Everlaw support ingestion of Microsoft Teams data in both the Purview export format (where Teams chat data is represented as HTML files) and as PSTs.
Uploading Purview Exports
To upload your Purview export, upload your export file as a native upload. Purview exports contain both chat data and attachments.
There have been some changes in how Purview creates exports. Exports created at different times have different requirements to be successfully loaded to Everlaw.
Exports created before approximately April of 2025 should meet the following criteria:
- The export folder must contain the Microsoft-generated CSV load file(s) with a name that begins with “Export_Loadfile_”
- The export folder must be compressed into a zip file for upload. Both the “NativeFiles” folder and the “Export_Loadfile_” CSV must be within this topmost compressed folder.
Exports created after approximately April of 2025 should meet the following:
- Within Purview, as you create the export, make sure the following settings are selected:
- Select Organize conversations into HTML
- Select Create PSTs
- Select Organize data from different locations into different files
- Select Include folder and path of source
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When you download the export from Purview, make sure you select to download all zip files. There are typically three: Reports (which contains the load file), Items, and PSTs.
Important
Before you start the upload to Everlaw, select the zip files and add them into an outer folder. You do not need to compress the folder before uploading it.
Everlaw uses the load file(s) to identify chat files and attachment relationships. Regardless of how the chats are segmented by Microsoft in the export (generally in 24-hour increments), when processed by Everlaw:
- Chat files from different conversations are separated.
- During upload, you can choose whether the chats are segmented by number of messages or by day. To learn more, see the the Chat documents bullet in the Dataset Details step of uploading native data article.
In addition:
- Attachment references are detected and shown inline as URL links. If the attachment is also found in the export folder, it will be linked to the chat document through the attachment context.
- Attachments linked by URL instead of by Sharepoint ID will have a disclaimer at the bottom of the attachment
- Images are embedded inline, where possible.
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When a chat message is edited:
- All versions of the message are displayed
- Distinct, time‑stamped “Edited” vs “Original” labels identify each version
- The recent version appears first, with earlier versions listed below it
- When no version data is available, a standard placeholder, (Text unknown), is shown
Besides the chats themselves, Everlaw also has basic support for displaying the content of various types of cards that may be attached to Teams messages.
Non-Teams chat files (such as Yammer files) that appear in your export will be processed as code files, not chat files.
Note that Purview exports may include information about errored files.
- If the errored files are attachments to chats, they will be extracted and displayed.
- If errored files are not attachments to chats, Everlaw ignores these files during processing, so they will not be uploaded and they will not appear as documents in your project.
Reprocess Teams data from Purview exports
When Everlaw releases new features related to Teams chat data, the original container file for Teams chat files should be reprocessed, not just the chat files. This ensures that information from the container file can be used to properly process the chat files.
Uploading Teams Data as PSTs
The primary difference between uploading Teams data as a Purview export versus PSTs is the handling of attachments. Because attachments are not themselves included in the PST, some additional steps must be taken to prepare the data for upload if you want the attachments to be linked:
- Create two separate files within a larger ZIP file: one of the chat logs and one of the attachments. Ensure that the ZIP file belongs to only one custodian. The first file is a PST corresponding to the custodian (e.g. test_user@everlaw.com). The second file is a Zip of all SharePoint attachments that could possibly be attached to the chats that are found in the PST (whether the file originally belongs to that custodian or not).
- Ensure that both the PST and Zip file names start with the prefix “Microsoft_Teams” (case-sensitive).
- Combine those within a top-level ‘Teams’ ZIP file.
If you have documents with multiple custodians, then you must create a separate ‘Teams’ upload for each custodian in order to have attachments identified and linked in Everlaw.