Review Phase
A Review Phase is a container used to organize a specific set of documents for review within Canopy. It defines the scope and method of the review process. This feature is only available for projects created in version 5.0.0 or later.
Canopy supports reviews across two dimensions:
- Review Methods: Auto Review (AI review) and Manual Review (human review).
- Review Types: Review (standard, first-level review) and Quality Assurance (QA) (verification).
A single document can belong to multiple Review Phases simultaneously, with one key exception: a document can only belong to one Auto Review Phase at any given time.
All actions related to Review Phase can be accessed from the kebab menu at the top right of the Documents page.
Canopy defines two distinct types of Review Phases:
- Review
- Review batches are the standard, first-level batch type. Project Admin or Review Manager created this review phase to distribute documents to the review team (for Manual Review) or for the Auto Review workflow.
- Quality Assurance (“QA”)
- Quality Assurance (QA) batches are meant to be used by either the Assessment or Review teams to perform cross-team QA checks or to QA-check their own work.
Users may create multiple Review Phases for both the Review and QA types.
Canopy provides two methods for conducting document review:
- Auto Review
- Auto Review is an Agentic AI review software that uses AI and user-input Entity Qualifying Rules to automatically identify and propagate entities directly to the documents. Auto Review workflow is designed to streamline your document review, acting as the initial, first-level reviewer. By automating this crucial first phase, Auto Review eliminates the need for manual human reviewers for large sets of documents, dramatically increasing efficiency and reducing costs. A single document can belong to only one Auto Review Phase, and the same document can belong to multiple Manual Review Phases simultaneously as it is in an Auto Review Phase. Auto Review does not support the QA Review Type. Read Auto Review to learn more.
- Manual Review
- Manual Review is the traditional first-level review conducted by a team of human reviewers. A Manual Review Phase can contain multiple batches for efficient distribution among the review team. Manual Review is flexible as it allows a single document to be in multiple review phases, regardless of whether it is a Review or QA type, and even while it is in an Auto Review Phase.
User roles who can create a review phase are:
- Tenant Administrator
- Project Administrator
- Review Manager
Follow the steps below to create a review phase:
- Navigate to the Document Page
- Cull and Filter: Use Canopy’s smart search and filters to identify and narrow down the documents you wish to include in a Review Phase.
- Select Documents: Select one or more documents to add to the review phase.
- Access Menu: After documents have been selected, navigate to and click the kabab menu located in the top-right corner of the Documents page.
- Add to Review Phase: Click on Review Phase and then select Add to Review Phase. The Add to Review Phase button will only be enabled if documents are selected on the Documents page. If no files are selected, the button will remain disabled.
- Complete required information: You will be taken to the Add to Review Phase, and you will be prompt to stay in the Create Review Phase.
- Once you’ve completed all the required information for your review phase, click Save to create it.
- The Review Phase Creation will begin as a background task. You will receive a system notification that the job has started.
- Upon completion, you will receive a notification with two options:
- Clicking Activity History takes you to the Activity History page, where you can view details of the completed job.
- Clicking Batch List takes you to the Batches page where the newly created Review Phase is listed.
Based on your review workflow:
- Select either Auto Review or Manual Review Method
- For Manual Review, select either Review or QA. If you select Auto Review, we will automatically select Review as a review type since Auto Review does not support QA review.
Qualifying Rules are the mandatory, entity-defined criteria that determine how many and what kind of PII elements must exist in a document for it to be identified as a relevant “Entity” by the AI.
- Auto Review: At least one Qualifying Rule is required for an Auto Review job.
- Manual Review: Qualifying Rule is Not Required for Manual Review workflows.
Refer to Qualifying Rules documentation for details and examples.
The Families feature is available for both the Review and QA batch types.
Selecting Include document families prompts the system to check all eligible documents for family members. If any family members are found, the entire families will be included in the review phase. For Manual Review, Canopy does its best to keep family members together in the same batch.
The option to include documents with similar file names is also available for both Review and QA batch types.
When this option is selected, any eligible documents will be checked for similarities in their file names. If documents with similar names that meet the workflow criteria are identified, they will be batched together.
The Ignore duplicates option is available for both the Review and QA batch types. When this option is selected, duplicates will be excluded from the batching process.
All Review Phases are listed in the Batches Module. All Canopy user roles have access to the Batches Module and the full list review phases, except for Lite Reviewer.
- Auto Review Phase
- Each Auto Review Phase has one batch inside. Any documents added or removed from the review phase are added or removed from this single batch. The Action column contains a Run button, which users click to start the Auto Review process. This Run button is enabled only if the Auto Review phase has not yet undergone Auto Review. The Run button is disabled upon Auto Review completion. Additionally, this Run button is visible only to users who can execute Auto Review: Tenant Admin, Project Admin and Review Manager.
- Manual Review Phase
- Each Manual Review Phase has multiple batches insides depending on the number of documents added to the review phase, and the size of each batch. Only one user is allowed to check out one In Progress batch at a time.
Once a user check out a batch, he/she gains exclusive access to the documents, and the review work begin.
- When a user checks out a batch, the batch moves from the Available tab to the In Progress tab.
- Reviewers and Lite Reviewers only see the batches they have checked out. They do not see batches checked out by administrators (Tenant/Project Admin, Review Manager) or other reviewers.
- Tenant Admin, Project Admin, and Review Managers can see all batches and everyone who has accessed the batches.
- Reviewers and Lite Reviewers cannot unassign a batch accessed by themselves or accessed by Tenant or Project Admin or other reviewers.
- For In Progress batches, users can check in only their accessed batch. Administrators cannot check in batches accessed by Reviewers or Lite Reviewers.
- On the document list for the batch, after selecting one or more documents, the option to mark them as Not Reportable appears.
- If documents selected for the Not Reportable status have detected entities, a warning will appear. This allows the reviewer to choose whether to proceed or skip the marking for those specific documents.
- Documents that are Skipped (due to the warning) remain in the Pending status, and documents that are marked as Not Reportable are then marked as Reviewed.
- The Document View displays details, including the type of review phase, batch name, and buttons to mark documents as Reviewed or Not Reportable. The reviewer’s name and email ID will also be displayed in the left panel after the document has been reviewed:
Tenant Admin, Project Admin and Review Manager can unassign users from any batch by clicking the “x” icon beside the name of that user under the In Progress batch tab.
Administrators (Tenant Admin, Project Admin, and Review Manager) have the ability to add, remove, and reorganize Review Phases and their associated batches.
- Auto Review
- Users can add or remove documents from an existing Auto Review Phase only if the Auto Review has not yet been run. Once the Auto Review is complete, all actions are disabled. The Auto Review Phase cannot be deleted or split.
- Manual Review
- Users can add or remove documents from an existing Manual Review Phase or split a review phase at any point during the review workflow. New documents added to a Manual Review Phase are organized into new batches within that review phase. A Manual Review Phase cannot be deleted if at least one batch within the phase is In Progress.
Administrators can add additional documents to an existing review phase at any time (provided an Auto Review has not yet started).
- Navigate to the Document Page
- Cull and Filter: Use search and filters to identify and narrow down the documents you wish to add to the existing Review Phase.
- Select Documents: Select one or more documents to add to the review phase.
- Access Menu: Navigate to and click the kabab menu located in the top-right corner of the Documents page.
- Add to Review Phase: Click on Review Phase and then select Add to Review Phase.
- On the Add to Review Phase page, select the Add to Existing Review Phase tab
- Assign: Choose your target Review Phase from the list.
- Click Save to add the document to that review phase.
- Upon completion, you will receive a notification with two options:
- Clicking Activity History takes you to the Activity History page, where you can view details of the completed job.
- Clicking Batch List takes you to the Batches page where all Review Phases are listed.
Administrator can remove documents from a Review Phase, even though some documents in the batch are marked Reviewed.
- Navigate to the Document Page
- Cull and Filter: Use search and filters to identify and narrow down the documents you wish to remove from an existing Review Phase.
- Select Documents: Select one or more documents to remove from the review phase.
- Access Menu: Navigate to and click the kabab menu located in the top-right corner of the Documents page.
- Remove from Review Phase: Click on Review Phase and then select Remove From Review Phase.
- Choose Scope: A confirmation prompt will appear with two options:
- Remove from specific Review Phases: Removes them from only the selected review phases.
- Remove from all Review Phases: Removes them from every phase within the current project.
For Manual Review Phases, you can break large batch sets into smaller, more manageable batches to distribute work across the team.
Click the Split Batch icon on the desired Review Phase within the Batches Module.
Split functionality is disabled for Auto Review.
Users can delete Review Phase using the trash can icon. Delete functionality is disabled for all Auto Review Phases and Manual Review Phase that contain an In Progress batch.
If the batches contain fully or partially reviewed documents, users will be asked to either keep these documents in their batches, in which case the review work is saved, or remove them from the batches, in which case the review work is not saved:
If the Continue button is clicked when the first radio button is selected, as pictured above, the batch set is removed from the list, and an alert is displayed to explain that a batch set containing partially reviewed or reviewed documents cannot be deleted:
