Creating a Blackout Native Excel Job

Blackout supports the ability to create and run Blackout jobs against Native Excel files in your workspace. Creating automated native excel markup jobs is quick and easy and this guide will help you get started right away.

Creating a Blackout Native Excel job in Relativity is similar to creating a Blackout Image-based job. To get started, navigate to the Blackout tab in your workspace and click the New Native Blackout Job button.

Configuring a Job

Job Name

The Job Name field is a required field. Input a unique, descriptive name to identify the Blackout job. This also helps keep your jobs organized.

Saved Search

The Saved Search field is a required field. Specify the saved search that contains the documents Blackout will review. The dropdown will be populated with all existing saved searches that the current user has access to. If you do not have an existing saved search for the documents you want Blackout to review, you must create a new saved search.

Blackout Rule Groups

A Blackout Rule Group is a Blackout Markup Configuration that contains one or more Blackout Rules. Blackout Rules define the criteria Blackout will use to search documents and determine where to apply markups. A Blackout Markup Configuration consists of Markup Type (redaction or highlight), Markup SubType (redaction type or highlight color), Markup Text (if applicable), and Markup Scope (word, line, paragraph, block, page, or document). The single Blackout Markup Configuration will be applied to all Blackout Rules contained in the corresponding Blackout Rule Group.

To delete a Rule Group at any time, click the red x () to the left of the Rule Group. A warning message will appear to prompt you to click OK if you are sure you want to delete the selected Rule Group.

To create a Blackout Rule Group, first select the markup type, either redaction or highlight, based on the type of Blackout Rule you’d like to establish – either to redact sensitive words, phrases, or numbers before producing documents or to call attention to them for later review.

Redacting and Highlighting Cells with Blackout

There are multiple options for specifying exactly how you want Blackout markups to be applied to excel documents. To get started you will need to select a markup scope for your rule group. Markup scope for native excel jobs differs from image jobs. These differences will be detailed below.

Note: All markups made in this guide were using this public records document - feel free to download and give it a try yourself! Native Excel Sample Worksheet

Markup Scope - Cell

Redacts or highlights the entire cell matched by the Blackout Rule. There are three different markup sub types available.

Black
Text
White

The following image shows a sample of a document with these three types of markups placed on it.

The following tables detail key information that will help you use the different markup subtypes more efficiently. This section details how these selections work with different parts of an excel document such as comments or hyperlinks.

Redacting Comments with Cell SubType
Black	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Text	The entire comment will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it will be blank.
White	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Redacting Hyperlink with Cell SubType
Black	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Text	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it is replaced with [REDACTED]
White	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Redacting Sheet Names with Cell SubType
Black	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
Text	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
White	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]

Note: Sheet name redactions will always have the index on the tab to ensure that there is no way that two sheet names will be identical.

An example of what the sheet name looks like after being redacted is below:

Markup Scope - Word

Redacts the matched Blackout rule beginning with the first character and ending with the last character that matches the Blackout Rule. The only markup subType available with this

Available Markup SubTypes:

Text

Important considerations:

If the Markup text is blank, and the rule will match exactly with the contents of the cell then the contents of the cell will be removed.

If there is Markup text entered and it does not match the entirety of the contents of the cell, Blackout will only replace the matched rule

Redacting Comments with Word Redaction scope
Text Redaction SubType	Only the matched text is replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it is replaced with [REDACTED]
Redacting Hyperlinks with Word Redaction scope
Text Redaction SubType	The entire hyperlink will be removed
Redacting Worksheet names with Cell redaction:
Text Redaction SubType	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]

Markup Scope - Row

Redactions or highlights the entire row where the Blackout Rule match appears.

Available Markup SubTypes:

Black
Text
White

Redacting Comments with Row Scope
Black	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Text	The entire comment will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it will be blank.
White	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Redacting Hyper Links with Row Scope
Black	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Text	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it is replaced with [REDACTED]
White	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Redacting Sheet Names with Row Scope
Black	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
Text	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
White	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]

Markup Scope - Column

Redacts or highlights the entire column where the Blackout Rule match appears

Available Markup SubTypes:

Black
Text
White

Redacting Comments with Column Scope
Black	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Text	The entire comment will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it will be blank.
White	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Redacting Hyper Links with Column Scope
Black	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Text	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it is replaced with [REDACTED]
White	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Redacting Sheet Names with Column Scope
Black	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
Text	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
White	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]

Markup Scope - Sheet

Redacts or highlights the entire sheet where the Blackout Rule match appears

Available Markup SubTypes:

Black
Text
White

Redacting Comments with Sheet Scope
Black	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Text	The entire comment will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it will be blank.
White	The entire comment will be replaced with the text [REDACTED]
Redacting Hyper Links with Sheet Scope
Black	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Text	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with the entered text. If no text is entered it is replaced with [REDACTED]
White	The entire hyperlink will be replaced with [REDACTED]
Redacting Sheet Names with Sheet Scope
Black	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
Text	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]
White	Entire sheet name is replaced with REDACTED_[SheetIndex#]

Articles in this section