Restore an Exported Everlaw Database

Sometimes it's necessary to reopen a closed case. If you have exported an Everlaw database, you can import the documents, metadata, and review work into a new database to once again work on the matter. The process of re-opening an exported database (a database restoration) follows the steps of a processed upload with a load file to make the documents accessible, and an import of the review work (work product) to get the codes and annotations applied to the documents. If you also have exported a list of previous users, information from Storybuilder, or Search Term Report terms, you can import those items as well.

Use this article for guidance on the database restoration process. 

Self-managed restoration

You can restore your documents and work product in two steps. First, follow the steps of the upload in the Upload Processed Data with a Load File article. Then, to import the work product, upload the work product CSV from your export through the Codes tab of the Project Settings page.

Upload the data

To upload your Everlaw export, follow the steps in the Upload Processed Data with a Load File article. This section describes how the restoration process differs from a typical processed upload.

Upload includes documents with the control number # prefix 

If your exported documents were originally uploaded into Everlaw natively, they require adjustments to be loaded through the processed uploader. You can do this during the upload — you don't need to adjust them outside of Everlaw. 

Because the # prefix is reserved for natively uploaded documents, at the Identity fields page, Everlaw will prompt you to use the Assign Bates Prefix feature to reassign the documents with the # prefix to a prefix you assign. For example, you could assign "#_" as the prefix. You can use any prefix that does not already exist in the database. If you use a prefix already in the database, you might create Bates numbers in this upload that overlap with those of documents already in the database.  

Once you assign an adjusted prefix, Family metadata is automatically changed to reflect the new prefix you assign and no additional changes to the individual image, native, and text files are necessary. 

If your upload doesn't include documents with a “#” prefix in your document set, the option to assign Bates prefix will not appear.

Here are some additional steps to be aware of:

• At the Metadata Type and format page, Everlaw detects the data type for each metadata field. Confirm that the fields are typed correctly before proceeding from this page. In particular, be sure that the Family field is typed as a Text field.
• After the Verify files step, you may encounter a warning of missing files. Some natively uploaded documents do not generate images and/or text, in which case the export will not include these files. For example, spreadsheets are typically not imaged and will not have an image file. You can reprocess these files for images and/or text files at this stage.

Import work product

To import work product, follow the steps in the Import Codes and Other Review Work to Documents in Your Everlaw Project article. The work product import includes:

• Ratings
• Codes, including Freeform codes
• Binders
• Storybuilder information (labels, description, relevance)
• Editable metadata (if any was created)
• Notes
• Highlights
• Redactions
  
  

Before you import the review work, you should check the contents of your review work CSV in a spreadsheet tool like Excel. In the spreadsheet tool, you should check the following:

• Bates prefixes: Before importing the review work CSV, change any # prefixes in the Begin Bates column to the newly assigned prefix you selected in the upload (e.g., “#_”). If your CSV includes the End Bates column, either remove the column or change the prefix of the End Bates as well (e.g. “#” → “#_”). If no documents with the # prefix were in your upload, you don't need to take this step.
• Due to Excel’s cell character count limit, the contents of one cell may spill over to the following cells/rows, resulting in a malformed review work CSV. This occurs when the Annotation data value is too long.
  To check whether the CSV is malformed:
  • Count the number of values in the Bates/Control # column (first column of CSV). This should be the total number of rows, minus 1 for the header row. 
  • Compare this number to the number of documents in the upload. These two numbers should match.
    If the number of rows in the spreadsheet is greater than the number of documents, you can submit the CSV to the Everlaw team for assistance. Email support@everlaw.com to start the submission.
• Storybuilder: If there are no values in this column, you can either leave it or delete the column entirely.

Here are a few other considerations for importing work product:

• The work product import cannot complete if a user who created a binder in the originating project is not a user on the current project. Reach out to support@everlaw.com for questions about importing binders. 
• If the work product CSV includes editable metadata values, select Create new metadata.
  

Early Case Assessment (ECA) Databases

For the most complete ECA project restoration, you should have exports from both the ECA project and the Review project. To restore review work applied to all relevant documents:

1. Make sure all documents with review work are promoted to the review project. To do so, run an advanced Bates search for all the Begin Bates values in the work product import. Then, promote that document set to the review project.
2. Import the review work CSV in the review project

Everlaw-managed restoration

The Everlaw team can restore the database for you. To have the Everlaw team complete the database restoration:

1. Start a processed upload.
2. Select Have Everlaw Team perform the upload. Leave a note in the instructions indicating the submitted file is a database restoration, and our team will be in touch to assist.
   

Additional exported materials

In addition to the documents and review work, there are additional exported materials that you might want to import into the new project:

• Project Users: Follow the steps to import users from a CSV. The import cannot complete if a permissions group from the originating project does not exist in the new project. 
• Search Term Reports (STRs): If you exported a CSV of an STR, follow the steps to import the terms when you create an STR in the new project. 

Storybuilder 

The Evidence (documents), Labels, Description, and Relevance are included in the work product CSV created with the project export. When that CSV is imported, the documents are added to the Story Timeline, along with any description, relevance, and labels that had been applied to them. The labels are also added into the relevant category so they can be added to additional documents.

If you exported People profiles and Drafts and/or Depositions (as DOCX files), you can restore most of your story. To restore:

• People Profiles: Follow the instructions in our Timeline article to import the exported profiles
• Drafts and Depositions: When you create a new Draft or Deposition in your new project, choose to import a DOCX file. You can import each of your exported Drafts and Depositions as a new Draft or Deposition. If you separately retained the transcripts and video transcripts of completed depositions, you can upload these as you create the new depositions.
  If a document was added as evidence within the body of Draft/Deposition, and that document has been re-uploaded with the same Bates number into the new project, it will be added to the evidence panel of the Draft/Deposition and linked within the body.

Here are some additional considerations when you restore a Story:

• If you added a highlight to the Story in the original project, that document/highlight is not added to the Story in the new product.
• Labels that were not added to any documents in the originating project are not preserved. Only the labels that were applied to documents will be created in the new project
• Versioning settings are not preserved. If a document added to the Story in the original project had multiple versions, all the versions imported into the new project are added to the Story Timeline.
• Testimony cannot be exported and reimported