Production Preparation Project

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Creating a Production Preparation Project

Reminder: Production Preparation Projects only need to be run on native documents marked up with Blackout. This project is not required when producing images.

What to know

  • If Excels have not been prepared previously either automatically after a markup is placed or the use of the Unhide Excel Content mass action, Excel document preparation will not run automatically.
  • Redacting and highlighting Excels and PDFs with Blackout results in new files that Relativity does not have the functionality to include in a production.
  • When creating a native production in Relativity, Relativity will always use the current file associated with the document object.
  • Relativity must be instructed to switch the current file for each redacted or highlighted document in the production to the proper marked-up file. Blackout provides the Production Preparation project type to perform this update.
  • When run, the Production Preparation project will swap the current file for each document in the saved search to the marked-up file for the selected saved search.
  • The project will lock these documents from being modified further by Blackout so that the document can be safely produced with Relativity without risk of modification by another user.
  • Relativity does not provide redacted extracted text creation for native files. Utilizing this project type will provide the capability of generating this text.

Note: The Blackout Production Lock field is a read only field and should not be manually updated without contacting support@milyli.com first. Manually updating this field can cause documents in a Production Preparation project to get into a corrupt state.

How to do it

After completing redaction and before running the Relativity production, a Production Preparation project can be started from the Blackout | Projects tab.

  1. Click Create New Project.
  2. Select Production Preparation.
  3. The Production Preparation project creation form will be displayed.

The Production Preparation project performs four key functions:

  1. Update documents to Markup set: Updates each document in the saved search to the selected markup set and ensures that the associated file is the active file.
  2. (Optional) Long Text Field for Native Extracted Text: Displays long text fields in the workspaces on the document object. The selected field will have extracted text generated for each document in the saved search taking all markups into consideration.
  3. (Optional) Retain a copy of the redacted document: Will generate a point in time copy of the marked-up document and store it in the document field ‘Blackout - Produced Document’. Each run of the production project will generate a file. Useful for documents that may be marked-up differently on a single markup set to multiple parties.
  4. Lock documents: Each document in the saved search will be locked for modification by Blackout until unlocked. This ensures that the file exported by the RDC will be the correct file.

What else to consider

  • Both the name and saved search are required fields of the create form.
  • After filling out the form and selecting the operations for the project, the ready to run page will be displayed.

Recommended Workflow

How the production workflow is implemented will vary based on case requirements, number of markup sets, and number of concurrent reviews taking place. However, the most common critical path workflow that we support and recommend would look like this.

  1. Identify a subset of Excels or PDFs to be redacted
  2. Redact documents through one of or a combination of manual and automated projects
  3. Quality review the markups
  4. Use Relativity search to create a saved search of marked-up documents to produce natively.
  5. Create and run a production preparation project that includes setting the markup set and creating the redacted extracted text
  6. Create a Relativity Native production and choose the same saved search
  7. Export the production with the RDC
  8. Navigate to the production preparation project and unlock the documents

Running the project

What to know

  • Run time will vary depending on the number of documents and options selected. The following factors all contribute to run time:
    • Updating the markup set will increase run-length based on the number of documents. This process takes longer for PDFs as it also burns in the PDF at this time.
    • Processing redacted text will increase run-length based on the number and size of Excels and PDFs.
    • Retaining a copy of the redacted file will increase run-length based on the number of documents.
    • Locking documents will increase run-length based on the number of documents.

How to do it

  1. After the project is complete, navigate to the Production Preparation project.
  2. Click Run to start the project. Run time will vary depending on the number of documents and options selected.
  3. The running project will be queued into the Blackout agent. Detailed information will be sent back, similar to an image or spreadsheet project.
  4. PDFs included in the project will be burned in during production preparation run.
  5. After the project completes, a status page will be displayed.

What else to consider

  • If any non-Excel or PDF documents are included, they will be automatically skipped and included in the Documents Skipped count.
    • Clicking on this box will bring the user to a saved search of the skipped documents for additional verification.
  • Clicking the Documents Prepared button will navigate to a saved search of all of the documents that have successfully run through the Production Preparation project.

Searching for locked documents

Documents that have been locked for production can be searched by adding the Blackout Production Lock field to a saved search and setting the value to is: Yes.

Production Lock is Yes

Document warnings

What to know

  • If any document fails for any reason, they will be included in a count of Documents with Warnings.
  • Clicking this button will download a CSV that contains information on which documents triggered the warning.
  • This process ensures that the majority of work will be completed and any problematic documents can be addressed individually.

Common failures may include:

  • Document issues preventing the processing of text
  • RSAPI failing or being overloaded in the environment
  • Object manager failing or being overloaded in the environment.

Markup Review Pane

When a prepared document is locked for production review, you can still access the Blackout Markup Review Pane to view redactions and original text. Simply click on the corresponding row to jump to the location of a redaction, or click "View" in the "Original Text" column to view the original text.

Note: The locked version of the Markup Review Pane only displays Markup Review items and not content from other tabs.

Locked Document Markup Review Pane

Unlocking documents

What to know

  • Documents that are prepared for production are locked to prevent additional changes to that document until they are unlocked. This ensures that when the Relativity RDC exports the production, the proper file is selected for export.
  • This protection is in place as the production export always pulls the active file, even if that is not the file that was active at the time of running the Relativity production.
  • Once the production has been exported, there may be many reasons to continue working on the documents such as needing to provide additional markups before producing for another party.

How to do it

  1. Navigate back to the production preparation project.
  2. Click the Unlock Documents button.

Production Unlock Button

  1. A dialogue will display to confirm unlocking the documents. The unlock project will be queued into the Blackout project queue and a loading indicator will be displayed. The operation could take several minutes depending on the number of documents.
  2. Once the documents have been successfully unlocked, a message will be displayed along with a historical record.

Re-running the project will re-lock the documents in the saved search.

Note: Extracted text and copy retention
Running the project a second time will regenerate the extracted text over whatever was added to the field in the first run. If retaining a copy of the document was selected, an additional copy will be created.

Accessing retained copies of the document

How to do it

  1. Using the Relativity viewer, navigate to a document that was prepared.
  2. Edit a layout and add the Blackout - Produced Documents field to the layout.
    • All copies that have been created of the file will be contained in this field.
  3. Click on the desired file. The Blackout Produced Document Layout for that file will be displayed.
    • From this layout, click on the produced file link to download the file. Clicking on the Open in Viewer link will open the file in the Relativity Viewer.
    • Clicking on one of these files will display the Blackout Produced Document Layout for that file. From this layout, click on the produced file link to download the file or click on the Open in Viewer link to open the file in the Relativity Viewer.
    • Choosing this option will open the file in a pop-out viewer.
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