User Groups and Project Permissions

On Everlaw, project permissions control access to features and tools within projects. These tools include codes, assignment groups, and Storybuilder objects (e.g., Depositions, Drafts). The permissions governing document uploads, document deletions, and project creation are called database permissions. This article focuses on project permissions on Everlaw. To learn more about the difference between project and database permissions, please read this article.

This article covers:

  • Creating a new user group
  • How to configure project permissions and object permissions for user groups
  • How different project permissions interact with each other
  • How permissions are assigned to new features on Everlaw

To learn how to add users to projects on Everlaw, see this help article

Table of Contents

 

Create or delete a group

Required permissions: Project Administrator

On Everlaw, project permissions are granted to user groups, rather than individual users (though a group can consist of an individual user). If a user is in multiple groups, their permissions are a combination of both groups’ permissions, always favoring the least restrictive permission option.  

By default, the Administrators and Reviewers groups are included with all new projects, but you can create a new group with custom permissions for your project. 

To create a new group:

  1. Access the Project Settings page. Select Project Management > Project Settings.
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    The Project Settings page is your control center for project administration.
  2. To manage your user groups, select the Groups tab on the left hand sidebar.
    groups.png
  3. Select + New group in the top right corner. A dialog box opens, showing you the templates you can use to configure the group’s permission settings. There are three options for using templates. You are able to adjust the permissions of any user group you create. 3_copy_group.gif
    You can:
    • Select Empty to create a group with no permissions configured
    • Use one of the Everlaw templates, which contain preset permission configurations based on common roles during review. For example, the Case Leads template gives users in the group the ability to access and utilize most tools on the project, but does not give them administrative rights across the entire project.
    • Select Create new group using an existing group’s permissions to use an existing group on your project to form the basis of the new group’s permissions. New groups that you create are  added to this list for future use.
  4. Give your group a name.
  5. Once you’ve chosen the starting point of your group’s permissions and named the new group, click Create.

To delete any group:

  1. Select thee three-dot menu for that group.
  2. Choose Delete group from the menu.
    Note: If any users in this group are not in any other group, you will see a warning that the user will be removed from the project and that their work product will not be preserved. You can select Cancel and share the users's work product before deleting the group.
  3. Press Delete.

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Configure project permissions

To view and edit a group's permissions, select the three-dot menu to the right of the group name and then choose Project permissions.

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If you are on the Permissions tab, use the dropdown menu to select the desired group.

The Permissions tab shows you a detailed view of each group’s permissions organized by functionality type.

Note: You can also view a group’s permissions in a table view by toggling the Table View button in the top right corner of the Permissions tab. 

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At a glance, you can tell what levels of access the group has by the color of the section headers in the detailed view of the Permissions tab.

  • A green header indicates that the group has access to every tool in the section.
  • A yellow header indicates that the group has access to some tools in the section, but no access to others. 
  • A gray header indicates that the group does not have access to any tools in the section.

For a complete list of project permissions on Everlaw, please see the permissions table at the end of this article.

Different project permissions have different types of permission settings:

  • All-or-nothing: These permissions are set via checkbox, and user groups will either get full access to the tool or no access to it. For example, the Document Export section has four permissions, all of which have two settings: Full access (checked) or no access (unchecked).
    Screen_Shot_2019-01-11_at_6.20.49_PM.png
  • Multiple levels of access: In general, these different permission levels range from None to Admin. Let’s look at the Search Term Report as an example, keeping in mind that other tools, such as assignment groups, prediction models, and Storybuilder have similar permission levels. Search Term Reports has four permission levels: None, Receive, Create, and Admin.Screen_Shot_2019-01-11_at_6.21.41_PM.png
    • None: Users in the group will not be able to create search term reports, nor will they be able to receive search term reports shared by others.
    • Receive: Users in the group can receive search term reports from others, but cannot create search term reports themselves. When a search term report is shared with a user in this group, the user can be given View, Edit, or Full access permissions on the individual search term report.  
    • Create: Users in the group can create their own search term reports. Permission levels on Everlaw are additive, so groups with the Create permission are also able to receive search term reports shared by others.
    • Admin: This is the highest permission a group can have on search term reports. Users in groups with admin permissions on search term reports are able to view, edit, and share and delete all search term reports in the project, regardless of whether the owner has shared it or not.
    • If you change the Receive, Create, or Admin permissions on an object type to None, you are presented with two options for objects the group already had access to:
      • Revoke group permissions on all objects of that type
      • Allow the group to maintain their existing permissions only on those objects.
        For example, a group with Create permissions on search term reports has their permissions downgraded to None. If you select Revoke existing permissions, then that permission group will lose all access to search term reports, including any search term reports they had access to previously. If you select Allow the group to maintain…, then they will maintain access to the search term reports they currently have access to, but will be unable to receive or create any more search term reports. In either situation, they may maintain access to these objects through other sharing, since they had Create permissions. If a user has no other access to an object class after this change, then the decision will affect their individual object permissions as well.
        To learn more about accessing objects please visit this article on sharing or read on to the individual user permissions section. For a complete list of project tools and their permissions, please see the table at the end of this article.

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Administration permissions

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There are three different administration permissions that can be given to a user group:

  • Project Admin: This is the highest administrative permission. Users with this permission have full access to all project settings and functionality. If the Project Admin permission is assigned to a user group, the group will also automatically be given the Codes Admin and Partial Project Document Management permissions, as well as the highest level of permission across all permission categories. 
  • Codes Admin: Users in groups with this permission have full administrative abilities over codes. This includes:
    • Add, edit, and delete for:
      • Codes and categories
      • Freeform codes
      • Conditional rules
      • Auto-code rules
      • Code as previous settings
    • The highest individual categories and codes permissions:
      • Create for code categories
      • Apply for codes
      • Edit for freeform codes.
  • Partial Project Document Management (only available in partial projects): Users in groups with this permission can add and remove documents from partial projects.

Code and rating permissions

Everlaw makes it easy to assign permissions on codes at whatever level of granularity is desired: for the entire coding sheet, across a coding category, or by individual code. To learn more about codes, please see this article

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There are four permission levels that can be assigned to code categories and codes:

  • None: Users in the group have no access to the category or code. They cannot view, search for, or apply the category or code to any documents, even if the code has been pinned in the review window.
  • View: Users in the group can view and search for the category or code, but they cannot apply or remove the code from documents.
  • Apply: Users in the group can view, search for, apply, and remove the category or code from documents..
  • Create (category and coding sheet only): Users in the group can create new codes in the category while performing review

Project Admin or Codes Admin permission is required to edit and delete categories and codes.

The coding sheet is arranged hierarchically, with the entire coding sheet (“All Codes”) at the top, followed by the individual categories, and ending with the codes within the categories. You can use the arrow icons to expand or collapse different levels of the coding sheet.

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Permissions set at one level cascades down to all levels below in the hierarchy. This makes it easy to ensure that a user group has uniform permissions, either over the coding sheet as a whole or within particular categories. For example:

  • Create permission at the coding sheet level sets all category permissions to Create and all code permissions to Apply
    Screenshot 2023-08-18 at 1.21.30 PM.png
  • View sets all the individual code permissions to View as well.Screenshot 2023-08-18 at 1.24.09 PM.png
  • If permission changes result in non-uniform permissions at a given level, the permission for the higher level(s) display as Custom. For example, if you’ve given Apply and View permissions to different codes within a category, the category and coding sheet permissions will both display as Custom.
    Note: If you create a user group prior to adding any codes to your project, the group will automatically receive Apply permissions on any codes you subsequently create. You can change code permissions for the group once the code has been created.
  • If a new code is added to a project with existing codes, the new code’s permission level will reflect the highest permission that the group has on other codes in the same category. For example, if a new code is later added to the “Production Designations” category (shown below), this group would automatically receive View permissions on the new code, because that is the highest existing permission on a code in that category.Screenshot 2023-08-18 at 1.26.41 PM.png
  • If a new category is added to a project with existing codes, the permissions for that category’s codes will reflect the highest permission that the group has on any other code in the project. In other words, if the group has View or Apply permissions on at least one code in the project, all codes in the new category will reflect the same permission.

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Freeform code permissions

Permissions on freeform codes are similar to permissions on categories and codes, except that freeform codes have Edit permissions instead of Apply permissions. Please note that only Project Admins and Codes Admins can create new freeform codes, edit the names of freeform codes, or delete them from the project entirely.freeform_codes.jpg

  • None: Users in the group have no access to the code. They cannot view, search for, or apply the code to any documents, even if the code has been pinned in the review window.
  • View: Users in the group can view and search for the code on documents, but they cannot apply, remove, or edit the value of codes.
  • Edit: Users in the group can view, search for, apply, edit and remove the code from documents. 

To learn more about applying freeform codes, please visit this article

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Metadata permissions

Metadata has a single permissions level: Edit. When Edit is selected, users in the group can edit select metadata fields that have been made editable by project admins.

In the Metadata tab of Project Settings, Project Admins can select which metadata fields are editable. Users in a group that do not have Edit permission on Metadata will not be able to edit any metadata field–even those designated as editable by project admins. Metadata fields that are not explicitly made editable by Project Admins are not editable by any user on the project. Read this article for more information about editable metadata.

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Permission dependencies

Certain features and tools on Everlaw require access to specific parts of the platform for optimal use. For example, in order to view most aspects of project analytics, it is necessary to be able to view ratings. Therefore, granting certain permissions will also automatically grant other permissions.

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The table below lists the permissions that will grant additional permissions. If a user group already has permissions that are higher than the minimum additional permissions, its permissions in that category will not be changed. 

The following permission:

Requires, at minimum, the following permission(s):

Project Admin

Full project permissions (database permissions not required)

Full document access.

Productions: Share

All Codes: View; All User Fields: View

Full document access.

Productions: Admin

Notes and Highlights: View; Redactions: View; All Codes: View; Ratings: View; All User Fields: View

Full document access.

Analytics

Ratings: View; All Codes: View

Full document access.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at support@everlaw.com.

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Individual user permissions

You can view the project and object permissions of any user on your project. Navigate to the Users tab on the Project Settings page. Then, select the button in the Perms. column of the user. 

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The first tab shows you a list of the user's project permissions. If you are also a database admin, the user's database permissions will be listed here, as well.

The second tab shows you a list of the different objects that a user has access to. Within this dialog you can manage permission levels or revoke a user’s access to various objects.

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Future features

New features are regularly added to Everlaw, some of which may be released with their own permissions. To save Project Admins time when we release new features, we automatically grant permissions on new features in accordance with each user group’s existing permissions on related features.

For example, if a new feature is closely related to redactions, groups who have Admin permissions on redactions will be granted permissions related to the new feature. Project admins always receive full permissions on new features.

If a new feature permission requires existing permissions that a group does not already have (e.g., a new analytics feature that depends on access to ratings, but the group currently does not have access to ratings), then the new permission will never be granted to that group. In other words, Everlaw will never automatically expand a group’s current permissions to accommodate a new permission requirement.

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List of project permissions on Everlaw

Below is a complete table of project permissions on Everlaw:

Project permission

Description

Project Admin

Administrative access on all project permissions; create and administer users and groups, categories and codes, user fields, and metadata; perform all actions on the Project Settings page; view user activity and email threading; resolve rating conflicts.

Codes Admin

Administrative access to codes; Create, edit, and delete categories, codes, freeform codes, conditional rules, autocode rules, and code as previous settings; Highest permissions on the coding sheet.

Document Access Management

Search, and interact with a limited set of documents on the project.

Partial Project Document Management (only on partial projects)

Add documents to, or remove documents from, the partial project.

Search Term Reports

None: No access to search term reports;

Receive: Receive shared search term reports;

Create: Receive and create search term reports;

Admin: Admin access to all search term reports in the project.

CSV Export

Export document data to CSV

PDF Export

Export documents and metadata to PDF

ZIP Export

Export documents, load file, and review work to ZIP

Document Download

Download and print documents

Storybuilder

None: No access to any Story objects (e.g., Drafts, Timelines);

Receive: Receive all shared Story objects from other users;

Create: Receive all Story objects and create Drafts and Depositions (Stories must be created by project admins);

Admin: Admin access to all Drafts and Depositions, and “Share” permissions on all Stories in the project.

Productions

None: No access to the Productions page. All users can search for and view documents that have been produced;

Share: Download and share all productions;

Admin: Create, modify, download, and share all productions. Create production report exports. Reselect emails of previous production recipients. 

Analytics

View and manage project analytics

Prediction Models

None: No access to any prediction models;

Receive: Receive prediction models shared by other users;

Create: Receive and create prediction models, but only edit prediction models you have created;

Admin: Full permissions on all prediction models in the project.

Clustering (Beta) - will only be available on databases where Clustering is accessed

None: No access to Clustering 

View: View and interact with Clustering (and Clustering neighbors in the review window)

Admin: Full permissions on Clustering, including reclustering

Document History

View document history for all users in the review window

Batch Updates

Apply batch actions to documents from the results table

Context Panel Updates

Update documents from the review window context panel

Auto-code Override

Override auto-code rules for coding actions

Unitization

Unitize documents from the review window context panel

Permanent Rotation

Rotate PDFs and images permanently in the review window

Assignment Groups

None: No access to assignment groups. All users can receive individual assignments.

Receive: Receive shared assignment groups from other users;

Create: Receive and create assignment groups;

Admin: Admin access to all assignment groups in the project.

Redactions

None: No access to redactions applied prior to production. All users can view redactions that have been burnt in during production;

View: View all redactions and redaction notes;

Create: View and create redactions and redaction notes, but only modify those which the user created;

Admin: Admin access to all redactions and redaction notes.

Notes and Highlights

None: No access to notes or highlights;

View: View all notes and highlights;

Create: View and apply notes and highlights, but only modify those which they created. Create notes on batch redactions (with proper Redactions permission);

Admin: Admin access to all notes and highlights in the project.

Ratings

None: No access to document ratings;

View: View all document ratings;

Apply: Apply and remove document ratings.

Categories and Codes (permissions apply to individual codes)

None: No access to the code;

View: View and search for the code on documents;

Apply: Apply and remove the code from documents.

Create: Add new codes to the category during review.

Freeform codes

None: No access to the code

View: View and search for the code on documents;

Edit: Apply, edit, and remove the code.

Metadata

None: Cannot edit any document metadata fields;

Edit: Edit values for select metadata fields.

 

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Configure object permissions

You can manage the permissions for objects that have been shared with a group.

To do so:

  1.  Navigate to the Groups tap of the Project Settings page.
  2. Select the three-dot menu next to the group's name.
  3. Select Object permissions. This opens a dialog showing the shared objects and the permission level they were shared with.
  4. You can adjust the permission level for each object, or revoke permissions entirely for any object. You can learn more in our article on object permissions.
  5. When you're done, select Done.