Batch Modify

Batch Modify actions let you apply review work to multiple documents at once. This saves time when you want to add multiple documents to a binder, or when you know that all the documents in your search should have the same code(s) applied. 

You can use this article to understand:

• How to apply batch review work actions
• What review work you can apply with a batch action
• How to monitor and undo batch actions

Access the batch actions menu

To prepare for a batch action, access a results table with the documents you want to act on. By default, all documents in a search are selected, as indicated by the checkboxes on the left-hand side of each row.  This means any batch action, by default, is applied to all documents in the search. Deselect specific documents by deselecting the checkbox. 

To apply a batch action to only a subset of documents, you can multi-select or deselect by holding shift and clicking the document you wish to select/deselect.

In the results table, select Batch to perform batch review actions. The options that are available in the menu depend on your permissions. Check out our article on permissions to learn more about each one.

This article covers the Modify option. Other batch actions are described in the following articles:

• Assign: Creating Assignment Groups
• Redact: Redaction
• Coding suggestions: Coding Suggestions (Everlaw AI Assistant)
• Topics and Extractions: Document summaries, topic analysis, custom extractions, and Q&A
• Add to or remove from project: Projects
• Copy work product to project: Copying Work Product Between Projects
• Reprocess: Reprocessing Everlaw and Non-Everlaw Processed Documents
• Assign or remove Other Bates: Assign Other Bates
• Unitize: Unitization Tool
• Delete from Database: Deleting Documents

Use the batch coding panel to apply review work

To apply review work to all of the selected documents:

1. Select Batch > Modify, or the spacebar on your keyboard, to bring up the batch coding panel.
   
   
2. In the coding panel, you can perform a number of batch actions, including:
   • Rating
   • Coding
   • Apply freeform codes
   • Apply coding presets
   • Add notes
   • Add documents to binders
   • Add documents to Storybuilder
   • Update user-editable fields 
   • Resolve coding conflicts (project admins only)
     Once the batch coding panel is open, you will see a summary of changes, along with the total number of documents you are affecting with the batch action.  
3. Choose any combination of codes and other review work to apply to your document. Codes that are mutually exclusive (ie - you can apply only one code in that category) are denoted by the Venn diagram icon. Sections below have more specific instructions for:
   
   • Codes
   • Ratings
   • Free-form codes
   • Auto-coding rules
   • Binders
   • Notes
   • Storybuilder
   • Additional actions
4. When you're done, select Apply. A task will start to apply the selected review work to your documents. For large document sets, the work will not be applied immediately. You can track the task from the Batches & Exports column on the homepage.

Batch coding documents

Here is some additional information on batch-coding documents:

• To add codes, click a code to apply. The label’s text turns green, and the label has a dashed green line around it to indicate it has been selected.
• To remove those codes from your batch, select that code again. The label's text turns red, and the label has a dashed red line around it.
• If you batch add a code that belongs to a mutually exclusive category, the other codes in that category are automatically added to the Remove section and turn red. This implies that by adding the one code, you are necessarily removing the other mutually exclusive codes in that category. If you made a mistake and do not want to apply or remove this code from your batch, click the “x” on the right side of a label.  Click the Apply button to confirm your codes. 
• You can apply codes to these documents using coding presets. To learn more about coding presets, including how to create and modify them, please visit this article.

Batch rating documents

Here is some additional information on batch-rating documents:

• To add ratings, click a rating to apply. The label’s text turn green, and the label has a dashed green line around it to indicate it has been selected.
• To remove ratings, select unrated in the Ratings category. This removes all ratings from selected documents. Click the Apply button to confirm your rating decision. 

Batch apply free-form code

Here is some additional information on batch-applying free-form codes:

• Select the freeform code you would like to apply, enter a value, and press Enter on your keyboard. Then click Apply on the panel to apply the code to all selected documents.
• You can also batch remove freeform codes. To do so, click on a freeform code in the Batch Actions panel and then click again so that the outline on the badge becomes a dashed red line and appears in the Remove section. Then select Apply.

Auto-code rules

Auto-code rules ensure that all documents in a particular context (i.e., duplicates, attachment families, email threads, or document versions) are automatically coded in the same way. For example, a project admin may create a rule to ensure that all exact duplicates of a document are coded similarly under the Privilege category.

Auto-code rules apply to batch actions in the same way that they apply to coding choices on individual documents. That is, if you batch add or remove any codes that belong to a category associated with an auto-code rule, the contextual documents of each batch-modified document will be automatically modified per auto-code rules. You can view the number of documents that could be affected by auto-code rules by clicking the wand icon in the top right corner of the batch coding panel. If you have the Auto-Code override permission, you can also choose to ignore auto-code rules from this dialog. To learn more about autocode rules, see this article.

Batch add or remove documents to binders

Here is some additional information on batch-adding documents to binders:

• You can create a new binder from the batch coding panel. Select Add a New Binder in the binders section, and start typing your binder title. When you hit Enter on your keyboard, and then Apply, all selected documents will be added to that binder. For more information on binders, see this help article. 

Batch add or remove notes

Here is some additional information on batch-adding notes:

• To add a note to the selected documents,  select Add a note in the note section, type and format your note, click Add Note, and then click Apply.
• To remove a note, click Select notes to remove in the note section and choose whether you want to remove all notes or specific notes. 

• For either option, only document-wide notes are removed. Notes applied to highlights or redactions are not removed.
• To remove specific notes, you can search for a specific note you are looking for by entering the note’s content into the textbox. The dropdown displays notes across the entire project, but the batch task only removes the specific notes applied to documents selected in your results table, not across the entire project. To see a count of how many documents contain that note in your selected set, hover or click on a specific note.
• To select a note for removal:
  1. click on the note in the dropdown and then click Select. Only notes that are selected in the dropdown will be removed. Notes containing similar content that are not affirmatively selected in the dropdown will not be removed.
  2. After confirming your selection for removing all notes or specific notes, you must then Apply from the batch modification panel to confirm the removal.

Add documents to Story

Required permissions: Create or Admin permissions on the Story, or Edit permissions on the Draft or Deposition.

You can batch add documents to a Story, Draft, or Deposition within the batch coding panel. These labels are listed at the bottom of the batch coding panel under the Storybuilder category. 

Understand your completed task

Once the task is complete, you can view the results of that task from the homepage card, under the Batches & Exports column. The card provides details about what did or did not complete, including batch coding, rating, and redaction. In the event of a failed updates, you can download a report of the documents that were not updated, e.g. for violating coding rules.

Undo batch actions

From the home page under the Batches & Exports column you can undo batch actions that you executed. To do so, select undo from the card,

This revert any changes you made through that batch action. If you are subject to document access management restrictions, the undo action will still affect all documents initially changed by the batch action.