Introduction to Storybuilder and Setting up a Story

Storybuilder is Everlaw’s narrative building toolkit that includes a timeline to analyze key evidence, collaborative deposition prep and analysis tools, and a collaborative word processing space. Storybuilder allows review teams to seamlessly move between their review and post-review workflows. 

Use this article:

• for an introduction to Storybuilder tools and functionality
• to learn best practices for setting up a Story

What is a Story?

Each project on Everlaw has a Project Story.

A Story comprises four parts:

• Dashboard: a space to keep track of your Story activity
• Timeline: Sort and organize key evidence by people, critical events, or other relevant issues 
• Depositions: Prepare for depositions and analyze the transcripts of completed depositions. Each Deposition you create includes:
  • a collaborative text editor to prepare briefs and witness prep binders so that your case team and/or witness feels prepared to enter a deposition
  • tools to reference previous testimony and exhibits (or potential exhibits), and create exhibit lists
  • a chat tool to chat with your colleagues
  • a Summary section
  • a space to upload and analyze the deposition transcript. You can highlight and label important text in your transcript, preserving particularly important snippets as key testimony which can be referenced in other Depositions or Drafts in the Story
• Drafts: a flexible, collaborative word processing tool that links directly to your key evidence.

Storybuilder Permissions

All Project Administrators automatically have Admin permissions on Storybuilder. They can view, edit, and share all Stories in the project, as well as Depositions and Drafts. Project Administrators can also give Storybuilder access to specific groups in the Permissions page.

Note: Additional stories can only be created or hidden by a Project Administrator from the Project Settings page.

Here is an overview of project level permissions for accessing Storybuilder:

• Receive: Users in this group can receive Stories and any associated Drafts and Depositions explicitly shared with them by others. When a Story/Deposition/Draft is shared with a user in this group, the user can be given View, Edit, or Full access permissions on the object. 
• Create: Users in this group with access to at least one Story are able to create Depositions and Drafts within that Story as well as edit, share, and delete the Depositions and Drafts they have created. Permission levels on Everlaw are additive, so groups with the Create permission are able to to receive Storybuilder objects shared by others.
• Admin: This is the highest permission a group can have on Storybuilder. Users in a group with Admin permissions on Storybuilder are able to view, edit, and share all Stories in the project. Users in this group can also administer (view, edit, share, and delete) all Depositions and Drafts in the project, regardless of whether the object was shared with them or not.

Access your Story

Your Story is also the central location to navigate to all other Storybuilder views and objects, which can be done by clicking headers in the top menu. 

To access your Story, select the Storybuilder button on the top navigation bar, or select the Project Story card in the Storybuilder column on the homepage.

When you open your Project Story, you see the Story’s dashboard. Using Storybuilder's side navigation panel, you can navigate between your Story's Dashboard, Timeline, Deposition, and Draft pages.

• To view the Timeline of the Story, select the Timeline tab. To learn more about the Timeline view, visit this help article. 
• To access your Depositions, create one, or search across all transcript content, click the Depositions tab. To learn more about Depositions, you can visit our Depositions articles.
• To access your Drafts, select the Drafts tab. To learn more about Drafts, read our Drafts article.

Share a Story

Required permission: You must have Full Access on the Story. 

Users with Receive permissions cannot access a Story unless it is shared with them.  To collaborate with users, you can share the Story with them:

1. Select Share Story in the side navigation panel.
   
   This opens the Share story dialog.
2. Select the user(s) or user group(s) to share the Story with. Only users with Receive, Create, and Admin permissions are available to share the Story with. 
3. Choose the access levels with the Story:
   
   • View: Users with this access level have read-only permission to the Story dashboard, Timeline, and transcripts associated with Depositions, but are not able to view bodies of Depositions or Drafts, unless the Depositions and Drafts are also explicitly shared with the user.  
   • Edit: Users with this access level are able to view and edit the Story dashboard and Timeline objects, as well as viewing transcripts associated with Depositions, but are not able to view bodies of Depositions or Drafts, unless the Depositions and Drafts are also explicitly shared with the user.  
   • Full access: In addition to the access granted by Edit, users with full access to a Story are also able to share the Story with other users. Note that users with Admin access to Storybuilder are automatically granted Full access to all Stories in the project. 
4. [Optional] Write a message.
5. Select Share.

Story Dashboard

The dashboard is a snapshot of what's going on in your Story. There are several panels that show you what's going on.

Evidence in Story: View a count of documents, highlights, and testimony added to your Story and how many pieces of evidence have been added in the last week. You can adjust the time span to what works best for you and your team. To do so, select the caret or week and choose your preferred timespan.

Suggested additions: You can view how many potentially relevant documents were reviewed in a certain time period. By default, the dashboard suggests documents rated Hot in the past week. If you have Edit permissions on the story, you can customize the suggested additions criteria to suit the needs of your case.

To do so:

1. Select the pencil button to choose which review criteria to display, and for what time span. 
2. Select the X next to the current criteria to remove it.
3. Click into the text entry bar to select which code(s) or rating(s) you’d like to use as your relevant document criteria. If you select multiple codes or ratings, they are treated as an OR, meaning that any document meeting at least one of the listed criteria will be suggested.
4. Confirm the time period.
   You can remove the time parameter entirely by unchecking Only review documents in the last… 
5. When you have selected codes/ratings and time period, select Save. 

Upcoming events: You can view upcoming depositions, which are determined by dates set by a user within a Deposition. Prior depositions, or depositions without a date, are not displayed. 

Tasks: The Tasks section of the dashboard aggregates all tasks across Depositions that are assigned to you or created by you. Your permissions on individual tasks are reflective of your permissions on the associated Deposition. For example, if you have View permissions on a Deposition, you cannot edit the due date for tasks associated with that Deposition. Project Administrators and Organization Administrators  can view, edit, and complete all tasks across all depositions.

You can learn more about task permissions here.

Unread chats: In the top right, you can view which Depositions have unread chat messages. If there are unread chat messages, the icon will have a yellow badge. You can click it to reveal the list of Depositions. Select a Deposition to go to it. If the badge is disabled, that means you either have no access to Depositions, or there are no unread messages.

Recently accessed: At the bottom of the dashboard, you can select recently accessed Depositions and Drafts within your Story. The Recently accessed section updates anytime you access an object and updates when you refresh the page. Recently accessed objects are specific to those you have accessed, not those accessed by others on your Story.

Configure your Timeline

Your Timeline is where you can sort, filter, and analyze all the evidence in your Story.

Rename your Story

Required permissions: Any user with Full Access to a story can give a Story a new name.

The default name for ever Story is Project Story. To rename your Story:

1. Select the title in the top left
   
2. Type in the new name
3. Press Enter on your keyboard.

You can favorite your Story by selecting the star button, which adds your Story to Favorites on your Everlaw homepage. 

Labels 

Labels enable you to organize your information in the Timeline by issues, people, events, and whatever categories you deem important. They can be applied to any document, highlight or testimony in your Story, as well as highlights in your transcripts.  Labels are entirely separate from codes and ratings applied to the documents during review.

Required permissions: If you have Edit permissions on the Story, you can create and apply labels to documents in the Story from the Timeline and from the review window.

Every label must belong to a category. The five default categories are: Events, Issues, People, Depositions, and Drafts. 

You can also apply Story labels directly from document panels in Depositions and Drafts. Learn more about creating and using Story labels.

Choose the document version to display in your Story (prefix priority list)

If you have multiple versions of a single document on the platform, such as a native and a produced version, you can choose which version of the document to display throughout your Story and its associated objects. You might use this feature if you have run a production and want to make sure that only the produced versions of your documents are referenced in your Story. If you prioritize the produced version prefix, that version is always displayed in Storybuilder, even if a user adds the original (# prefix) document. This feature also ensures you never have two or more of the same document version within your Story; only one will ever be displayed.

Required permissions: You must have Edit permissions on the Story to change the Version Settings.

To set your prefix priority list:

1. Go to the Storybuilder Timeline.
2. Select Settings > Version Settings.
3. Choose your order of preference for document versions from the filter bar at the bottom and use the arrows, or drag and drop the prefixes. The versions with prefixes higher on the list are prioritized.
4. When you are finished prioritizing your prefixes, select Submit.

Now, for all documents referenced throughout your Story (including in the Timeline, Depositions, and Drafts), the version with the highest prioritized prefix is displayed. 

For example, when the prefix priority order is first DEF, then ABC, and finally #:

• Document A has three versions: #1.1, ABC123, and DEF123.
  • Based on this prefix priority list, any reference to Document A will display the DEF123 version in this Story.
• Document B has three versions, as well: #2.1, ABC456, and GHI456.
  • Document B does not have a DEF version on the platform, but it does have an ABC version, which is the next prefix on the prefix priority list. Therefore, any reference to Document B will display its ABC456 version.
• Any documents with neither DEF nor ABC versions on the platform will display the control numbered version of the document. 

Select Here's how it works on the prefix priority list to see a visual depiction of this tool.

Set the document name and date priority

Documents added to a Story are automatically named and dated according to the highest prioritized metadata value from a pre-populated name and date priority list in the associated Timeline. This can be configured in the Timeline’s settings under Document names and dates.

Required permissions: Anyone with Edit permissions on the Story can set the priority of metadata fields that Everlaw uses to date and name your documents when they are added to the Story. We recommend that a designated person, such as a Project admin, manages this setting so that it stays consistent.

By default, Everlaw titles the documents in the following order of metadata fields: 

1. Title
2.  Subject
3.  Filename
4.  Bates number
5.  Control number 

The default order of date fields is: 

1. Primary Date
2. Date Sent
3. Date Sent

To edit this priority order:

1. Select Settings > Document names and dates.
2. [Optional] You can add additional fields by typing them into the bottom of the panel. You can remove a field by pressing the red "X" next to it.
3. Drag and drop the fields in their preferred order.
4. Once you have set your priority order, select Save.

Important:  updating the priority list settings does not modify the names or dates of existing documents in the Timeline; it only impacts the documents added afterwards.

If a metadata field is included in the Name priority list, it appears as a renaming option if you click to edit the title of any document in the Story.

 If you choose to edit a document's date value you can select any of the metadata values associated with it, even if they are not on the Date priority list.

Next steps

Once your Story is set up, you and your team can start using it to build your case narrative:

• Add key evidence to your timeline to start labeling and organize it. Read our article on how to Add Evidence to your Story to learn more.
• Create a Deposition and start drafting questions. Read our first article, Deposition 1 of 4: Preparation to learn how.
• Collaborate with your team to write up a memo using a Draft. Learn about Storybuilder Drafts in this article.

Create additional Stories and hide Stories 

Required Permission: Project Administrator 

Storybuilder is designed to have one Story per project. You can have multiple Stories in your project, but it is not recommended. 

You can Create a new Story from the Project Settings page. To do so:

1. Select Project Management   > Project Settings.
2. Select General, then select Stories.
3. Select + New Story  and enter the Story name. 

To hide a Story, select the eyeball under Show/Hide in project

• Note that all associated Depositions and Drafts in that Story are also hidden from all users in their next browser refresh.

Hidden Stories have a line through the eyeball . To make it visible again, select the eyeball again. 

You can learn more about creating and managing multiple Stories in the General Settings article in Project settings.