David van Dokkum

Automatic OCR for Images and Documents​

We're pleased to announce that OCR support is now available to all customers! OCR (short for Optical Character Recognition) is a technology that converts scanned documents, images, and PDFs containing text into machine-readable and searchable content.

With OCR enabled, your files become significantly more accessible and actionable – whether you're processing scans of old documents or screenshots of chat messages.

Images containing text will now be searchable, receive redaction suggestions and be included in case-wide redactions.

OCR is available by default across all plans, with no additional setup required. Simply upload your documents as usual, and we'll handle the rest in the background.

Finalize Files in Bulk​

Finalizing a file in the product generates the final redacted version of the document, adds that file to your case export, prevents any further changes to the file from actions like case-wide redactions, and generally signals that the work on this file is complete.

We intentionally designed the product to require that files be finalized one at a time to reinforce the role of finalization as a final review. However, in discussions with customers we've heard that for some workflows this approach doesn't make sense and simply creates unneccesary busywork.

To give you more flexibility in the finalization process, we've added the ability to finalize files in bulk. This leverages our existing bulk-action toolbar, so simply select the files that need to be finalized and hit the new Finalize button.

Additional Improvements​

• Resolved an issue that was causing the preview text of a selected redaction to be inconsistent with the actual text of the redaction.
• Improved the accuracy of case-wide redactions for multi-word text selections.
• Improved real-time conversation updates to our in-app chat.
• Fixed a layout issue that was causing user names/emails to overflow out of the navigation panel when in its expanded state.

Comment Enhancements​

Many teams use comments to support redaction review and approval workflows, so we’ve made it easier to track which documents still need attention. You can now see the number of unresolved comments on each file at a glance, resolve threads to clean up the view while keeping the conversation history, and leave comments anywhere in a document – even on non-text files like images. These updates make it easier to stay on top of active conversations and streamline your review process.

In-App Chat Support​

We’re excited to announce that in-app chat support is now live! Providing excellent support has always been a priority for us – many of you already know this firsthand through our shared Slack and Teams channels. This new feature expands that same real-time support experience directly into our product. No chat bots here friends, every message goes straight to a member of our team!

Other Improvements​

• You can now filter the file list on files that do not have a tag. This is useful if you use tags for keeping track of workflow states and want to make sure that all files have been properly tagged.
• We've added the ability to update the status of a case directly from the case list by using the status dropdown.

Additional Fixes​

• Case-wide redactions no longer match on partial words (aka substrings). Previously this behavior resulted in case-wide readactions of small words (often initials or short names) creating redactions in the middle of words that contained the same letter pattern.
• We now properly handle files that are uploaded with the application/vnd.ms-office MIME-type.
• In rare cases when downloading a finalization preview PDF, the default name of the file was incorrect. This has been fixed.

New File Formats​

You can now upload CSV files and have them automatically rendered as a data table. We've also added support for legacy and macro-enabled excel files that end in .xls and .xlsm.

Panning Tool​

We've added a "grabber" or panning mode to the document viewer. This is particularly useful when working on a file with very large dimensions where you need to zoom in a bunch to work with the text.

Additional Fixes​

• When viewing a document, the document is now the only scrollable element on the page. Previously there could be multiple scrollbars for different parts of the page, which made it annoying to navigate within the document.
• Occasionally certain words could not be selected when creating a comment or manual text redaction. Text selection should now be much more reliable and consistent.
• You can now exit area redaction mode by clicking on the area redaction button.
• Creating an area redaction while a document was open in multiple tabs would occasionally make the document fail to finalize. This has been fixed.
• When deleting a policy that is attached to a case you will now receive an error message explaining why you are unable to delete the policy.

Select All Files​

When using the "Select All" checkmark in the file list, you will now see an option to select ALL files in the case, not just the files on the current page of results. This functionality works with filters as well, allowing you to select and take bulk actions on all documents/emails in the case that match a certain filter criteria.

Case Status Updater​

We've made it easier to update the status of a case. Simply click on the status badge while inside a case to select a new status.

Other Bug Fixes and improvements​

• Comment notification emails now include the full text of the comment.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a document to jump to the first page after creating a new redaction.
• Fixed a bug that in rare cases could cause a document's text to be unselectable.

Jump to File Number​

When working on a large stack of documents or emails, it is important to be able to navigate quickly between files. We've made some improvements to how we handle document transitions to faciliate faster navigation between files in a stack.

When clicking the next/previous buttons, you can now rapidly click between files, previewing the titles without having to wait for the entire document to load. If you already know which file you're going to, you can now jump directly to a file by clicking on the number indicator and typing in the file number.

Go to Policy​

This update also includes a small quality of life improvement to the document information panel, which displays various metadata about the current document and case. The policy name will now link you directly to the policy that is being used for the case... helpful if you need to quickly check the policy or make any changes.

Page Counts​

We've added a new column to our email and document file lists that displays the total number of pages of the PDF-rendered version of the file. This can be useful if you need find your largest files, or to quickly check the size of the file before clicking into it.

The pages column is hidden by default, but can easily be enabled by clicking on the table settings button in the top right corner of the file list.

In order to faciliate the growing number of columns in the list view, we've also moved our "needs triage" indicator to the left side of the file list to make it easier to scan the file triage status visually. We really appreciate the feedback from our users on this and always welcome ideas for how we can be improving the platform. Don't hesitate to reach out at help@phaselab.co if you have any questions or feedback.

Image Uploads​

If you need to review and sanitize screenshots or other type of images, you can now upload these directly into Phaselab without having to convert them to PDF first. We currently support the following image types: png, jpg, jpeg, jp2, tif, tiff.

Note that we are not yet applying any OCR to the images, so text contained within uploaded images will not be searchable, selectable or contain redaction suggestions. We're working on rolling out OCR in the near future!

Due Dates​

We've added an optional due date field to the case creation page. This allows you to set a specific date that the case is due. As the due date approaches, an indicator will appear reminding you that the case is due soon. You can update the due date at any time on the case settings page.

User Invitations​

Copy Invitation Link​

Occasionally, new users aren't able to receive their invite emails due to corporate email filters. Admins can now copy a user's unique invitation link from the member management page. This link can then be shared with the user directly so they can complete the signup process.

Resend Invitations​

Our invitations expire 7 days after being sent. If a user didn't sign up within this time, you can now resend the invitation with one click from the member management page.

Other Improvements​

Improved File Navigation​

We made navigating from one file to another much faster and now display which filters and sorts you currently have applied when navigating across a stack of files.