Public records · FOIA · Works alongside NextRequest
Keep NextRequest.
Add the reading and review layer.
NextRequest takes the request in, tracks the deadline and keeps requester correspondence and delivery in one place. Someone still has to read every responsive page and decide what comes out. That review is the work RecordBeacon does beside your portal, and the only work it does.
No card, no setup. NextRequest stays exactly where it is.
What NextRequest handles
NextRequest runs the request. Keep it running the request.
NextRequest, powered by CivicPlus, is a records request platform for intake, tracking, deadlines, requester correspondence and delivery. Per its materials, any uploaded document can be redacted: drag a redaction block, redact selected text or a full page, or redact every instance of a searched term or a preloaded information type such as Social Security numbers, phone numbers, emails, postal codes and dates.
Its RapidReview module batch-redacts across large document sets and adds draft redactions with comments, workflow stages, folders, PST and ZIP extraction, OCR and metadata stripping. Its Risk Module uses machine learning to scan uploaded documents and tag each one with a severity level for likely sensitive content. Redaction reasons ship built in or custom, and a redaction log attaches to finalized documents.
Keep it. Nothing on this page changes how requests come in or how they are tracked.
The questions that sort it out
Three questions for any redaction tool. Ours included.
Redaction features vary more than brochures suggest. The same questions separate the tools quickly.
What proposes the marks? Ask whether detection places proposed marks with an exemption attached to each one, or scores the document and leaves the marking to a person. Both are useful. They are different jobs.
Who approves each mark, by name? Ask whether the finished record shows a person deciding every individual redaction, not only the document as a whole.
Is release gated? Ask what must be true before a release goes out, and what happens to marks still in draft.
Put the same questions to us. The next section is our answer.
What RecordBeacon adds
It reads the set. A person decides. Release is gated.
Detection that reads the content
RecordBeacon reads every page and proposes marks with the exemption coded on each one, including exempt material written in plain narrative text.
A named reviewer on every mark
Nothing is redacted automatically. Your reviewer approves or rejects each mark, by name, and can draw a box on anything detection missed.
A verified, gated release
Release refuses to run while any mark is undecided. Redactions are burned into the released pages, and the output is read back to confirm the redacted content is gone.
Whole email exports, one exemption log
Drop the export in. Each email and attachment becomes its own record, duplicates are caught once across the response, and one exemption log carries every decision.
The full product page is at public records redaction for agencies.
No integration required
Documents go in. Redacted releases come out.
RecordBeacon sits beside NextRequest with nothing to install, no setup and no IT project. NextRequest stays the system of record for the request. RecordBeacon keeps the review record.
01
Export the set
Pull the responsive documents out of NextRequest as you already do today.
02
Review it here
Upload the set. Detection proposes marks and your reviewer decides every one.
03
Release
Produce the released copies with redactions burned in and the decision record behind them.
04
Attach it back
Attach the released files to the request in NextRequest and respond as you always have.
Questions records officers ask
Do we have to replace NextRequest?
No. Keep it. Intake, tracking, correspondence, delivery and the deadline clock stay in NextRequest. RecordBeacon does the part between finding the records and being able to release them.
Does RecordBeacon connect to NextRequest?
No connection is needed. You export the set, review it in RecordBeacon, then attach the released files back like any other file. Nothing to install, no IT project.
We already use NextRequest's redaction tools. Why add anything?
Keep using what works. The honest test is the three questions above: what proposes each mark and its exemption, who approves every mark by name, and what gates the release. If your process answers all three, you may not need us. The free tier exists so you can check on your own records.
Can we try it before we buy it?
The first 15 documents are free with no card. For a real evaluation, book a walkthrough and bring an actual response set rather than a test file.
Bring a real response set.
Run fifteen documents with no card and no call, or book twenty minutes and we will run them with you. Either way, you learn on your own records, not a prepared demo.