This step creates redacted copies of the files and loads them back into Relativity. This is performed by the sub-tab Create Redacted Documents. Click the tab and then click on New Create Redacted Documents button to create a job. This will open a form which is required to be filled.
Field Description:
Name: The name of the task.
Description: The description of the task.
Saved Search: Select a saved search.
Document Count: Is read-only and displays the document count in the selected saved search. It is overwritten by Relativity when the task is saved.
Status: It displays the status of processing. At the end of processing, the status value will read Process complete at … The processing status doesn’t indicate whether the process was able to create the redacted copies of the documents successfully. It just indicates that the processing is completed. To check whether or not all the documents are successfully processed, check the Exolution Redacted File Created Date and Exolution Error fields.
Load options: This offers three options to create redacted files: Associated Object, Original Document, and Separate Redacted Document. The following describes each option:
Associated Object: Creates an associated custom object, namely ExolutionRF, to store a redacted copy of the document and links it with the original document. ExolutionRF stands for Exolution Redacted File. It has the following fields:
Name: Name of the custom object. It is generally named as Control Number + “_Redacted”
DocIdentifierRF: Stores the Control Number or the document identifier field. It is a one-to-many field, so one object can store more than one distinct Control Numbers
RedactedFile: Stores the native redacted Excel file. The full text stored in this field is extracted by Relativity
RedactedFile Text: Full text extracted from the native Excel file
Version: Stores a version of the redacted file. It is useful to track the redacted file version when more than one copy of the redacted files are created with different redactions.
Original Document: Creates a redacted file at the same location as the original unredacted file. The users then can link the documents to the original unredacted file or the redacted one using the Swap Files tab as they need. When the redacted files are created, the documents are still pointing to the original file.
Separate Redacted Document: Creates a separate document record for each redacted copy of the files. The control number of the new redacted document is that of the original unredacted document suffixed with the value provided in the suffix field. The metadata fields are not propagated from the original unredacted document to the new redacted document.
Suffix: This field is visible and used only when the Separate Redacted Document is selected in the Load Option. It is the suffix used to create a new document. If a document with the original document’s control number + suffix exists, then the process will warn the user and won’t start the redacted file creation process.
Exolution File Version: The value provided in this field is used to populate the Relativity field Exolution File Version. It helps to identify a certain redacted copy when a document has multiple redacted copies of the file with different redactions.
Redaction Label: The following are the redaction label options:
No Label: This option skips labeling the redactions.
Long Label: Applies the long labels associated with the color-coded redaction type. It is the phrase before the “|” character in the redaction name. e.g. Personally Identifiable Information.
Short Label: Applies the Short labels associated with the color-coded redaction type. It is the phrase after the “|” character in the redaction name. e.g. PII.
Custom: Allows users to provide a custom label for all the redaction types.
Custom Label: This field is visible only when the field Redaction Label is set to “Custom”. The value provided in this field is used as the redaction label for all the redactions.
Password Protect and Password: This pair of fields apply structure and sheet level passwords to the redacted documents to protect them from accidental changes.
Apply Stamp: If checked, this facilitates putting a stamp like Confidential, Highly Confidential etc. in the selected header/footer location. This is not a bates stamp with sequential numbers.
Stamp Location: Locations where the stamp can be placed. Left, center, or right, Header or Footer.
If Value Exist: If the selected location of the stamp already has data, then this field provides options to skip stamping, prepend, append, or overwrite it.
Stamp Value: The stamp language, like Confidential, Highly Confidential, Attorney’s Eyes only etc.
The following is description of each button on the right-panel.
Create Redacted Files: It creates the redacted copies of the files, leaving the original files intact. It also populates the fields Exolution Error, Exolution Extracted Text,Exolution Redaction List, Exolution Redacted File Created Date and Exolution Redacted File Current. The field Exolution Extracted Text is populated with the full-text created from the redacted version of the Excel files and the field Exolution Redaction List is populated with the list of the redactions. If any document fails, then Exolution Error field is populated with the Error reason.
Create Redacted Documents only works on the Excel documents that were successfully added to Exolution. If the selected Saved Search has non-Excel files or an Excel file that failed to Add to Exolution then they are ignored during the process. Also, if any of the document already has a redacted file then it is over-written by this process.
Create Associated Objects: This option works only when the Load Option is set to Associated Objects. It creates Associated objects from the existing redacted files. This is useful when users first creates redacted files with Load Option set to Original Document and then the user decide to create associated objects.
Create Associated Objects: This option works only when the Load Option is set to Separate Redacted Document. It loads the existing redacted files in separate Relativity documents. This is useful when a user first creates redacted files with Load Option set to Original Document and then the user decides to load them in separate redacted documents.
Check Object Exists: Check if an associated object exists for each document in the selected saved search.
Set Active redacted file: When a user creates redacted files, they are set as active files in case when more than one redacted file is created for that document. Exolution allows creating multiple redacted files for a document with different redactions. They can be saved in separate associated objects. If the user needs to export a specific version this button sets to make that version, based on the associated object, n active redacted file.
Important: For any documents already displaying the redacted copy of the file, this process makes the documents display the original file before running the redactions. If any copy of the redacted file already exists for any document in the saved search, then the process overwrites it. The process also overwrites values in the fields Exolution Error, Exolution Extracted Text, Exolution Redaction List, Exolution Redacted File Created Date, and Exolution Redacted File Current.
QC Check: Check the values of the fields Exolution Error and Exolution Redacted File Created after the process is completed. If the Exolution Error field has a value or the Exolution Redacted File Created field value is not “Yes” then the Create Redacted Document task has failed for that document.
The documents are still pointing to the original files at the end of the Create Redacted Documents process. In order to view the redacted files in the Relativity viewer, go to the Swap Files tab and create a new Swap Files object. It takes a saved search as an input. If you choose to create separate redacted documents option then you don’t need to link or lock the documents.
Swap Files
The Swap File page performs the following 3 functions on the documents in the given saved search:
- Link original or redacted files to the document records
- Lock or unlock the documents
- Freeze document redactions
The buttons Link Original Files and Link Redacted Files associates the documents with the original unredacted file and the most recently created redacted file respectively. While doing these swaps, the files remain intact in the Relativity backend repository. This buttons just change the entries in the database and cleans the cache to make newly associated files visible in the Relativity’s native file viewer.
The button Lock Documents locks the documents to protect them from the swap process or re-running the Created Redacted Documents process on them. This is important to ensure that once the redacted files are associated in Relativity for production, no users can swap the files back to the original while the production in running. Clicking on the Link Original Files or Link Redacted Files button raises an error when any of the documents in the saved search is locked. The button does exactly opposite to the Lock Documents button.
The button Freeze Redaction Propagation freezes redaction propagations to the documents in the selected saved search. This will prevent the document from receiving redactions from any duplicate sheets or documents. The direct redaction edit is still allowed, and the users can edit redactions by directly opening them in Exolution. Any redaction applied directly on the documents with the Redaction Propagation Frozen does propagate to the other documents without propagation freeze. The button Freeze All Redactions Freezes all redactions including the redaction propagation and the direct redactions. The button Unfreeze Redactions unfreezes all the redactions including redaction propagation and direct redaction change.