Concordance DAT File Format – Save Evidence Report Details

The concordance DAT file is useful to import electronically stored data into the Concordance database. It is a delimited text file with .dat file extension. Therefore, it contains the metadata of the document and related OCR data for the record. In a digital forensic investigation, a concordance database is used for legal proceedings.

Evidently, It allows accessing the evidential files remotely during the court proceeding. Concordance DAT file format is easy to access with the help of any text editor. In other words, one can easily open and view these files using a text editor like notepad, or any file supported software.

In some court proceedings, an evidential file in the DAT file format is needed for the admissibility of the court. So MailXaminer Email Examiner Software provides an option to convert evidential email files into Concordance file format in an easy way. In this blog, the reader will go through the features of the DAT file, and the procedure to convert evidential files into Concordance file format using Email Forensics Software.

Key Features Associated with Concordance DAT File

DAT files have delimited fields of information related to the name and locations of image files, document unitization, and other documents. The information represents using the field separator, string delimiter, and newline placeholder. Concordance is a standardized file format, mostly used in litigations. It uses simple and flat-file database DAT files. Also, it is one of the most common file formats that users trust widely in the litigation support industries and legal information technologies. It can be used to transfer and exchange data load between vendors, clients, etc. Some highlighted features of the DAT file, are given below:

• It provides easy management for a high volume of documents collected during the forensic case investigation.
• It supports a wide range of documents without any kind of hassles.
• DAT file includes all the metadata associated with emails & attachments.
• It provides the location path for extracted images that the database can link with their corresponding document.
• Concordance can provide remote access during the case proceedings in the courtroom.
• The DAT file format may integrate with different litigation technologies.
• Coded document information & OCR file information is included for associated documents that can be helpful in the investigation process.

Open and Analyze Database

The analysis of the Outlook PST file help investigators to obtain information related to Outlook emails. This tool allows opening and examining the Outlook PST files in different views such as Message, Hex, Properties, Message Header, MIME, HTML, RTF and Attachments. During the digital forensic investigation, each view provides different and hidden information related to the email.

Save Information in Concordance DAT File Format

Generation of Concordance load file corresponding to the desired email data file is possible through the Export option of the software. To save the required email data in DAT file format is not a tough task. Users can select any number of email files by tick marking the box corresponding to emails and then select the Export option. The tool will provide several Output file formats including Concordance to export selected files. There are following steps to export evidence email files into Concordance file format –

Step-1. Firstly, open the Search section of the software. In the Email tab, users can view all the email files scanned within the added evidential file.

Step-2. Users can select any number of email files to export or convert the email files into the Concordance file format. For this, select the emails by marking the checkbox corresponding to email and then, select Export option from the navigation bar.

Step-3. Now, select Export Selected Items from the export options. In case, users need to export the complete folder, they can also select Folder Export option.

Step-4.  Here, select Concordance as Output Format. In the next step, provide any Job Title and Destination Path to save the resultant file.

Conclusion

Concordance DAT file is the database file that we use to import the electronically stored data to the Concordance database for the legal procedure. A Digital Forensic Software Tool allows us to examine the Outlook PST file and generate a Concordance load file through the Export option. Hence, users can easily open the Concordance DAT using any text editor or other Concordance file-supporting software.