Sherpa Software, a provider of e-discovery and information management solutions, has announced the release of Report Attender, a new product that aims to helps organisations make litigation-relevant decisions faster.

Report Attender analyses the content of important data stores, quickly answering questions regarding the age, size and substance of email messages and other files. Report Attender enables IT, compliance managers and corporate legal to make informed decisions in the early case assessment phase, before deciding whether to proceed to a lengthier -- and more expensive -- electronic discovery process.

Report Attender simplifies data analysis with an automated scanning engine that gathers key statistics and categorises files and messages from network shares and email stores. Installed locally, the application scans multiple data stores concurrently with options to expand compressed files, identify duplicates and collect attachment statistics.

Once scans are complete, users can drill down through summary reports, expansive charts, tables and graphs that supply visual representations of crucial information.

"Customers in areas such as compliance, litigation support and IT administration have told us they need a faster and more cost-effective way to find out what's in their data before committing to a lengthy discovery process," said Marta Farensbach, Senior Product Manager, Sherpa Software.

"We developed Report Attender to give users an early view of their data. The tool features breakdowns of details such as date range, file type, and size. Users can customise groupings, highlight key data points, and then determine what areas need to be investigated further."

Report Attender offers a practical, user-friendly interface with an intuitive wizard to create custom scans, with options for accessing Windows file shares and email stores. Analysis views in Report Attender include snapshots by type, size, dates, and data stores. Other views show breakdowns that identify duplicates using quantity, size and percent statistics to uncover redundant data.

Sherpa Software Report Attender includes the ability to scan any Windows accessible file share, as well as collect statistics on messages and attachments stored in PST files, Exchange mailboxes and online archives. Report Attender prices startl under $US1000 per installation for unlimited processing.