Apply redactions

This section refers to the Exolution Viewer frequently, which is described later in this document. Please refer to Introduction to Exolution Viewer section.

Exolution supports multiple ways to apply redactions, some of them are document-level redactions and others are mass redactions across multiple documents. Users must select a redaction type from the Select Redaction Type dropdown list to apply redaction. Regardless of how the redactions are created, Exolution adds an entry per redaction in the Redaction List table in the Explorer panel, which is used to create the redaction log at the time of creating redacted files.

All the redactions are propagated to the duplicate sheets or duplicate documents in real-time, depending on the redaction propagation settings for the current workspace. If the redaction propagation level is set to “None” then the redactions are not propagated to the duplicate sheets or documents. Also, the redactions are not propagated to any documents with redaction propagation freeze or all redaction freeze. Please refer to the Swap File for more information on the redaction freeze

The methods to apply redactions are broadly grouped in the following categories:

1. Mass redact PII on multiple documents using PII Explorer
2. Mass redact PII current document using PII list in the Explorer Panel
3. Search and redact the current document using Find & Redact
4. Search and redact multiple documents using Global Search
5. Manually redact the current document
6. Inverse redact the current document
7. Filter & Redact
8. Redact Except Selection

Exolution tries to combine multiple redactions into fewer redactions whenever the users try to apply multiple redactions on a document or multiple documents. This improves the performance, especially when the documents have a large number of redactions making the redacted file smaller.
Exolution ignores previously redacted cells, comments, text boxes, header/footer or sheet names every time the users try to add multiple redactions. This avoids a situation when one area has more than one redaction.
Each of the redaction categories is described below:

1. Mass redact PII in multiple documents using PII Explorer: The left table in the PII Explorer shows PII types with the number of values found for the documents in the selected saved search. The right table displays the responsive documents with the total number of PII in each document.
   Any changes in the selection in the left table reflects on the right table. Select the appropriate saved search, then select appropriate PII types and documents. Then select a redaction type from the drop-down near the right bottom corner and click on the Apply Redactions button to apply redactions to the documents. The redactions are shown as highlights in the Exolution Viewer. They are applied permanently when the redacted documents are created.
2. Mass redact PII in the current document using the PII list in the Explorer panel: Go to the Explorer panel of Exolution Viewer. If the document has PII, then the PII List is populated with the values as displayed below. The PII List context menu can be accessed using the down-arrow button at the top-right corner.
   The following are the context menu options.
   
   1. Redact All: Redacts all the PII values in the list. It redacts the entire values, not just the matching part. e.g. If a cell-value is “his SSN is 123-45-6789” where the yellow highlighted part is matching with the pattern being searched, then it will redact the entire value in the cell, not just the yellow highlighted portion. This menu item doesn’t allow the users to redact only certain values, or partially redact only matching part.
   2. More Options: Opens a form that provides users an option to redact only certain types of PII values, or certain values only. The users can select certain PII types in the left table on the form, or the PII values in the right table, and apply redactions from the Redact menu.
      • The users can select one or more values from the PII Values table and apply full or partial redactions on the selected values. The partial redaction redacts the only matching part, not the entire value.
3. Search and redact the current document using Find & Redact: Click the Find & Redact Menu to open the Find & Redact window. Search Regular Expression or a keyword. Select the values to be redacted and click on the Redact button. The Find & Redact Searches the values in cells, comments, sheet names, textboxes and header/footers. Any graphical objects like image, chart etc. are not searched.
   Find function is redaction-aware. The first column in the search result table displays the short-label of the redaction type for any responsive values that are redacted.
   The Find & Redact offers the following 3 different scopes of searches:
   1. Sheet: Find values in the current sheet only.
   2. Workbook: Find values in the entire workbook.
   3. Selected Range: Find values within the selected cells only. If this option is selected then the search runs only on the selected cells, not on comments, textboxes etc. This option is very useful when the users want to search and redact values within a row or column only.

   The Value Type drop-down provides options to further restrict the search. The following are available options:

   1. All: Search all values including the redacted values and unredacted values.

   2. Only Redacted: Search only values that reside in cells, comments, textboxes, sheet names and header/footer with redactions. Even if the cells, comments, etc. have a partial redaction which doesn’t cover the search term, the search will consider it as a redacted value.

   3. Only Unredacted: Search only unredacted values.

   Below are the other search options.
   Regular Expression: Indicates that the search term is a regular expression.
   Match Case: Indicates that the search is case-sensitive.
   Match Entire Content: Indicates that the search term is an entire value, not a part of it.
   The Find button runs the search. The Select All checkbox selects/unselects all of the values in the search result table. The users can also manually select or unselect any values in the search result table. Any responsive values marked as redacted in the first column can’t be selected. This is because the purpose of selecting the responsive values is to apply redactions, and the previously redaction values have to be skipped from applying overlapping redactions.
   When selection in the result table is changed, Exolution automatically jumps to the location where the value resides. This facilitates a quick QC before applying mass redactions.
   The popup menu Redact provides the following options to apply the redactions.
   Entire Values: Redacts all of the values in the cells, sheet names, comments, textboxes, and header/footer.
   Only Searched Value: Redacts only the matching part of the responsive values. e.g. in the searched value baliminimalist@yahoo.com displayed above, only “yahoo.com” will be redacted, leaving the rest of the text intact. This is one of the two ways to partially redact values.
   Except Searched Value: This is opposite to the previous option Only Searched Value. This option redacts all the content other than the searched value. In the example above, this option will redact baliminimalist@ leaving yahoo.com unredacted.
   Entire Columns: Redacts the entire columns for each responsive value.
   Entire Rows: Redacts the entire rows for each responsive value.
   Redaction Per Value: All the other redaction options, excluding partial redactions, combine multiple adjacent redactions into a single larger redaction if the redaction type and user stamp match. That makes the redaction processing faster and redacted files smaller. This option creates a separate redaction per value. The use of this option should be avoided unless it is required.

4. Search and redact multiple documents using Global Search: The Global Search is one of the most powerful features of Exolution, and it supports applying redactions quickly across a large number of documents. Go to Global Search for more information.

5. Manually redact the current document: The users can manually redact a cell range or an object like a comment, textbox, picture, or chart in the Exolution Viewer by selecting it and then clicking the menu item
   
   Redaction Operations ➔ Redact | Unredact or by right-clicking the mouse on the selected cells or object. The following shows the selected cell range and Redact | Unredact menu.
   To redact a sheet name, select a sheet name in the sheet List and right click on the sheet name.
   
    
   
   To redact a header/footer item select a header or footer item from the Header/Footer List and right-click on it.
   To unredact any of the redacted cell, comment, textbox, chart/picture, sheet name or header/footer, select it and then right-click.

6. Inverse redact the current document: Exolution has two options to apply inverse redaction, sheet level & workbook level. Menu items Invert In Active Sheet and Invert In Workbook in the picture above show options to apply inverse redactions at the sheet level and workbook level respectively. The inverse redaction removes all of the existing redactions and redacts all the previously non-redacted cells and shapes based on the user selection. When Invert In Active Sheet or Invert In Workbook menu is clicked, it displays the Invert Redaction Options window. Select whichever item(s) you want to apply inverse redactions to, then click on the Apply button.

7. Filter & Redact: The user can filter the rows based on certain criteria using the menu option Display Options ➔ Apply Autofilter. The filter applies on the currently selected row, and the selectable items in the filter include the items below the selected row. So, if the cell selection is starting from row 5 when the user applies the filter, then the filter will not include the rows 1 to row 4. If the entire sheet has to be included in the filter, then the user should select the first row before applying the filter.
   When the users try to apply redactions on the visible rows after applying filters, Exolution displays the following message box, asking whether or not the user wants to redact the rows hidden by the filter.
   
    YES, redact hidden rows as well redacts all the rows in the selection including the rows the users filtered out
   No, don’t redact hidden rows redacts only visible rows. All the hidden rows are not redacted.
   The filter also supports filtering content based on the cell colors, and search. The behavior of redaction is same regardless of how the rows are filtered.
   The filter is persistent across the session. That means, when the users change the document, the filter is automatically created in the new document. However, the filter is created in the first row every time the document changes.
   The Autofilter works like that in MS Excel. The users can create a filter at any row with data and then select values from the list of values in the selected column. Exolution hides all the rows that don’t have any of the selected values. Then the users can apply redactions on only visible rows, avoiding redacting the hidden rows.

8. Redact Except Selection: This option facilitates applying a redaction on the entire sheet other than the selected cells. If any part of the non-selected range is already redacted, then it is ignored in the redaction. Also, this option applied redactions only on the cells, not on any non-cell objects like comments, charts, etc.
   The redactions are shown as highlights, but users can get a preview of the redacted document from the menu Display Options ➔ Redacted Preview

Important:

1. Cell redactions are automatically calculated to avoid overlapping redactions. If a part of the range is already redacted when the users try to apply redactions, then the previously redacted region is ignored. Only the unredacted part of the range is redacted.
2. Regardless of how the redactions are applied, all of the redactions are automatically propagated, in real-time, to the duplicate documents and sheets depending on the value in the setting Redaction Propagation Options.

Remove redaction

The following are the ways to remove redactions:

1. Manually remove a redaction: Mouse right-click on any selected redaction to remove the redaction. This can also be performed from the menu item Redaction Options ➔ Redact | Unredact
2. Remove from the Redaction List: Clicking the delete button after selecting a redaction in the redaction List deletes the selected redaction
3. Remove all redactions from an Active Sheet: Menu item Redaction Options ➔ Clear All In Active Sheet removes all of the redactions in the active worksheet
4. Remove all redaction from an entire workbook: Menu item Redaction Options ➔ Clear All In Workbook removes all of the redactions in the entire workbook
5. Partial redaction removal: Partially select a redaction. This can be done by pressing down the keyboard’s Control key while selecting a part of the redaction. Once a part of redaction is selected, mouse right-click removes the selected portion of the redaction. The remaining part of the redaction retains the redaction properties like username, timestamp, redaction type etc.

Important: All of the redactions from the duplicate sheets or files are also removed, in real-time, depending upon the Redaction Propagation Option value in the Settings tab.