Exporting to ZIP

You can export a ZIP file of your entire project, or a subset of documents, and associated review work product along with automatically-generated load files. This is particularly useful for self-managing your export at the termination of a project, when you might want to archive your data offline or in the Staging Drive. 

This article describes what is and is not included in a ZIP export, and how to perform a ZIP export.

ZIP export

The files included in a ZIP export depends on the selections you make when you complete the export. If you included all possible file types in your export, the export includes the following folders:

  • Data (includes CSV of work product, DAT, DII, LFP, LST, and OPT files)
    The CSV of work product allows you to import review work to documents on Everlaw in the future, if needed.
  • Images: ZIP exports export all images into PDF's, regardless of their previous file formats (TIFF, JPG, JPEG, etc)
  • Natives
  • Text

What is not included in a project export?

Project exports are not exhaustive of all the objects and data in your project. The following objects are not included in a bulk project export:

Object / Data Exportable from elsewhere in the platform?
Assignments / Assignment Groups No
Clusters No
Homepage folders No
Predictive Coding Models  No
Project Messages Yes
Search term reports Yes
Storybuilder Depositions Yes
Storybuilder Drafts Yes
Storybuilder People No
Storybuilder Timeline Yes
Upload reports Yes
User and Project Analytics Partial, depends on the visualization / data table

To preserve this information outside the of Everlaw, perform individual exports of each object, where possible, to supplement the bulk project export.

This is particularly important to keep in mind if you are exporting project data in anticipation of suspending a project or database. Once suspended, all areas of a project are inaccessible to users, with the exception of the Database Settings page, the Organization Admin page, and the Message Center.  

If your intent is to preserve your data such that your project(s) are fully restorable in Everlaw, you must keep your project(s) in a suspended state. To learn more about project and database suspension, please see this article

Note

The export accounts for a user's permissions, meaning that if you do not have view permissions on a particular area of work product, you will not see those results in the export.

Where to start an export

There are three places in Everlaw where you can export a ZIP of your projects:

Note

For each export, a task is created that can be viewed and tracked on the Batches & Exports column of the homepage. Once completed, the export can be downloaded from the associated card. The card under Batches & Exports expires after 28 days. 

Results table

Required permissions: You must have ZIP Export permissions in the Document Export category of project permissions. You do not need Database or Project Administration permissions to conduct this export from the results table. 

You can export all documents, or a subset of documents, from your project in the results table. To do so:

  1. Access a results table of the documents you want to export. To export all the documents in the project, select the the View all documents button on the Homepage.
    view all documents.png
  2. [Optional] Deselect any documents you do not want to export.
  3.  Go to Export > ZIP.
    export to zip.png
    This opens a  a dialog box with configuration options.
    In this dialog, you can view the total uncompressed size of the natives, image, and text files in your export. Selecting and deselecting the three document files will update the size displayed.
  4. See the Configure the export section for instructions on how to complete the export.

Database settings page

Required permissions: You must be both a Database Administrator and a Project Administrator on the targeted project(s). Users who are Organization Admins can export from the database settings page as long as the database is subject to OA Access.

Note

You can export projects even while the project or database is suspended. For more information on exporting out of the database settings page, please see this article.

To start a ZIP export from the Database Settings page:

  1. To access the page, go to Project Management project management icon button.png> Database Settings.
  2. Select the three-dot menu of the project you want to export, then select Export project.
    export project.png
    This opens a  a dialog box with configuration options. In this dialog, you can view the total uncompressed size of the natives, image, and text files in your export.
  3. See the Configure the export section for instructions on how to complete the export.export project configure.png

Organization home

Required permissions: Organization Admin. You can learn more information in this article.

  1. Go to Organization home organization.pngProjects & Users.
  2. Select the three-dot menu of the project you want to export, then select Export project.
    export project oa.png
    This opens a  a dialog box with configuration options. In this dialog, you can view the total uncompressed size of the natives, image, and text files in your export.
  3. See the Configure the export section for instructions on how to complete the export.
    export project configure.png

Configure the export

If you export from the Database Settings or Organization Administration pages, your export will contain all documents in the chosen project. 

If you export a ZIP from a results table, you can export all documents in the project or a subset of them. Within a given results table, you can deselct any documents you do not want to export by using the checkboxes on the left side of the table. To learn more about results table functionality, read this overview article.

To finish configuring the export:

  1. [If you initiated your export from a results table] Give your export a name in the Export name field.
  2. Choose which files to include.
    files to export.png
    By default, all files - images, text, natives, load files, and review work product - are included in the export. Deselect any of the included files by unchecking the box. 
    Review work product includes the following:
    • Notes
    • Codes
    • Ratings
    • Redactions
    • Highlights
    • User-editable metadata
    • Stories (including any Stories labels applied to documents). Note that when you export review work, redactions are not applied to images.will not be applied to images. Also note that any datetime values in the exported load file will retain and append the project timezone at the time of the export; if there are datetime values with no timezone information, they will be exported without any appended timezones
  3. [Optional] Configure the Native advanced options  
    • Native file naming scheme: You can choose between several options (Bates number, original filename, or Bates number and original filename).
      If you elect to clean up native filenames, characters like colons and backslashes are replaced with underscores to be compatible with all operating systems..
    • Native encryption: For password-protected documents, you can choose to export a decrypted version of the file by default or choose to export the original encrypted file. The option to export decrypted versions is only applicable to encrypted documents with passwords provided. Encrypted documents uploaded before the March 3, 2023 release will have decrypted versions created and stored upon reprocessing. After reprocessing, decrypted versions will be available for export.
  4. [If you initiated your export from a results table] Select Next.
  5. Choose whether or not to encrypt your export.
    zip encrypt.png
    AES-256 is the recommended, more secure, encryption option. However, you may need an application such as 7-Zip or WinZip to open the exported ZIP file. If you choose to encrypt, you must create a password. You can create your own or choose a randomly generated one by clicking the key icon.
    By default, you will receive your password in an email upon export completion. The email will be sent to you only. Deselect Email me a copy of my password if you do not wish to receive it.
  6. [If you initiated your export from a results table] Configure Timezone options. You can choose the timezone of your exported datetime values, whether that time zone is appended to the values, and the format of the date and time values.
  7. When you have configured your settings, select Export.
    Your task begins and export card on the homepage under the
    Batches and Exports column displays the export's progress.
    The export may take longer than a standard export on Everlaw, particularly if images need to be converted to PDF’s. Since you are exporting all associated work and load files in addition to the documents, it is expected to be a fairly large and slow export. A full database with over a million documents, depending on the number of images, could take a day or more to process.

    Note

    If documents in the export have identical filenames, the export will fail, and you will be notified. The Bates/control numbers of the documents causing the issue will be shown in the notification popup, as well as in a report stored in the Batches & Exports column.

    [Optional] You can check in on the export's progress and a see time estimate under Batches and Exports. You can pause or abort the task from this card.

    Note

    Organization Administrators on the project will see this card as well and can pause or abort it.

  8. When your export is complete, the export card will have a download button that you can click to see more details about your export or to download the ZIP file to your machine. Select See more details to see  who initiated the export, start time, completion time, and task duration. Task duration includes time paused as well.

Additional information about exports

  • If an export has been aborted, you can select See details on the bottom of the card to see who aborted the export, export start time, stop time, and task duration.
    Screen_Shot_2020-10-07_at_1.14.24_PM.png
  • Do not modify review work on documents in the export while the export task is running. If an export is in progress, there is no easy way to tell what documents have been packaged, and which ones have not been packaged. Modifying the review work will introduce uncertainty to the document version you receive in your export.
  • If you chose to encrypt your file, you can view your password by selecting Copy password. The password is copied to your clipboard, and you can also copy the displayed password, which you should copy and keep secure. The export card expires 28 days after the export completes.
    copy password.png
  • After you start the export task, you are free to leave the page without interrupting the export progress. You will also receive a notification at the bottom right of the page when your task completes, with a link to download the ZIP file.
  • If you are exporting out of the database settings or organization administration pages, you can monitor and access exports on the appropriate Tasks area of those pages.
  • If your project export failed, it might be because the project does not have any documents in it. If you experience other reasons for export failure, please contact support@everlaw.com.
  • In ZIP exports, Everlaw will always include the following headers in the load file:
    • Bates/Control #
    • End Bates/Control #
    • Pages
    • Produced To
    • Family Date
  • Additional load file headers are present based on the metadata of files in the export. This is true of both non-editable and editable fields.
  • If you need additional results table columns that are not included in the default load file, you can export them via the CSV export option.

How long will my export take? 

The time it takes to export from Everlaw depends on the size of the export

Tip

When exporting data off the platform for the purpose of deleting data before the next billing cycle, we recommend you start at least 2 weeks before the end of the billing cycle (end of each month UTC) as you may want to download and review the exported files.

Tip

You should ensure that the correct data has been exported before deleting data on the platform because data deletion is irreversible. A suspended project can be exported and will be billed at the suspension rate at the start of the next billing cycle.

What happens if my export includes a document flagged as malicious?

When exporting to ZIP, if your export includes either natives or images for one or more files flagged as malicious, you will receive a warning dialogue before your export begins. This warning dialogue allows you to view a list of all documents in your export set which have been flagged as malicious. It then gives you the option to either include or exclude those files from your export.

image8.png

Select the blue number next to the document icon to open a search results table containing all documents in your export which are flagged as malicious; this can be helpful in determining whether it may be possible to exclude these files from your export. Once you have decided how to proceed, you can:

  • Select Without flagged documents to omit all malicious documents from your export
  • Select With flagged documents to include these files.

Once you have selected your preferred configuration, select Continue to start the ZIP export. Your resulting ZIP can be downloaded from the Batches and Exports column of the home page.