Not all evidence arrives as a document from the target. A management call, an architect's whiteboard, your own notes from a site visit: analyst files are where that material lives.
Where they live
In a project, analyst files sit under Evidence, alongside the request list and the software analysis, split into three tabs by what the material is:
- Team Notes — working papers, memos and internal commentary from your team.
- Other Materials — external documents, third-party reports and web sources you gathered rather than received from the target.
- Meeting Transcripts — uploaded or pasted transcripts, mined for claims.
What belongs here
- Call and meeting notes. What management said, when, and who was in the room.
- Transcripts and recordings of interviews, where you have consent to keep them.
- Working material — your own analysis, spreadsheets, comparisons.
- Third-party outputs you commissioned: a penetration test, a code audit, a scanner report.
Why put them in the project rather than a folder on your laptop
Because then they can be cited. A finding that rests on "the CTO confirmed there is no disaster recovery test" is far stronger with a timestamped note behind it than with a recollection. Analyst files are retrieved and cited like any other material, with the locator pointing at the passage or the moment in the transcript.
They are marked as internal
Analyst files are distinguished from material the target provided. That distinction matters twice:
- In the report. A reader can tell a finding resting on the target's own documents from one resting on your notes of a conversation.
- On a share. Internal working material is not exposed to an external reader just because they can see the report.
What not to put here
Anything you would not want quoted back in a dispute about the transaction. Analyst files are part of the project record.
Availability
The analyst files workspace is part of the plans that include it. Without it, project material is limited to what you upload as documents.