Running a discovery sweep, and scoping an any-and-all request

Last updated: August 25, 2026

Discovery searches your connected systems for the records that answer a request. The hard part is rarely the searching. It is deciding what to search for when the request says "any and all records relating to" something.

How to run a sweep

  1. Open the request and go to Case/Media.

  2. Click New Case.

  3. Enter a Case name and a Description saying what you are looking for and why.

  4. Under Sources, add the sources to search.

  5. Add your conditions on the next step.

  6. Click Review, check the scope, then run it.

Write the description in the requester's words

The description is the record of intent. Write it using the terms the request itself uses, not your internal shorthand.

If the adequacy of your search is questioned later, the description is what shows you searched for what was asked rather than for what was convenient.

Scoping an any-and-all request

A request for everything relating to a subject is not a search. Turn it into one by deciding four things, and record each in the description:

Custodians. Whose records? Named people or roles, not the whole agency.

Sources. Mail, files, or both. Searching everywhere is slower and returns more to review, not more that is responsive.

Dates. A start and an end. If the request gives none, use the period the subject matter actually covers, and say so.

Terms. The words the records would actually use. A program's internal project name often finds more than its public name.

Start broad, then narrow

Conditions combine, so each one narrows the result further. Four tight conditions can eliminate everything and look like an empty archive.

Run something deliberately too broad first. A result you can see is easier to narrow than an empty one is to diagnose.

When the scope is genuinely unreasonable

Where a request cannot be scoped without producing an unworkable volume, that is a conversation with the requester rather than a search problem. Ask them to narrow it, and move the request to the status that pauses the clock while you wait, because that delay is not yours.

Record what you asked and why in an internal note.

Discovery finds, it does not decide

Everything a sweep returns goes through the same review, redaction and approval as a document someone uploaded by hand. Nothing is released because it was found automatically.