Table of Contents
Introduction
“Database” and “project” are important terms for conceptualizing your workflow on Everlaw. This article will explain how the terms are used in Everlaw documentation.
The database/project relationship
Work on Everlaw begins by creating and naming a database. The database is the place where all of your uploaded data will be stored for a particular conceptual matter, and represents the aggregate of the data for that particular matter that you will be billed for. It is also the umbrella source for projects.
Creating a database automatically creates an accompanying complete project. Projects are the user-facing environment where review work takes place. They can contain all or a subset of the documents in your database.
This is a diagram that conceptualizes the database/project relationship:
This short video illustrates the above diagram in greater detail:
To help explain these concepts, let’s walk through an example. Say you create a database called Important Matter. The Important Matter database will have an accompanying complete project that is also called Important Matter. When you log into Everlaw, you will see the homepage for the Important Matter project.
You can create additional projects on the Important Matter database. These projects can be complete projects or partial projects. Complete projects will contain all the same documents as the initial Important Matter project. Partial projects will contain a subset of those documents. The names for all subsequent projects, however, will follow the format “Important Matter — Name.”
Let’s say that you create two additional projects on the Important Matter database, one complete and one partial. You can name partial and complete projects however you like. For the purposes of this example, we’ll call them “Second Complete” and “Partial.” The projects will be referred to as “Important Matter — Second Complete” and “Important Matter — Partial,” respectively, on Everlaw.
Organization admins can upload processed documents directly to the Important Matter database through the processed uploader. Users with uploader permissions can upload native documents indirectly to the Important Matter database through the native uploader page on individual projects associated with the database.
The processed (non-native) uploads page, visible to organization admins. All processed documents for the organization are uploaded through this page.
Users with uploader permissions can upload documents to individual projects through the project’s Uploads page.
Complete projects, whether the initial project or a subsequent project, will always contain all documents that are uploaded to the database, whether these documents are processed or native. They are not created “from” the currently existing complete projects, but rather reflect the contents of the database. Partial projects will only display documents that are directly uploaded to those projects through the native uploader page, or that are affirmatively added to the partial project from a complete project. To read more about complete and partial projects, see the projects article.
Walkthrough scenarios
Here are some scenarios that demonstrate the relationship between the database, complete projects, and partial projects:
- An organization admin uploads documents through the processed uploader tool. There, they are asked to identify the database (not the project) that they would like to upload the documents to. (This is because documents added to a database are automatically accessible from all complete projects on that database.) The organization admin selects the Important Matter database. When the documents are uploaded, they appear in the initial Important Matter project, as well as the Second Complete project.
- An uploader uses the native uploader tool on the Important Matter project to upload a set of emails. These documents are uploaded to the database. Once uploaded, they appear in the Important Matter and Second Complete projects. (They are also included in the database for billing purposes. If a third complete project, Third Complete, is created, these emails will also appear in that project.)
- The emails will not be accessible from the Partial project, unless they are affirmatively added by an admin during upload or from the results table in one of the complete projects.
- An uploader uses the native uploader tool on the Partial project to upload a set of PDFs. These documents are uploaded to the database. Once uploaded, they appear not only in the Partial project, but also in the Important Matter and Second Complete projects.
- An uploader uses the uploader page on the Partial project to upload a set of processed documents. These documents are uploaded by an organization admin or Everlaw support member to the database. Once uploaded, they appear in the Important Matter and Second Complete projects, and must be affirmatively added to the Partial project.
Database and project FAQs
What’s the difference between a database and a project?
A database stores all the documents for creating complete projects, and also distributes new documents to complete projects when the documents are uploaded. When you create a complete project, the documents are not “copied” from another project, but rather are drawn from the database itself.
Additionally, “project” is the term used to refer to the user-facing environment where review work is conducted. The interface has the same format regardless of whether the project is complete or partial. The database is not the “same thing” as the first complete project, though they share a name on Everlaw. Should you create a second complete project associated with the database, there will be no practical difference between the two complete projects, even though one was created initially. This is because all complete projects reflect the content of the database. For this reason, it is useful to think of projects and databases as separate concepts.
In the example above, why do the Important Matter database and the initial Important Matter project have the same name?
Many databases have only one associated project, the initial project. To avoid confusing clients who have a 1:1 database-to-project relationship, the database’s name is also the initial project’s name.
What’s the point of having two different complete projects?
You may want to have different users on each project. For example, you may want to have separate projects for expert witnesses, or for in-house and outside counsel.
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