I remember somebody describing to me, years ago, the difficulties which they faced in collecting data from organisations with far-flung offices, including some in the remoter parts of northern Canada.

In those days, someone would have to travel to each office lugging the kit, acquire the data according to the parameters set by the lawyers, and then carry it back to base.

We have seen considerable advances since then, both in terms of portable devices which could can be sent to remote offices pre-programmed to collect appropriate material and, as Internet connections improved, at least in North America, for collection over the web.

iCONECT, developers of the iCONECT-XERA eDiscovery document review platform, prides itself on being both intuitive and easy to use. The focus hitherto has been on its strongly visual user interface; that continues to develop, along with tools like the multimedia review technology which you can read about here. It has also beefed up the front end of its processing power by the partnership with Nuix which I wrote about here.

The latest addition to its user-friendly toolkit is Xplorer, designed to collect email, correspondence and files remotely.

There are several ways of deploying Xplorer. The one which captures attention is the ability to distribute the collection software by email. Search terms and other parameters are predefined by an administrator and then sent by email to custodians, who may number thousands. Clicking on the link in the email launches a collection process which collect files and emails which meet the pre-programmed criteria, packages them up, and sends them back for processing.

Anything which speeds up the early stages of discovery while reducing its cost is welcome. That it can be done this intuitively is a bonus.

There is a press release about the launch of iCONECT Xplorer here. The product page for Xplorer is here.

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