collection Status, Preservation Method, Relevancy Rank, PDA Status, Department, or a by-month bucket). Most widgets count rows; on the Evidence Items dataset you can instead measure a numeric column — Estimated or Actual Size (GB), or Estimated or Actual Cost — as the value.

The engine supports the following chart types:

A few chart types take extra configuration: a stacked bar uses a second group-by field (stack-by); a stat tile uses a measure rather than a dimension; a gauge reads a matched count against a total. Widgets are also click-through — selecting a segment drills to the underlying rows behind it, filtered to match the chart exactly.

Custom Report Visibility

When a user builds a custom report they choose whether it is public or private. Visibility and scope move together:

• Public — the report becomes a shared template, tenant-scoped, and appears in the Report Templates section for everyone in the instance. Built-in reports and public templates always read as public.
• Private — the report is personal to its creator and scoped to the matter it was created in. Other users do not see private reports authored by someone else.

On any matter's Reports page a user sees tenant-shared reports plus the matter-scoped reports for that matter — and, within those, only the shared ones and the ones they created. Ownership drives editing: the author (and instance_admin) can rename, edit, change visibility, or delete a report; other users can run it but not change it.

8 · Release & Reversal Administration

When a custodian is released from a matter, InsightOptix does not merely mark them released — it reverses the work done to preserve and collect each of their data sources, handling every source according to the method that was used on it. This chapter covers configuring the release approval workflow and understanding the reversal lifecycle so you can read the statuses correctly and know when a step needs a human confirmation.

Configuring the release approval workflow

The release workflow defines who must approve before a release proceeds. It is a sequence of steps that run one after another; each step waits until every approver role selected on it has approved, then the workflow advances to the next step. Each step must have at least one approver role. The available approver roles are:

• Responsible Attorney
• Responsible Paralegal
• Matter Administrator

These are roles, not named people. At run time each role resolves to the user assigned to that role on the specific matter, so one workflow definition serves every matter in the instance.

The reversal lifecycle

Releasing a custodian requires a written reason — the request is rejected without one — which is recorded for defensible-disposition audit. On release the custodian-matter immediately moves to Pending Release and the reversal begins. What happens to each of the custodian's data sources depends on how it was preserved and whether it was collected.

Preservation reversal, by method

• Automated methods (Microsoft 365 / Google) — the platform hold is dropped automatically as part of the release cascade, and the source moves to Released with no human step.
• Manual methods (internal team, external vendor, or notify data steward) — the source moves to a pending-manual state and the responsible steward is notified. A human must confirm the physical release; until then the source is not reported as released.
• Shared sources — where a source is preserved on behalf of several custodians on the same matter, releasing one custodian peels that custodian off the source; the source itself stays preserved for the others.

Collection reversal and the collector delete-notice

Collected data can never be automatically un-collected — even a cloud export hands back a downloaded copy. So whenever a released source had been collected, the release always sends a delete notice to whoever ran or received that collection (the collector), asking them to delete the collected data. The source moves to Released-Pending Deletion and stays there until the deletion is confirmed, at which point it becomes Collection Deleted-Released and the confirmation is stamped with who confirmed it and when.

Statuses you will see during release

Manual vs. integration release behavior

The difference between manual and integration release is whether a person has to act:

• Integration (automated) release — for Microsoft 365 and Google sources, the release cascade drops the platform hold itself and moves the source to Released without anyone confirming. This is hands-off unless the cascade fails, in which case the source remains at Pending Release for a retry.
• Manual release — for internal-team, external-vendor, and data-steward sources, the app cannot reach into the holding system. It notifies the steward, holds the source in the pending-manual state, and waits for a matter_admin (or the steward) to confirm the physical release before marking it Released.

Custodian and collector confirmations

Two audiences are messaged during a release. The custodian may receive a release notice — a cadence of reminders and, where configured, escalation and non-compliance messages, with the manager and matter administrator CC'd on the later phases. A release notice is not sent to a silent custodian, and it can be suppressed when a matter-level closure notice already covers the communication. The collector receives the delete notice described above; their confirmation is what advances a collected source to its terminal state. Meanwhile, any outstanding survey reminders for the released custodian are cancelled so they are not chased for work they no longer need to do.

9 · Custodian Portal Administration

The Custodian Portal is the self-service surface where the people on your matters act on their own obligations — acknowledge a legal hold, complete a data survey, answer identity and data-source questions, and raise a question back to your team. This chapter covers the administrator side: how you turn the portal on, brand it, decide who is eligible for single sign-on, and connect it to your organization's identity provider. What custodians see and do once they are inside the portal is documented separately in the Custodian Portal Guide; this chapter cross-references it rather than repeating it.

9.1 · Portal branding and settings

Open Instance Administration → Custodian Portal. The page carries two settings, both saved with the standard Save Changes button.

• Portal Logo — the image custodians see on the portal sign-in page and in the page header. Upload a PNG, JPG, or SVG up to 2 MB. Use Replace Logo to swap it or Remove to fall back to the default. Choose a clean, high-contrast mark: custodians should recognize the portal as coming from your organization, which reduces the risk that a legitimate notice is mistaken for phishing.
• Manager / Team View — when enabled, a custodian who has direct reports sees a My Team page listing each report's legal-hold and survey status, with the ability to send reminder emails. Managers cannot answer surveys or acknowledge holds on a report's behalf, and matters where the manager is a silent custodian stay hidden from this view.

9.2 · Custodian eligibility for SSO

Every custodian reaches the portal, but not every custodian signs in the same way. Eligibility for single sign-on is decided automatically from the custodian's business email domain — you do not enroll people one at a time.

You maintain a list of corporate SSO domains on the instance SAML settings (see 9.3). The rule is simple:

• If a custodian's business-email domain is on the corporate-domain list, the custodian is SSO-eligible. When you also require SSO (9.3), that custodian must sign in through your identity provider and their emailed security code is rejected.
• If the domain is not on the list — external vendors, contractors, personal-email custodians — the custodian keeps the emailed security-code flow unchanged.

A designated assistant or proxy is evaluated on their own business-email domain by the same rule: an in-domain assistant signs in via SSO, an external assistant uses a code. Every acknowledgment records the authentication method used and, when a proxy acted, an "on behalf of" attribution.

9.3 · Portal SSO (SAML)

Portal SSO lets custodians authenticate through the same corporate identity provider (Entra ID, Okta, and comparable SAML 2.0 IdPs) that your administrators use. It reuses the one instance SAML configuration you set up for admin sign-in — there is a single IdP registration with two consumer flows: admin sign-in resolves to a user account, custodian sign-in resolves to a custodian and issues the portal session.

Why require it: with the code flow, the emailed security code is the credential, so a forwarded notice lets whoever holds the code acknowledge for someone else. With SSO, acknowledging requires signing in as the custodian in your IdP (password plus MFA), a forwarded link is worthless to an imposter, and the audit trail records an IdP-verified identity. The full design rationale lives in docs/custodian-portal-sso.md.

Portal SSO is configured in section 6 of the SAML page, Instance Administration → SAML 2.0 SSO, beneath the admin IdP settings. Configure sections 1–3 (register the service provider, import or enter the IdP details) first — custodian SSO cannot run without an IdP single sign-on URL and signing certificate, and the page warns you if you enable it too early.

The controls in section 6 are:

• Enable custodians to log in via SSO — shows a "Sign in with SSO" button on the custodian portal login.
• Require SSO for custodians in the corporate domains — in-domain custodians must use SSO and their emailed security code is rejected; out-of-domain custodians keep the code. This box is only settable once SSO is enabled.
• Corporate SSO domains — the comma-separated eligibility list from 9.2. This is distinct from the admin allow-list in section 4 of the same page.
• Portal ACS URL — a read-only value you register as a second Reply URL / Assertion Consumer Service in your IdP app, so the portal's SSO callback is accepted. Importing the SP metadata URL (section 1) registers it automatically.

How custodians sign in: a notice email to an SSO-required custodian carries an IdP login link instead of a code. The custodian clicks it, authenticates in your IdP (password plus MFA), and lands on the deep-linked acknowledgment or survey page. One sign-in covers all of that custodian's matters in a single portal session. Codes already in flight when you switch the setting on are not revoked — in-domain custodians move to SSO on their next notice or reminder.

9.4 · What custodians do in the portal

Once signed in, custodians work only their own obligations. At a high level they can:

• Acknowledge legal holds — read the hold notice and record acknowledgment, with the authentication method (SSO, code, or admin override) stamped on the record.
• Complete surveys — answer the data-collection and identity questions assigned to them for a matter.
• Ask questions — submit a question to your team; answered questions can be surfaced back as an anonymized self-serve FAQ.
• See their team — managers with direct reports can view report status and send reminders when Manager / Team View is enabled (9.1).

Screen-by-screen guidance for custodians — sign-in, the matter list, acknowledging a hold, completing a survey, and asking a question — is covered in the separate Custodian Portal Guide. Point custodians there rather than to this administrator manual.

10 · Appendices

Appendix A — Tenant Administration

Tenant Administration sits one level above the instance. Where instance administration configures a single application environment, tenant-level controls govern the billing entity that owns it — the license that sets your usage caps and the feature flags that decide which matter features are available to configure. These pages live under Tenant Administration and are restricted to tenant administrators.

Licensing and overages

Open Tenant Administration → Licensing. The top License Usage table shows each licensed dimension side by side with current usage and a status badge — OK, At Limit, or Over. Licensing is tracked across three independent dimensions:

A storage ceiling (maximum GB) is also carried on the license (verify), and custodian volume is tracked per matter for reporting, but the three metrics above are the enforced usage dimensions shown on this page.

Below the usage table, License History lists each license period — start and end dates, the per-period caps for Users, Full Matters, and Evolve Matters, and the EO representative on record. For tenant administrators this history is read-only: to add or change a license, contact your Insight Optix representative. Only Super Admins can edit these records, and the enforced limits in the usage table are updated by Insight Optix support when a new license takes effect.

Feature flags

Open Tenant Administration → Feature Flags. Feature flags set the default tier availability for each matter feature — legal hold, surveys, interviews, assessment, collection tracking, Proportional Discovery Assessment® (PDA), and Microsoft 365 — across the tenant. Each flag carries an allow instance override toggle that decides whether an instance may turn the feature on or off for individual matters, or must inherit the tenant default.

Appendix B — Audit & Troubleshooting

The audit trail

InsightOptix records a defensible, read-only audit trail of activity across the instance. View it at Instance Administration → Audit Logs. Each entry captures the action, the actor (the signed-in user, where applicable), the affected record, a timestamp, the source (this instance or the central login service), and the originating IP address and browser. The API enriches raw events into a friendly summary — for example, "Acknowledged via SSO as jsmith@corp.com (Entra)" versus "Acknowledged via code" — so the log reads in plain language rather than raw event codes.

Entries are grouped into categories you can filter by:

• Matters
• Custodians
• Evidence & Data Sources
• Legal Hold
• Surveys & Interviews
• Communications
• Administration
• Authentication
• Other

You can search and page through the log and export the current view for evidentiary or review purposes.

Troubleshooting

Appendix C — Reference tables

A set of detailed reference tables is being carried over from the current Manula manual and verified against v5.0 during QA. They are listed here as placeholders and will be published in a subsequent revision of this manual. The appendices to be ported are:

• Client Data Forms
• Data Normalization Rules
• Logic Rules
• Field Values
• Naming Conventions
• Glossary (full)