Onward research lets you run a full follow-up report on any related person or organisation directly from within a parent report. It keeps all the research for a full investigation in one accessible place, so you don't need to switch between reports or re-enter subject details to dig deeper into a connection.
Findings from onward research flow back into the parent report - updating the related entity card, risk scores, and summaries - while each child report is also a full report in its own right and now nests directly underneath its parent in the Reports tab.
ℹ️ Who is this for?
Onward research is now available to all Xapien customers. Anyone who can run a report can run onward research from within one.
How to run onward research
Open the parent report and navigate to the Related Entities section for the person or organisation you want to investigate further.
On the related entity card, click 'Run report'.
Choose the report template you'd like to use for the onward research. You can use the same template as the parent report, or select a different one depending on the depth of research you need.
Click 'Run report' to kick off the onward research.
You don't need to re-enter your subject's details - Xapien uses the information already gathered about the related entity in the parent report to start the investigation.
Following progress
Once onward research is running, you'll see a live status update on the related entity card as the report progresses through each stage:
Queued - the report is waiting for a slot to become available
In progress - the report is actively generating
Complete - the findings are ready to view
You can navigate away from the parent report while onward research runs. It will continue in the background and you can come back to it at any time.
Viewing the results in the parent report
Once onward research is complete, the findings appear directly in the related entity card within the parent report. This includes:
A risk summary for the related entity
Key findings surfaced during the onward investigation
The parent report also updates automatically to reflect the new information:
The executive summary and section summaries refresh to include findings from the onward research
Risk scores for the Related Entities section update based on what onward research has uncovered
If you export the parent report to PDF, completed onward research is included in the export.
How nested reports work
When you run onward research from within a report, the resulting child report is nested directly underneath its parent. Parent reports and their onward research are connected, so the full investigation lives in one place rather than as scattered, standalone rows.
Automatic nesting - each onward research report is grouped under the parent report it was generated from, with no extra steps
Everything in one place - a parent report displays all the onward research reports run from it, so it's easy to see where each follow-up investigation originated
Always linked - child reports stay connected to their parent, so there's no need to search through your reports to find the context behind a follow-up
This replaces the previous flat list with a clear hierarchy - reducing clutter and making it easier to follow the flow of an investigation.
Accessing the child report on its own
Each onward research report is a full report in its own right. You can open it directly from the related entity card in the parent report, or from the nested view beneath the parent report in the Reports tab.
For more on finding and filtering reports, see How do I access my completed reports?
Worth noting
Onward research cannot currently be run from within a child report - you can only run a report on related entities from the original parent report.
Onward research reports require the same risk framework - child reports must use the same risk framework as the parent. Cross-template risk conversion is not yet supported.
If you have any feedback on onward research, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or use the Help widget in the platform to contact support.