Patent ID: 9721227
Date: 2017-08-01
CPC Classifications: G06Q

Claim:
1. A method for generating and maintaining a custodian directory for use in conducting electronic discovery within an enterprise-based communication network, comprising: identifying a plurality of tables and databases within the network comprising information relating to custodians, wherein the tables or databases include at least one email account table or database and at least one human resources information table or database and wherein the custodians are individuals within an entity who created or are associated with electronic data required to be collected in an electronic discovery matter; crawling, by a computing device processor, the communication network to scan each personal computing device in the network and each file server in the network to (1) retrieve, from the personal computing devices, identifying information comprising a computer name, an IP address and a list of computer-user profiles including first user identification and (2) retrieve, from the file servers, paths to personal network storage areas in the network, wherein the paths include a second user identification; generating, by a computing device processor, the custodian directory that stores a plurality of custodian profiles, wherein each profile is associated with a custodian, wherein generating each custodian profile includes automatically: continuously monitoring the communication network for updates in data associated with the one or more personal computing devices; determining that an update in data associated with the one or more personal computing devices has occurred; automatically recording, by a computing device processor, in the custodian profiles, information related to updates to the linked tables and databases that are associated with a corresponding custodian to create a historic record, wherein the information comprises metadata associated with an update including time and date of the update, the updated data associated with the one or more personal computing devices, and original data associated with the one or more personal computing devices prior to the update; automatically presenting a notification via an electronic communication channel to a user device associated with a manager associated with the one or more personal computing devices, wherein the notification comprises the historic record; receiving a response from the user device, via the electronic communication channel, wherein the response comprises notes and documents from the manager associated with the one or more personal computing devices; and applying the notes and documents from the response to the historic record.