Background:
There now exist many different types of systematic review approaches, all which require slight deviations from the traditional effectiveness review approach. This may be off-putting for novice reviewers who may require further guidance in structuring their review protocol and question. Systematic review software may be able to support this process.

Objectives:
To develop a software program to streamline the review process in terms of protocol development by using standard and customisable templates.

Methods:
We took an agile software development approach with a particular emphasis on ongoing collaboration between the end users and software developers. Throughout the development an international user group provided feedback on the software functionality to enable iterative changes throughout the development process.

Results:
The software is now available and supports protocol development and customisation for different review types. This will hopefully streamline the review process, particularly for novice systematic reviewers.

Conclusions:
An agile software development approach combined with wide consultation and user testing can facilitate systematic review software design and development. SUMARI is designed to assist researchers and practitioners in fields such as health, social sciences and humanities to conduct systematic reviews. This new software can support systematic reviews and guideline developers to create systematic reviews for a diverse range of questions.

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
Patients and consumers should be involved in the process of developing systematic reviews.