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. For purview exports to be properly ingested and processed, two criteria must be met:

• 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.

Everlaw uses the load file(s) to identify chat files and attachment relationships. Regardless of how the chats are chunked by Microsoft in the export (generally in 24 hour increments), when processed by Everlaw:

• Chat files from different conversations are separated.
• Chat files from the same conversation are consolidated and processed into a single PDF.
  • Chat PDFs have a maximum of 100 messages. If a given conversation has more than 100 messages, the conversation will be broken out across multiple documents.

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.

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: 

1. 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).
2. Ensure that both the PST and Zip file names start with the prefix “Microsoft_Teams” (case-sensitive).
3. 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.

Important note on Purview exports from July-August 2023

Please note that from approximately July-August 2023, there was an issue with Microsoft exports from Purview that caused critical data about messages to be missing. This data is required for Everlaw to process the data correctly. If you attempted to upload Teams exports created during this period, your data will not have been properly processed because of this missing data. Please re-export the data from Microsoft for upload into Everlaw.