Productions 1 of 3: Create a Production Protocol

For more information on productions in Everlaw, please see the help articles in our Productions section.

To produce documents on Everlaw, you must first create a production protocol. The protocol specifies both the rules for a production as well as the documents that you want to produce. In Everlaw, you can store any number of protocols for future use, allowing you to reuse previously created protocols. 

This article will walk you through each step of creating a production protocol on Everlaw.

Requirements

Required Permissions: Admin on Productions.
If you have Share permissions on Productions, you can navigate to the Productions page and download/share completed productions, but you cannot create a protocol, initiate a production, or modify them yourself.

Step 1: Access the Productions page

1. Go to Data Transfer > Productions.   
2.  Select +New Protocol on the left panel to create a new protocol. This takes you to the Start a new protocol step.
   
   
3. Choose a template.
   • Select Everlaw Recommended Template to start the production protocol wizard with Everlaw default settings
   • Select any of the template options to to start the production protocol wizard with different defaults that match the specifications of the selected template. Template descriptions are located in the Production Protocol Templates article.
   • Select Use an existing protocol as a template if you have a previously created protocol that you want to use as a template. Then, select the existing protocol from the dropdown menu.
     
4. When you're done, select Continue to get started in the protocol wizard.  

Step 2. Production criteria

The first step of the protocol wizard is to add a production criteria search, which defines the full scope of documents that you intend to produce with this protocol. This step is optional when you are create a protocol. If you do not yet know the criteria that define the documents you will produce, you can skip this step and define the Production Criteria when you're ready to produce.

To define the Production Criteria: 

1. Build a search to define the set of documents to include in your production.
2. To include families in your production criteria, select Search settings on the bottom right of the search builder, and group by attachments.
3. When you're done select Next to move onto the Details step

If you are copying from an existing protocol, the production criteria will be autofilled in the new protocol wizard.

Step 3. Details

In the Details step you name the protocol and define some basic information for documents that you want to produce, including their sort order and how their Bates numbering is configured. 

1. Enter a Name  for the protocol.
2. [Optional] Choose a sort order for your produced documents. To do so, select the , then select the Metadata field or Freeform Code to sort by. Here is some more information about production sort order: 
   • By default, Everlaw uses Native Path as the sort order for a production. Families are grouped together, with the parent documents immediately followed by respective attachments in the Production Bates range, as child attachments are extracted from their parent. The children are also sorted by Native Path within their family.
   • You can add additional sub-sorts. The selected fields will be applied in the order that you choose them.
     
     
   • Custom sorting affects the order of parents of the family, but all children remain sorted in Native Path order within that family. This means that attachment families are kept together regardless of sort order. In the example image below, with a sort order of Custodian then Primary Date, produced documents are grouped by family, and then sorted by Custodian (with children sorted by Native Path still). If multiple documents have the same Custodian, the documents will then be sorted by their Primary Date value:
     
3. Choose the Bates number for your production. There are a number of Bates options that you can modify:
4. Choose your Bates Prefix.
   
   You can use an existing prefix by selecting from the drop-down list, or create a new prefix by typing into the input box (new prefixes are highlighted in yellow as you type).
   If you add any spaces before or after your Bates prefix, they are deleted upon production, but documents grouped by produced versions will account for spaces in the Bates prefix.
   
5. Choose your Starting Number.
   The starting Bates number is the number that will be applied to the first document in a given production. This affects the numbering of subsequent documents/document pages in a production.
   By default, Use next number for the prefix is selected. This means that one greater than the highest used number for a particular prefix is automatically chosen as the starting number for a production.
   For example, let’s say you ran one production using the ‘Prod’ prefix. The last Bates number applied in that production was 4000. If you run a new production with a protocol that uses the ‘Prod’ prefix, 4001 will automatically be chosen as the starting Bates number for the new production. This is to avoid overlapping Bates numbers on the platform.
   If you deselect Use next number for the prefix, you can choose the starting number for your production. If Everlaw detects that there is an overlap with existing Bates numbers, you will see a warning This Bates range may overlap with existing productions.
6. Choose your Padding.
   The number padding is the minimum number of digits you want to reserve for your Bates number (pre-page separator). If the actual number has fewer digits than the number you input, the space between the Bates prefix and number is filled in with zeros. In other words, if you input “6”, and the Bates number is 4 digits long, there will be two zeros appended between the prefix and the number. If the actual number has more digits than the reserved number, there will be no zeros separating the prefix and the number.
   As you make choices about your Bates numbering, the Preview displays how your Bates numbers will look.
7. Select Next to move on to the Image Details step.

If there are concurrently running productions using the same Bates prefix, Everlaw will attempt to reserve the necessary Bates range for each production to prevent overlaps.

Step 4. Image Details

Many production protocols require you to provide the documents in image format. You can think of images as digital snapshots equivalent to what the documents would look like when printed. You can also modify these images during production. For example, you can redact privileged content, Bates number the pages, or apply other desired annotations. 

4a. Choose your Image format

Choose the type of images you will produce. You can select No images, PDF, or TIFF. Here are more details about the options:

• By default, Everlaw produces images as PDFs, which can display color
• TIFF files are black and white
  If you choose to produce as TIFFs, you have the following options for producing JPGs with color: 
  • Do not produce color JPGs: All documents will be produced as TIFFs
  • Produce JPGs if color is detected: Documents with detected color will be produced as color JPGs, while documents without color will be produced as TIFFs. Color autodetection is sensitive enough to catch subtle colors like blue hyperlinks, but won’t mark grayscale documents as color. 
  • Specify documents to produce: Use the search builder to specify a subset of documents to produce as color JPGs

4b. Select the Bates stamp location

By default, the Bates number is stamped in the lower right corner, but you can specify a different location for the Bates stamp on the produced document. Here are more details about choosing the Bates stamp location:

• To change the location of the Bates stamp, select the dropdown under Bates Number and choose the location
  
• Additional space on documents is provided for Bates stamps, preventing any document content from being obscured.

4C. [Optional] Add custom endorsements

You can customize endorsements by Codes applied to the document, Metadata values in your protocol, Text, and/or Processing Error. Here are additional details about endorsements:

• • Endorsements are applied to produced documents, when applicable
  • Image endorsements support characters from Unicode Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement, which includes all letters, numbers, and symbols available on a US keyboard.=
  • For PDFs and color JPGs, you can choose to use red or black text for your endorsements. Endorsement text for Tiffs will always appear in black.

Code endorsements

 You can use document coding to automatically endorse document images.

1. 1. 1. Select the location on the page for your code endorsement.  This opens a dialog to add or remove codes and associated endorsement text to be stamped on images with that code.
      2. Select either a category or code.
         
         Selecting a category will add all of its codes, and editable endorsement text is pre-populated with the name of each code
         Selecting a code will add just that code, , and editable endorsement text is pre-opulated with the name of that code.
      3. Select Save to save your choices.
      4. Once you’ve closed the dialog, choose whether or not to Copy selected codes as native filename endorsements for the next step.

•  

Metadata endorsements

You can stamp metadata values on your produced documents. The process for selecting multiple metadata fields to endorse is the same as the process for selecting multiple codes.

1. Select the location of your metadata endorsement. This opens a dialog to add or remove metadata fields and select the settings for each metadata field.
2. Choose the field.
   
   Here are some additional details about metadata endorsements:
   • If the document has a value for that metadata field, the value will be stamped.
   • If the field is redacted, and the Redaction stamp toggle is turned on in Project Settings, then the metadata value will be replaced with “REDACTED."
   • If that setting is toggled off, no endorsement will be stamped for redacted metadata.
3. Under Endorsement, select which set of production images each metadata endorsement should appear on. 
   
   Here are the details about the endorsement set:
   • Default endorses metadata on all images EXCEPT placeholders for withheld or privileged documents. Non-privileged placeholders, such as placeholders for spreadsheets or audio/video files, will still receive metadata endorsements when this option is selected.
   • All placeholder images endorses all placeholders, including those for withheld and privileged documents. Documents that are not placeholders will not receive this endorsement. You should select this option only when you want to endorse a metadata field specifically on placeholder images.
     
   • You can include any number of metadata fields, and all metadata fields will receive the same placement on the page. If the endorsement text length exceeds the space given, the text will continue onto the next line.
   • Only ASCII characters will be produced. If your metadata includes non-ASCII characters, those characters will be removed from the endorsement.
4. When you're done, select Save.  

Text endorsements 

You can add custom text endorsements to your images, applying your chosen text to all images in a production. To do so:

1. Select the location of your endorsements.
2. Enter your text endorsement in the input box. You can create one text endorsement per protocol.
   
   Here are more details about endorsement text:
   • If a selected center stamp is accompanied by a left or right stamp at the same vertical alignment, text endorsements may wrap after the character limit exceeds allowable space.
   • Generally, the text will wrap after around 30 characters if space is limited.
   • User-determined line breaks will be respected.
   • The preview does not reflect text endorsement wrapping but will reflect any user-determined line breaks.

Processing Error endorsements

You can add processing error endorsements only to placeholder documents. Please see this article for more information on processing error types.

4D. [Optional] Add a watermark

You can add a watermark to the documents you  produce. The sample document on the right of the Image Details page shows a preview of the watermark, along with any applied stamps.

Single-line and multi-line watermarks are supported, and you can adjust the opacity and rotation of the watermark as needed. To add a watermark:

1. Select Watermark.
   
2. Choose your Watermark type.
3. [Optional] Choose settings for Opacity and Rotation. The preview on the right will update its display.
4. If you choose Text for Watermark type, enter your text in the box.
5. If you choose Code:
   1. Select Select codes to watermark to open up a dialog  to choose your codes and edit the watermark text for those codes.
   2. Choose the code(s) or code category/ies from the dropdown.
      Watermarking by code will only apply watermarks to documents with the selected codes. 
      You can add by code category or select specific codes to add. You can adjust the order of the codes by adding codes in the order of your desired prioritization. You can remove codes by clicking on the corresponding X under the Remove column.
      
      A maximum of one watermark will be applied to a document, and watermark priority will be based on the order in which codes appear in the dialog. If a document has multiple selected codes applied, only the first will trigger its associated watermark. In the example below, Water A is on top, followed by Water B, then Water C. If a document has both Water A and Water B applied, only Water A will be the code watermarked on that document.
      
   3. [Optional] Edit the Watermark text. The default is the name of the code. 
   4. Choose whether or not to Copy selected codes as native filename endorsements for the next step. The native filename endorsement will be the text in the Watermark text field for the corresponding code.
      
      Any changes you make in the watermark codes dialog, such as removing a code or entering custom text for a code, will be reflected in the native filename endorsement dialog. If you adjust the settings in the native filename endorsement dialog, however, those changes will not affect the watermark codes dialog.
      For example, if you selected three codes in the Confidentiality category for your watermarks, then removed the “Confidential” code from the native filename endorsements dialog, the “Confidential” code would still be shown in the watermark codes dialog. This means that documents coded as “Confidential” would be watermarked as “Confidential,” but there will be no native filename endorsements for these documents.
      Any changes you make to the watermark codes dialog after adjusting native filename endorsement settings will no longer be reflected in the native filename endorsements dialog. If you change the watermark text or remove a code from the watermark codes dialog after adjusting native filename endorsement settings, these changes would no longer be reflected in the native filename endorsements dialog.
      To make any changes in the watermark codes dialog be reflected in the native filename endorsements dialog again,  uncheck and recheck the box Copy selected codes as native filename endorsements for the next step.
      
   5. When you're done select Save to close the dialog.
6. When you're done configuring your Image Details, select Next to move onto the Redactions, Natives, and Text. 

The applied watermarks will be visible when you view the produced documents on Everlaw and on downloaded versions of produced documents.

5. Redaction, Native, and Text/transcription settings

On this step, you configure your redactions and choose which native files and text files to produce.

5A. Redaction settings

Everlaw automatically detects which documents in your production have image and native redactions applied. During production, Everlaw will burn the image redactions into the produced images, and re-OCR the new image to ensure redacted text will not appear in the produced text file.

If you do not want to apply redactions during production, select the Do not include redactions button.

Here is more information about redactions:

• For native redactions, redacted text is removed from the document at the time of production and the document text is then extracted to ensure redacted text will not appear in the produced text file.
• Generally, images are not included for natively-redacted documents. If a document has both image and native redactions, the native redactions will take precedence.

  Note

  Everlaw will automatically produce the natives for any files with native redactions even if the production protocol is configured to not produce natives.

• If your production settings up to this point meet all three of the following criteria, then you will need to select the format to produce your redacted images in. Criteria:

  • • You excluded images from your production on the previous step
    • You are choosing to include redactions
    • Your production set includes image-redacted documents
      
      
• The parent documents of any redacted documents will not be produced natively. Instead, only the image and text formats of the parent documents, if available, will be produced.
  • Example: if you redact a PDF that is an attachment to an email and produce the entire attachment group, the native format of the parent email will not be produced. The same is true for emails and attachments embedded in other emails.
    Since native email files often contain associated attachments, this precaution prevents the redacted content from being accessible from anywhere in the final production

    Note

    This functionality is only available for Everlaw-processed documents.

To control how redactions appear:

1. Select the customize button.
   
   
2. Make your selections in the dialog that appears. You can customize:
   • Whether  your redactions are black, white with black borders, or white without borders
     
     White without borders is intended to whiteout irrelevant content
     
   • The default text that is stamped on top of your redactions

     Note

     If custom redaction stamps are used in your project, the custom stamps will appear on the completed redactions, overriding any text you may specify at this step.

3. Select Save.

Audio and video redactions

If you are producing audio and/or video files with redactions, you can configure the redaction settings at the step:

• Videos are produced as .m4v files and audio files are produced as .m4a files.
• Redacted audio and video files will be stored in the Natives folder of the production.
  • The produced text transcript will be generated from the transcript shown in the review window, but the redacted text will be replaced with the selected redaction stamp. If a redaction does not have a stamp, the redacted text will be replaced with [REDACTED].
• Redacted portions of video files will be replaced by a black screen displaying the redaction stamp(s) or [Redacted] if there are none
• By default, the audio for redactions less than 4 seconds will be replaced with a continuous 1000 Hz bleep and those longer than 4 seconds will be cropped out and replaced with a short bleep
  

  Note

  Redaction length refers to the total length of a redacted section, even if this longer redaction has been created by multiple shorter redactions. In other words, if you create 2 overlapping 3-second redactions, with a total Redaction length of 6 seconds, this will be treated as a 6-second redaction. To change these settings, click the blue Customize button and then select the Audio/Video Redactions tab.

You can choose both the threshold for longer redactions and how those redactions are processed. To do so:

1. 1. Select Customize and then select the Audio/Video redactions tab
   2. Choose the threshold for longer redactions.
   3. Choose how Everlaw should process longer redactions:
      • If you select Crop redacted audio and/or video sections: redactions longer than your selected time will be cropped out of the file entirely, and the cropped portion will be replaced with a 0.5 second bleep.
      • If you select Do not crop redacted audio and/or video sections. Replace redacted audio with silence, with short bleeps marking the start and end: the cropped section will begin with a short bleep, then continue with silence for the duration of the redacted section, then end with a short bleep.
      • If you select Do not crop audio and/or video sections. Replace redacted audio with continuous bleep: the entire cropped section will be replaced with a continuous bleep. This option means that long and short redactions will be treated exactly the same.
   4. Select Save.

5B. Natives

You can choose if you want to include native documents in your production. Native documents are the files in the format of their originating application, such as .xlsx and .docx. For natives that you do include, you can choose to append endorsements to the native filenames and which placeholders are generated. 

Under Natives, choose which natives to include. The default selection is to include natives for all documents without images. Select the dropdown to choose one of the other options. 

You can choose from the following options:

• • Include natives for all documents
  • Include natives for all documents without images (default)
  • Do not include natives
  • Select Refine to build a query to define a custom choice

Regardless of your selection, the following will never be produced in natives (See the Excluding attachments when producing native emails article for exceptions):

• Withheld or privileged documents
• Documents with metadata or image/PDF redactions
• Parents of any of the above documents
• Container files: Any files that have the Container Document processing flag. For a list of container files, see the Container files section of our supported native data types article.
• Parent emails, chats, and calendar objects whose children are not included in the production

If your choice does not include natives for documents without images, the warning Documents without natives or images will be produced in text only, or, if you haven’t included text files, will be entirely replaced with a placeholder image. To address this, you can:

• • Choose to produce natives for those records
  • Reprocess the original documents to generate images from your natives for those images to reflect the content of each document. 
  • Learn more about reprocessing here. 

Advanced settings

Under Advanced settings are additional options for configuring your native files.

Native Filename Endorsements

You can choose to endorse native filenames in your production with codes and/or metadata for documents including native versions. These endorsements are appended to the end of the Bates number in native filenames, e.g. ABC001_Confidential.xls.

To create native filename Endorsements, choose codes and/or metadata in the same manner you would select image endorsements on the previous step, described above. As you make your selection, a preview below will show a sample native filename matching your choice.

Placeholders and encryption

You can choose to automatically generate native placeholders for documents. For encrypted documents, you can choose to either produce the encrypted version of the document or a decrypted version.

• By default, the checkbox is selected so that decrypted versions of documents will be produced.

  Note

  These options are only available for encrypted documents that have had passwords provided on Everlaw.

• Encrypted documents uploaded before the March 3, 2023 release will have decrypted versions stored and created upon reprocessing. After reprocessing, decrypted versions will be available to produce. Everlaw will always produce encrypted documents with native redactions as decrypted in order to preserve redactions.
• If the checkbox below the dropdown is selected, Everlaw will automatically generate a placeholder rule for documents produced in native.  This rule will be displayed on the Placeholders page of the production wizard.  You can learn more about this rule in the Placeholder section below.

At the Image Placeholders step of the production wizard you can edit the placeholder text to be displayed. Learn more about image placeholder settings.

5C. Text

You can choose whether you want your production to include text files in the ZIP folder included in your production. 

To customize your selection:

1. Under Text, click the dropdown menu.
2. Choose the documents for which you'd like to produce text files. You can choose:
   • Produce all text files excluding media transcripts
   • Do not produce text files
   • Produce all text files including media transcripts

Here are more details about text files:

• Text files are produced as TXT files
• Everlaw automatically creates transcripts for all media files with extractable voice text that are uploaded to the site, and you can choose whether or not to produce these media transcripts.  
• Text files will not be produced for privileged media files that are withheld from production, regardless of whether you have selected the option to produce media transcripts in this dropdown.

When you're done configuring your redaction, native, and text options, select Next to move on to the Withheld or Privileged step.

Step 6. Withheld or Privileged

In this step, you can choose withholding rules. You have the flexibility to define what documents you want to withhold and customize the placeholder text that appears in place of those documents. Withheld documents can also be automatically added to a privilege log (below). Because you can choose to withhold documents based on a wide variety of criteria, privilege settings do not automatically withhold documents until you specify how to identify them. 

To withhold documents:

1. Select Withhold documents.
   
2. Select Add a rule to create a search that Everlaw will use to identify documents to withhold.
   
3. Enter an Name for the rule.
4. Enter Placeholder Text to show up on the placeholder pages.
5. Create a search to specify which documents to whithhold. For example, if have been using privilege coding to define this document set, choose the Privileged code within the appropriate category.
   All documents in a production that match the search will be withheld. This means that the images, text, natives, and metadata of these documents will not be included in the production. Instead, Everlaw will create a placeholder image for the withheld documents.
6. When you're done, select Save to close the dialog.
7. Select Advanced settings to configure withheld Bates range and placeholder text files.
   Placeholder images for withheld documents usually result in a single Bates number gap per placeholder in a production. However, you can also choose to reserve the full bates range for each withheld document.
   For example, if you are withholding a 20 page document, a 20 Bates number gap will be in your production. One advantage of this is that if you do happen to produce a withheld document at a later time, Everlaw can allocate the document its full Bates range without any overlap. 
8. Under Advanced settings, you can also choose to produce placeholder text files for withheld documents.
   • By default, no placeholder text file is produced for withheld documents. This has the advantage of not mixing placeholder text with the underlying searchable content of produced records.
   • By selecting the checkbox, productions will instead include a text file with the same placeholder text as the standard image placeholder. If you instead wish to produce privilege rules or placeholder text in a metadata field, you can do so during the load file step.

• If you withhold documents, parent documents that are associated with the documents will not be produced natively. Instead, only the image and text formats of the parent documents, if available, will be produced.
• Since the native files of parent documents often contain associated attachments, this precaution prevents the privileged content from being accessible from anywhere in the final production. This functionality is available to documents whose parent is embedded in a third document. However, it is not currently available for documents that were not processed by Everlaw. 

Whenyou're done, select Next to move on to the Image Placeholders step.

Step 7: Image Placeholders 

At this step you will see the placeholder rules already in place, both from your choices in the Redactions, Natives, and Text step and in the Withheld or Privileged step. Here are additional details about this step:

•  If you chose to include placeholders for all native documents in the Natives step of the production wizard, you will see an automatically generated placeholder rule.  
  This placeholder rule uses the search you defined in the Natives step to identify the documents that need placeholders.
  Any other placeholder rules you generate will take precedence over this automatic rule.  If you go back to the Natives step and modify the natives search, the placeholder rule will automatically change to match the new natives search.
  If you change this rule's name or search, it will break its automatic link to the Natives step. The checkbox to automatically create placeholders on that step will be deselected. You may change the placeholder text for this rule without breaking its link to the Natives step.
• If you chose to withhold documents in the Withheld or Privileged step, you will see the rule that you generated here.

You can also create image placeholders for additional documents. Unlike placeholders for withheld documents, image placeholders created in this step will only replace the image file.

Placeholders are generated according to rules that govern the documents to produce placeholders for, and the text to stamp on the placeholders. To create a rule:

1. Select +Add a Rule to open a dialog to configure the placeholder rule.
2. Enter an Name for the rule.
3. Enter Placeholder Text to show up on the placeholder pages.
4. Create a search to specify which documents to create a placeholder for. If Include Families is toggled on, this rule will propagate to all family members of documents captured by the search. Toggle this setting off if you don't want the rule to affect family members.
   • The total number of documents matching your search in the production will be shown right below the query builder.
   • If you are creating a protocol but did not select your production criteria in Step 2, the number shown corresponds to the total number of documents in the database that would receive the placeholder.
   • If you did select production criteria, the number corresponds to the number of documents within your production set that would receive the placeholder.
5. When you're done, select Save to close the dialog.

Multiple placeholder rules can be in effect simultaneously in a single production protocol. Rules at the top of the table take precedence over rules below. As a result, documents matching the search criteria of multiple rules only contribute to the document count of the top rule. Similarly, documents already withheld at the Privileged step do not contribute to the document count of placeholder rules.

You can edit a rule by selecting the pencil icon. You can edit the name, the display text, and the search identifying the set of documents that the rule applies to.

Step 8: Load file metadata settings

In this step, you choose the metadata fields to produce in your load file, and the names of the chosen fields. You can additionally group fields together for production.

Load files are included by default. To create a production without load files, select Do not include load files at the top of the page.

There are two primary sections in the metadata step of the production wizard: the left panel shows available metadata fields and the right panel shows the fields that you’ve selected to produce.

 

• There are three types of fields that can be included: 
  • Calculated fields, with blue outlines, are fields that are calculated on production, such as the Begin and End Bates of the documents in the production
  • Everlaw fields, with purple outlines, are fields that are interpreted from the original or load file metadata, including user fields and aliases -- i.e., anything that you could view as document metadata in the results table or review window
  • Code fields, with gray outlines, are fields that include information about codes applied to the original document. "Code Category" will populate the field with any and all codes that have been applied within the selected category. "Code" will populate the field with the selected code. "Freeform Code" will populate the field with the value of the selected freeform code.

Configure date and time metadata

In your load file, you can specify how you would like your date and time metadata to be produced and select the time zone to which date and time metadata is to be produced. You can configure the following"

• You can adjust your Date fields to show up as DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY.
• Once you select your date format, you can select a time format as well. You can choose between a 12-hour, 24-hour, and hour/minute/second format.
  
• By default, date and time metadata will be produced to the UTC time zone, and no abbreviated time-zone indicator will be used. To add a time zone indicator (e.g. “UTC” for Coordinated Universal Time, or “PST” for Pacific Standard Time”), toggle on Show Time Zone.
• To convert datetime metadata fields to a different time zone in the production load file, enter your preferred time zone in the Time Zone box.
  The time zone settings used for the load file will be applied to any image endorsements of date time metadata (if enabled in image settings) and will be used in the privilege log/disclosure list (if enabled).
  
  

  • Note

    changes to time zones only change how the information displayed in the load file, images, and privilege logs/disclosure lists. When viewing a produced document in Everlaw (such as in the review window), all metadata will still be displayed according to the project’s default time zone settings.

Create your load file

To create your load file:

1. You can use Everlaw's recommended fields by selecting Use Everlaw defaults. This will automatically load a preset selection of fields to be produced.
   You can also select or drag individual fields in the left panel to be added to the right panel. All other fields are originally part of the documents in your database. Use the filter box at the top of the left panel to find fields by name.
2. To remove a field that you’ve chosen to produce, select the red ‘x’ associated with the appropriate field in the right panel.
3. [Optional] Group fields together into a single field. In the resulting documents, the grouped field will display values from the first available field in the group. This means that when a document’s metadata does not include values for the first field in the group, the second field (or the next available field with values) will be used for the grouped field.
   • To group fields, click and hold a metadata field, then start dragging it. Boxes will appear next to the selected fields in the right panel.
   • To group the field you’re holding with a selected field, drag your cursor to the box of the field that you want to group it with.
   • A green plus icon will appear in the box. Once you let go of the mouse, the fields will become grouped. The names of the fields included in the grouped field will be added in gray, and a gear icon will appear in the far right that you can use to remove fields from the group. The name of the grouped field will be the name of the first field in the group. 
   • For example, if you drag the fields “Date Created”and “End Date” into the “Date” field, all three fields will be grouped under the “Date” field. If a document produced with this protocol does not have values for the “Date” field (first field in the group), the values from the “Date Created” (second field in the group) will be displayed for the grouped field. 
4. [Optional] To rename any field, click on the name of the field in the right panel so that it is highlighted. Then, input the desired name.
   • The renamed metadata field will not be found in metadata search, or available as a results table column. Instead, the Everlaw metadata field used to populate this load file field will be populated on your produced document.
     
   • Upon production, Everlaw will populate existing Everlaw metadata fields on your newly produced document, regardless of the load file name configured, i.e. if you produced the ‘Custodian’ field under the name ‘CUST’ then the produced document on Everlaw would still have a value under ‘Custodian’ and no ‘CUST’ field would be created. This is true for all produced fields, including aliases and combined fields. Only the value used in the load file will be populated on your produced document.
   • Some field names allow you to pick a specific field to use in its place. For example, you can select a field that allows you to show either the date or the time value for a specific field, e.g. "Time Sent". To do this, drag a "Date Only" or "Time Only" metadata field to the right panel. Then enter the name of the original metadata field that you would like this value to come from e.g. "Date Sent". You can then rename this field as described above.
     

   • Below is a table of metadata fields for which you can specify how the metadata is structured:

     Field	Function
     FAMILY VALUE	If there are attachments to the document, uses the parent value for the selected field for children documents (ex: a parent email's date sent value used for child attachments).
     DATE ONLY	If a field contains both date and time values, uses only the date portion of the selected field.
     TIME ONLY	If a field contains both date and time values, uses only the time portion of the selected field.
     TIME AND ZONE	Uses both time and zone portions of the selected field.

• Some production protocols require the inclusion of fields that might not appear by default in your database when the documents are uploaded. If you don’t see a field that you need in order to abide by a production protocol, you can use freeform codes to accomplish this workflow. This article will explain how to create freeform codes.
• If you produce metadata fields that are redacted on some documents, those metadata fields will be replaced in the loadfile with the redaction stamp you applied.  If you did not apply a redaction stamp, the redacted fields will be replaced with the word “REDACTED.” If you would like to leave the unstamped fields blank instead of printing “REDACTED,” please refer to this article.

  • Note

    redacted non-text metadata fields, such as fields with DateTime values, will still be left blank. This ensures that production loadfiles will remain compatible with Everlaw and other platforms by avoiding introducing text into non-text type fields. However, redaction stamps for non-text metadata fields will appear in the production privilege log, which you can create from the Additional Options step in the production wizard.

  • If you are on Everlaw Australia, please visit this article to learn about producing to a Microsoft Access Database format.

When you're done configuring your load file, select Next to move onto the Additional Options step.

Step 9: Additional Options

In this step, you configure the Privilege Log, Migration, and Packaging for your production.

9A. Privilege Log

You can create a privilege log listing the documents you’ve withheld or redacted in your production. To create a privilege log:

1. Select Enable on the Privilege Log card, and then click View/Edit.
2. Choose the format of your privilege log: either an Excel (CSV) file or a Concordance (DAT) file.
3. Select which documents to include in your privilege log. By default, only privileged documents will be included.
   • To include both privileged and redacted documents in your privilege, select the Redacted documents checkbox. If you are not withholding any documents, this selection will result in your privilege log containing only redacted documents.
   • Select Non-privileged documents to include all the documents in your production in the privilege log, including privileged, non-privileged, and redacted documents

   

4. Decide how to configure your metadata for your privilege log. You can drag and drop metadata fields from the left side to the right side panel. Once they are included, you can rearrange them by using the up and down arrows to the left of each field. You can also click Load Preset to load a set of commonly configured metadata fields.
   • The mechanics of the builder are the same as the load file metadata settings in the previous step, with additional field options to include in your privilege log.
     • Notably, you can select fields such as category, code, endorsed text, privileged type, and placeholder from the left panel into the right panel.
     • If you include the "Privilege Type" field in your privilege log, any privileged documents will receive type values, and any redacted documents included in your privilege log will receive the value "Redacted.”
5. When you're done, select Save.

[Optional] Configure privilege log by withholding reason

Sometimes, privilege logs must include different metadata fields for documents depending on the reason they were withheld. This is especially relevant for disclosure lists in the UK, but is also useful for some protocols in the US. You can customize metadata for each privilege rule, for non-privileged, or for redacted documents. 

If you include non-privileged or redacted documents, and/or you created more than rule in the one Withholding or Privilege Rule page, you will see a dropdown menu that says Default in the metadata configuration dialog.

If you do not need to differentiate metadata fields by document type, you don't need to take any action. All your documents will include the fields you selected above.

To differentiate the metadata between document types:

1. Select Default to see a dropdown menu of your document categories.
2. Choose the document category you'd like to configure.
3. Configure the metadata for that category in the same way that you did for the Default. 
4. Repeat this process for each document category in the dropdown

9B. Migration

This step allows you to copy the review work (e.g., ratings, codes, notes, etc.) of your source documents to your produced documents. If migration is disabled, no review work will be copied to your produced documents, with the exception of redactions as determined by your redaction settings. To migrate your review work:

1. Select Enable to open the migration dialog.
2. Choose to copy over Notes and Highlights, Ratings, as well as specific coding categories.

   Important

   Any review work that you migrate will appear on the produced documents in Everlaw; however, review work will not appear on your downloaded produced documents, nor will it appear on documents that you send via shareable link.

   Redactions will always be applied to your documents based on your production’s redaction settings, regardless of migration settings.
3. Since productions do not respect source image size dimensions, highlights may be misplaced on your produced documents. This may occur, for example, when your source image is cropped.
4. Select Save

9C. Packaging

There are a few different production packaging options on Everlaw:

• You can package your production into subfolders for load files, images, text files, and natives, or package all files in the production into one single folder.
• You can produce all images into one single PDF.

  • Note

    The size limit for this is 2GB.

• To rename a folder, select the default name and type in your new desired name. 
• All productions on Everlaw are then subsequently packaged into one top level folder that contains subfolders or one single folder.
  • Productions packaged into one single folder cannot exceed 65K files; for productions larger than this, it is recommended to produce in the format of subfolders.
• Production subfolders are by default split per 1000 files, but you can choose to adjust the file count limit to any number between 100 and 65K files. Some ediscovery platforms cannot handle processing subfolders that exceed 1000 files, so please coordinate with the parties that will receive the production. 

If you are a user on Everlaw Australia, please visit this article to learn about leveled packaging.

When you're done, select Next to move oto the Summary Step.

Step 10: Summary

The last step of the protocol wizard summarizes the settings you’ve chose.

1. Review the settings
2. If you are ready to save your protocol, select Save.
   If there are settings you'd like to edit, select Previous

Once you have created a production protocol, Everlaw automatically runs checks for common production errors for you based on the documents you aim to produce, as well as the protocol settings.

To read more about this pre-production QA, please refer to the Productions 2 of 3: Pre-production QA on Everlaw.