Getting started
SysRevAI is a platform installed on your institution’s own server for systematic and scoping reviews with AI assistance. This chapter takes you from zero to having the software downloaded and the licence in hand.
What SysRevAI is
It covers the whole review workflow: protocol, reference import and deduplication, title/abstract screening, full text, data extraction, risk of bias, GRADE synthesis and exports (PRISMA 2020 diagram, Word, Excel, RIS). AI is there as an assistant: it prioritises, suggests and summarises, but every decision is made by a person and logged.
Data never leaves your server. AI calls use your own key and can be switched off review by review.
Try it without installing
To see how it works before installing anything, create a 30-day trial account at sysrevai.com/prova. You can invite up to 5 people and run a real review (up to 3 reviews, 500 MB of PDFs and a small AI budget per team). On day 20 you get a notice; on day 30 the account is blocked and you can only export the data, and 7 days later it is deleted. Before that, export everything from Profile → My data and import it into your own installation.
What you need
PHP 8.2 or later, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6, Apache with mod_rewrite or Nginx, HTTPS and the ability to schedule a cron job every minute. A modest VPS (2 vCPU, 2 GB) is plenty for a team.
pdo_mysql, mbstring, curl, zip, json and openssl. The installer checks them all in its first step.
Create a database and a user with full rights on it. Note the user name and password.
Download the ZIP at sysrevai.com/download. You get the licence number on screen and by e-mail.
The licence number
Its format is SRAI-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX. It is free, identifies your installation for updates and is valid for one domain and up to 10 active users. The installer asks for it at step 7 and it is mandatory: it is always validated with sysrevai.com and cannot be skipped.
It works without an AI key too
You need no AI key to install or to run a review. The assisted features (screening and conflict proposals, prioritisation, pre-extraction, summaries, chat with the article) switch on once you add a Claude API key under Admin → Claude (AI). See chapter 3.
Did this chapter help? Tell us what is missing via Contact.