Organization Admin: Everlaw Staging Drive

Everlaw’s Staging Drive is an optional add-on feature designed to support organizations at the collection stage of eDiscovery. It is a highly secure, structurable repository for native documents — primarily larger container files, like disk images and email archives — prior to you promoting them into either a review or ECA database. Housed at the organization level, it allows you to store files that may exist from multiple cases in a central location and at a reduced cost.

When you’re ready to use them, files in Staging Drive can be directly promoted to any existing database.

This article covers:

• How Staging Drive works
• Storage optimization and limits
• How to access it
• How to upload and manage files
• How to promote them to a database when it is time for review
• How to download files from Staging Drive
• Promotion history
• Frequently asked questions

Requirements

• Your organization must have a paid annual or multi-year contract with Everlaw
• Staging Drive must be enabled for your organization. To enable Staging Drive for your organization, sign up here.
• You must be an Organization Admin to use this feature

How it works

You can upload any type of file to Staging Drive, but keep in mind that processed data will need to be re-downloaded when you are ready to review or move it, as Staging Drive only supports document promotion through the Native Uploader. We also recommend storing all loose files in compressed folders, as Staging Drive has limited storage capacity by design. Any uncompressed folders are automatically compressed upon upload and remain in this compressed state until they are promoted to a database.

Files and folders uploaded to Staging Drive are kept in their pre-processed, original state at the organization level. This allows you to store pre-processed data that may eventually be promoted to multiple databases in a central location, and at a reduced cost.

Once you’re ready to review a set of files in your Drive, you can directly promote them to any existing review or ECA database in your organization via a Promote button located in the Drive. This takes you and your files directly to Everlaw’s Native Uploader to get started.

Storage capacity optimization and limits

Staging Drive is optimized for large native container files — like disk images and email archives. This should be taken into consideration when planning for document upload.

Storage capacity is based on file quantity (not data size). It is limited to:

• 100,000 files per organization
• 1,000 files per folder

Data size only applies during billing. Unlike for databases, this data is not represented in your organization’s Database Sizes page. Instead, you can monitor your Staging Drive total data size at any time by viewing it next to the Staging Drive page header.

Access Staging Drive

Before you start: Staging Drive will not be visible in your organization until it is enabled. To enable Staging Drive for your organization, sign up here.

To access your organization’s Staging Drive, go to Organization home > Staging Drive.

When you add documents and/or folders to your Staging Drive, they appear in the table.

Upload files to Staging Drive 

To upload files from your computer to Staging Drive:

1. Go to Organization home > Staging Drive.
2. Select Upload.
   
   This opens the Upload to Staging Drive dialog.
3. Select browse to search for the folders or files on your computer, or drag and drop them into the dialog.
   
   

   Note

   Folders can only be uploaded individually and will be automatically compressed to ZIP files if they are not already. Pre-upload file compression is required for uploads of 50 files or more.

   Note

   For each upload, you must select files in one single browse or drag and drop action. Otherwise, you will need to create an additional upload.
   The files and/or folders you select are then displayed in a table, and additional input fields are added to dialog.

4. [Optional] In the Default custodian field, enter a default custodian name for the entire upload.
   
   This will apply to all documents for which you do not specify an individual custodian in a future step.
5. [Optional] If you want to add a default or individual description to the files and/or folders, select Add description for folders and documents. A Default description field appears. If you want to enter a default description, do so now.
   
6. [Optional] If you want to add custodians or descriptions to documents individually, select the expand button in the table of files. ZIP folders cannot be expanded.
   
7. When ready, select Upload.
   
   The dialog closes, and the documents appear in the Staging Drive table as they are uploaded.
   

Manage existing files

Staging Drive allows you to:

• View and update file metadata (i.e. name and custodian)
• Edit file descriptions
• Create folders
• Move documents into and out of folders
• Delete documents

View and update files’ names, custodians, and descriptions

Staging Drive allows you to edit a file’s name, description, and custodian to help organize and prepare your files. While name and custodian carry over when files are promoted, you can also edit custodians during promotion. 

To view and update file details:

1. Select the file from the table.
   A details panel appears on the right side of the window. Here you can see the file’s name, description, date uploaded, file extension, size, custodian, and uploader.
   
2. [Optional] You can edit the file’s name, description, and/or custodian:
   • To edit the file’s name, double-click the name at the top of the details panel, or select the panel’s three-dot menu, and select Edit name. Then enter the new name, and hit Enter on your keyboard.
   • To edit the file’s description, select the edit button in the DESCRIPTION field. Then enter the new value.
   • To edit the custodian, select the edit button in the Custodian field. Then enter the new value.

Create a folder

To organize Staging Drive, you can create folders to house and organize your uploaded data. Folder structures are designed only for organization within Staging Drive; they cannot be selected for database promotion. To promote a folder’s contents, you can select and promote all files within it. 

To create a folder: 

1. If you want to create a folder within an existing folder, navigate to that folder.
2. Select + New folder.
   
   The New folder dialog appears.
3. In the Folder name field, enter a name for the folder.
   
4. Select Create.
   The dialog closes, and the new folder appears in the table.

Move files to and from folders

To move documents to and from folders:

1. Select the applicable file(s) using the checkboxes in the table.
   A Move button appears above the table, along with Promote and Delete buttons.
2. Select Move.
   A dialog appears with a list of available folders.
   
3. Select the folder you want to use. You can navigate through these folders using the left and right arrow buttons.
   
4. Select Move.
   The file(s) are moved to their new location. Your location in the folder structure will remain unchanged.

Search for, sort, and filter files

You can search for, filter, and sort files in Staging Drive in the following ways:

• Search by file name using the search input box
  
• Filter by column, by selecting the filter button from the following columns:
  • Name
  • Custodian
  • Date
  • Uploader
  • Promotion
• Sort ascending or descending by column, by selecting the sort buttons from any of the following columns:
  • Name
  • Custodian
  • Date
  • Size
  • Uploader
  • Promotion

Promote files to a database

When you are ready to move your documents to a database (either review or ECA), you can promote them from Staging Drive.

Before you start:  A database must be present to receive the promoted files. If the appropriate database does not already exist, create it now.

To promote documents:

1. Select the applicable file(s) using the checkboxes in the table.
   A Promote button appears above the table, along with Move and Delete buttons.
2. Select Promote.
   
   The Promote data dialog appears. There are two steps: Confirm files and Select database.
   
3. On the Confirm files step, you can review your selected file(s), and select the remove button for any documents you do not mean to promote.
4. Select Next.
5. From the Select database field, select a database from the list provided.
   
6. Select Promote.
   This opens the Upload Natives wizard.
7. Continue as you would any other native upload.

Once files have been successfully promoted to a database, you can view their promotion history in Staging Drive.

View file promotion history

You can identify which documents have been promoted based on the Drive table’s Promotion column, which displays a checkmark along with the number of times the file has been promoted.

To view a more detailed list of the file’s promotion history, select the file to open its details panel. Then select the panel’s Promotion History tab.

Download files

To download a file from Staging Drive:

1. Select the file from the table.
   
   A details panel appears on the right side of the window.
2. Select the three-dot menu. Then select Download.
   

Delete files from Staging Drive

To delete files from your Staging Drive:

1. Select the applicable file(s) using the checkboxes in the table.
   A Delete button appears above the table, along with Promote and Move buttons.
2. Select Delete.
   
   A confirmation dialog appears. 
3. Select Delete to permanently delete the file(s) from Staging Drive.

FAQs

Can I use an Everlaw cloud connector to upload my data into Staging Drive?

Staging Drive does not currently support cloud connectors. 

Can I use Staging Drive to store processed data for future review?

While processed data can be uploaded to Staging Drive, this is not its intended purpose. If you use Staging Drive for processed data, you will need to re-download that data when you are ready to review or move it, as Staging Drive only supports document promotion through the Native Uploader. Once you have the files downloaded, you can upload them to a database using Everlaw’s Processed Uploader.

To learn more about how Everlaw handles the upload of native vs. processed files, visit Distinguishing between native and processed data.

How does billing work?

For questions about billing, please contact your Everlaw representative or support@everlaw.com