Settings

The Settings page allows administrators to configure Tractor for your organisation.

Document Export Settings

These settings control the appearance of every PDF produced by an export. They are applied system-wide — there are no per-case or per-document overrides.

Navigate to Settings and find the Document Export Settings card.

Text entered in the Header text field appears centred in the top margin of every exported page. Leave blank to suppress the header entirely.

Text entered in the Footer text field appears centred in the bottom margin of every exported page. Leave blank to suppress the footer entirely.

Watermark

Text entered in the Watermark text field is rendered diagonally across the centre of every page in a large, semi-transparent grey font (e.g. DRAFT, SAR, RESTRICTED).

Enable Include case reference in watermark to append the case reference to the watermark text automatically (e.g. SAR 2025-001). This toggle is disabled when the watermark text field is empty.

Page Numbers

Enable Show page numbers to add "Page X of Y" below the footer text on every page. If no footer text is set, the page number appears on its own.

Export Font

The Export font dropdown controls the typeface used for all body text in exported PDFs. Choose from the following options:

Option	Font
Arial	Arial, sans-serif
Times New Roman	Times New Roman, serif
Courier New	Courier New, monospace
Georgia	Georgia, serif
Verdana	Verdana, sans-serif

All fonts in this list are cross-platform web-safe fonts that render consistently on Linux servers without any additional font installation. The default is Arial.

Saving

Click Save to apply changes. The new settings take effect on the next export — previously generated ZIP packages are not retroactively updated.

Note

These settings are only visible and editable by administrators.

Exemption Templates

Exemption templates are pre-configured rejection reasons that reviewers can select when rejecting a redaction suggestion. Rather than typing a reason from scratch each time, reviewers can pick from a searchable list of standard exemptions (e.g. "S.40 - Personal Information", "S.42 - Legal Privilege").

Managing Templates

Navigate to Settings and find the Exemption Templates card.

Adding a template — Click Add, enter a name (required) and an optional description, then click Save.
Deleting a template — Click the delete icon next to a template and confirm the prompt.

Note

Only active templates appear in the rejection dropdown. Templates can also be managed directly through the Django Admin at /admin/cases/exemptiontemplate/, where they can be marked as inactive to hide them from reviewers without deleting them.

How Reviewers Use Exemptions

When reviewing a document, the dropdown arrow on the Reject button opens a searchable list of configured exemptions. Reviewers can type to filter the list and click an exemption to reject the suggestion immediately with that reason recorded.

For one-off reasons that do not fit an existing template, reviewers can still click Reject directly to open the free-text dialog.

API Keys

Note

This section is only visible and accessible to administrators.

API keys allow external services to create cases programmatically via the REST API. Each key authenticates as a system service account so cases have a stable created_by attribution regardless of staff changes.

Managing API Keys

Navigate to Settings and find the API Keys card.

Generating a key — Click Manage, then Generate Key. Enter a description that identifies the integration (e.g. Case management integration), then click Generate. The key is displayed once immediately after creation — copy it now, as it cannot be retrieved again.
Revoking a key — Click the delete icon next to a key and confirm the prompt. Revocation is immediate; any integration using that key will receive 401 Unauthorized responses.

Using an API Key

Include the key in the Authorization header of your HTTP requests:

Authorization: Api-Key <your-key>

Example — creating a case:

curl -X POST https://your-tractor-instance/api/cases \
  -H "Authorization: Api-Key <your-key>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "case_reference": "2025-0001",
    "data_subject_name": "Jane Smith",
    "data_subject_dob": "1985-06-15"
  }'

Warning

Treat API keys like passwords. Store them in your integration's secret store (e.g. a CI/CD secrets vault or environment variable), not in source code or plain text files.

API keys can also be managed directly through the Django Admin at /admin/authentication/apikey/.