Storybuilder Evidence Page

The Evidence page is a collaborative tool to categorize and sort all the evidence within your Story. On the Evidence page, you can:

• Add dates and annotations to your documents and testimony
• Sort your documents and testimony by your preferred order
• Label and filter your documents and testimony according to which people or issues they relate to
• Associate evidence with existing Facts, or create new Facts to link to

Use this article to learn how to use the Evidence page when evidence has already been added to it.

To learn how to add evidence to your Evidence page, see our Add Evidence to your Story article.

To learn more about Storybuilder overall, see  our  Introduction to Storybuilder article.

Requirements

To access the Evidence page, users must either have Admin permission for Storybuilder or have had the Story shared with them with either View, Edit, or Full Access.

To add evidence to the Evidence page, or to edit anything about the Evidence page, a user must have Admin permission or have Edit or Full Access to the Story.

Learn more about Storybuilder permissions in our Administer Storybuilder Permissions article.

Access the Evidence page

To get to the Evidence page:

1. Go to Storybuilder. To do so, you can select the Storybuilder button on the navigation bar or the Project Story card in the Storybuilder column on your homepage. 
   
2. Select Evidence from the side navigation bar.
   
   This takes you to your Evidence page.

Evidence entries

Once you’re in the Evidence page, you’ll see a view of all your Story evidence . By default, the evidence is sorted by date (new to old). The following sections describe the features of an evidence entry for each type of evidence: documents, document highlights, and testimony.

Document entry

A document on the Evidence page is represented with an entry displaying some high level information:

• Name
• Bates/Control # 
• Type, such as Text or Email
• Story date 
• Key metadata
  Learn how to customize the visible metadata in the view customization section below.
• [If  AI auto-summarization is enabled] The AI-generated Description
• [If AI auto-summarization is not enabled] a Description and Relevance, or space to write them if they have not yet been written
• Any applied labels and linked Facts

To see a preview of the document, select the preview button.

This opens the document in a separate Quick Review window, which you can view side-by-side with Storybuilder. 

To learn more about what you can do in a Quick Review window, see our Quick Review Documents and Results article.

Document highlight entry

Document highlights can be added to Storybuilder as their own evidence entries. This is useful when there is a highly relevant part of a longer document to reference in your Story. 

Learn more about adding document highlights to your Story in our Add Evidence to your Story article.

A highlight added to the story displays similar information as the document:

• Name: By default the name is the page number and Bates/Control # of the document it comes from. 
• Bates/Control # of the document 
• Type
• Story date 
• Key metadata
  Learn how to customize the visible metadata in the view customization section below.
• [If  AI auto-summarization is enabled] the AI-generated Description
• [If AI auto-summarization is not enabled] a Description and Relevance, or space to write them if they have not yet been written
• Any applied labels and linked Facts

Testimony entry

Testimony is an excerpt taken from the transcript of a Deposition. You can learn more about how to create testimony in our Work with a Deposition Transcript article.

Each testimony entry includes:

• The citation name
• The source deponent label
• The testimony text
• Date of the testimony (if added)
• A description and relevance (if added)
• Any applied labels or linked Facts

Change individual evidence name or date

Required permission: Edit or Full Access on the Story

The default name and date of each document added to your Story are determined based on a hierarchy determined in the Storybuilder Settings . To learn how to set this hierarchy, see our Configure your Story article.

You can change the name or date of a document, highlight or piece of testimony already added to Storybuilder. 

To change the name of testimony or a document highlight, select the name and start typing a new one.

To change the name of a document:

1. Select the name. A dropdown of options appears.
2. Select which field you want to use as the document name. To create a custom name, start typing the name. Then, choose the [Custom] selection that appears.
   
3. The name is updated for the document entry across Storybuilder.

To update the date of a piece of evidence:

1. Select the edit button next to the date. For documents and document highlights, a dropdown of options appears. 
   
2. For a document or document highlight, select which field you want to use as the document date.  
   For Testimony, or to create a custom date for a document or highlight, select Custom date…. Then, enter a date in the date selector.
   .
3. The date is updated for the entry.  

Add a description or relevance to evidence

Required permission: Edit  or Full Access permission on the Story

Adding a description and relevance for your evidence entries helps your team understand your evidence at a glance, without opening a preview. The Description field is used to provide a quick summary of the document.  If you have auto-summarization (via Everlaw AI) enabled, then the description field is generated automatically. The Relevance field is used to explain why a document is important for your case.

 To add a description or relevance to a document:

1. Select the respective button — + Add description or + Add relevance — or if your document already has one of these fields populated, select the existing text to edit it.
   
   An editable textbox appears.
2.  Enter/edit the text.
3. Select Save.

Customize evidence display

Anyone with access to the Evidence page can customize how evidence entries are displayed for them by adjusting the description, relevance, and metadata field display. To do so, select the  Settings button. This opens a menu with options for what you want to see. 

Check or uncheck to show/hide the Description, Relevance, Facts, or Metadata. 

To customize the metadata you see:

1. Select the  Settings >Customize metadata.
   
2. This opens a Metadata preferences panel to select the metadata fields you want to display on the Evidence page. Select the fields you want to display, and deselect the ones you don't want to see. 
3. When you're done, select Save.

Labels

Labels are tags you create within Storybuilder to classify and identify evidence and Facts related to particular issues and people. Labels also identify evidence that has been added to particular Drafts, Depositions, and Fact timelines.  You can use labels to help you keep track of what's important in your case that doesn't fit into a specific Fact.

See the Filter section below for more on how to use labels to filter your Evidence page view.

You can also use labels to categorize testimony. For example, you could view all testimony labeled with "Johnny Depo" to see all testimony associated with Johnny, regardless of which deposition the testimony came from. 

Labels you create on the Evidence page are available to apply to evidence and Facts across your entire Story. You see these labels as options on the documents you add to a Draft or Deposition, when annotating (highlighting) transcript text, and when creating a new Fact within a Fact timeline.

 See our Work with a Deposition Transcript article to learn more about creating and labeling transcript highlights.

See our  article to learn more about labeling Facts.

Create labels 

Required permission: Edit or Full Access on the Story

To the left on the Evidence page is the label panel. Five default label categories are provided:, Issues, People, Fact Timelines, Depositions, and Drafts.  

Although categories and labels can be added at any time, we recommend creating any known categories and labels at the outset of a case to help kickstart your team's narrative building, and to avoid retroactively applying newly-created labels to evidence in the Story. Some things to consider when creating labels are which occurrences, interactions, communications, or entities best reflect the narrative you want to tell about your project.

To add a new label within a category:

1. Select  the Create new label button next to the label category.
   

   Note

   Creating a new Depositions or Drafts label also creates an entirely new Draft or Deposition in your Story.

2. Type the label name.
   
3. Press Enter on your keyboard to add the label to the panel.  

To add a new label category:

1. Select the Edit labels button in the upper left of the label panel to enter Edit Mode.
   
2. Select New Category, and start typing.
3. Press Enter on your keyboard to add the new category. 

To delete a category, or specific labels:

1. Select the Edit labels button in the upper left of the label panel to enter Edit Mode.
   
2. Select the delete (X) button associated with the category or label you wish to delete.

3. Confirm deletion, then press done to exit Edit Mode.

   Note

   Because the People, Fact timeline, Depositions, and Drafts categories are tied to other functionality in your Story, they cannot be deleted.

People labels

Anyone that you add or create a profile for on the People page of Storybuilder for shows up as a label on the Evidence page. Likewise, anyone that you make a People label for on the Evidence page is added as a person with an empty profile in the People page of Storybuilder.

Learn more about People in our Storybuilder People Profiles article.  

Apply labels 

Required permission: Edit or Full Access on the Story

Once you've made the labels, you can use them to start organizing and categorizing your evidence.

To add a label to documents or testimony:

1. Select the Add label button on the evidence entry.  
   
   This opens a menu displaying all the labels, Depositions, and Drafts in your Story.
2. Select the label(s) to apply. If you select a Deposition or Draft,  it adds that evidence to the Evidence  panel of the Deposition/Draft.

Batch apply labels

You can apply one or more labels to multiple pieces of evidence at once. This is helpful if you know that a subset of evidence needs to be added to a specific Deposition, or that a set of evidence all relates to a specific issue or Fact that you're tracking.

To add one or more labels to multiple pieces of evidence at once:

1. Select the Story items you’d like to apply changes to using the checkboxes.

   Tip

   you can use a filter to identify the subset of evidence you want to apply the label(s) to.

2. Bring up the batch actions  menu. To do so, you can select Batch in the toolbar, select the up arrow at the bottom of the page, or press the spacebar on your keyboard.
3. Select a label once to add, or twice to remove. Labels turn green to indicate they will be added to the selected items and red to indicate they will be removed. You can both add and remove labels within a single batch action.
   
4. Once you’re done selecting the combination of labels to either add or remove, select Apply. This applies the changes to the evidence.

Apply Facts

To apply one or more Facts to a piece of Evidence: 

1. Select the Link Facts button on the evidence entry. This opens the Link evidence to Facts dialog, and displays all your existing facts. You can select up to 100 Facts to link.
2. Use the checkbox next to any Facts you want to link with this evidence.
   You can filter your Facts by title, description, date, or label. 
3. [Optional] To create a new Fact rather than link to existing Facts, select Create new Fact, which opens the panel to create a fact. 
4. When you're ready, select Review (for existing Facts) or Create and link for a new Fact. 
5. For existing facts, confirm the information in the Selected Facts summary, then select  Link.

This links the Fact(s) and the evidence.

Batch apply Facts

1. Select the Story items you’d like to apply changes to using the checkboxes.

   Tip

   you can use a filter to identify the subset of evidence you want to apply the Fact(s) to.

2. Bring up the batch actions menu. To do so, you can select Batch in the toolbar, select the up arrow at the bottom of the page, or press the spacebar on your keyboard. Then, select Select Facts.
   
   This opens the Fact selection dialog.
3. Use the checkbox next to any Facts you want to link with this evidence.
   You can filter your Facts by title, description, date, or label. 
4. [Optional] To create a new Fact rather than link to existing Facts, select Create new Fact, which opens the panel to create a fact. 
   
5. When you're ready, select Review (for existing Facts) or Create and link for a new Fact. 
6. For existing facts, confirm the information in the Selected Facts summary, then select  Link.

This links the Fact(s) and the evidence.

Sort and filter evidence 

Anyone with access to the Story can change how the Evidence page is sorted and filtered to help you make sense of your Story.  For example, you might want to look at only evidence that has been labeled with the "Fraud" issue, or see which evidence contains the keyword "hazardous". Read on to learn about how to customize your Evidence view.

Sort your evidence

By default, the Evidence page is sorted by Date, from oldest to newest, but you can sort by newest to oldest, Date Added to the Story, or Bates number. To change the sort order, select the current sort order, then choose the new sort order. Your sorting option sticks until you change it again.

Filter your evidence

Once your Evidence page is populated with a lot of evidence, it can be helpful to filter down to just the evidence that is important for the task you're working on right now. You can filter by label, evidence type, or keyword/metadata.

Filter by label

Each label on the left panel shows how many pieces of evidence have that label applied.  You can use the labels to filter in the following ways:

• To filter the evidence that has a given label applied: Select the checkbox next to it. Your Evidence page updates to just show that evidence.
  
• To filter to evidence that does not have that label applied: Select the checkbox next to a label a second time. Your Evidence page updates to show the evidence without that label applied.
  

• To filter by multiple labels: Select the labels you want, then choose Match all or Match any to define how you want the labels connected:
  • Match all: The default filter type, which connects your selected labels with an “AND” connection. Evidence must have all the labels applied to meet the filter criteria. This is the default filter type.

  • Match any: Connects your selected labels with an "OR" connection. Rather than needing to meet all your selected labels, your evidence is filtered to those items meeting any one of the selected filters.
    

    Note

    When you are using the Match any filter type, you cannot select a filter checkbox a second time to mark it Not. If you have a label selected to Not and then switch the filter type to Match any, that label becomes unselected. To exclude a label in Match any mode, deselect it.

• To remove a label as a filter, select the checkbox next to it for a third time, select the x next to it at the top of the Evidence, or select Remove filters to remove all filters.
  

Filer by evidence type

By default, your Evidence page displays all types of evidence. If you want to look at only a specific evidence type, such as only viewing Testimony, select All Story items. This opens a menu showing the evidence types. Deselect any you don't want to see in the Evidence page and the view updates accordingly. 

The Evidence page header updates to indicate what evidence is being displayed.

Filter by keyword/metadata

You can filter the evidence on your Evidence page by keywords and metadata associated with the evidence. This is particularly useful for batch labeling evidence that meets specific criteria, such as falling within a specific date range or containing a specific person's name.

You can filter your evidence by:

• Bates number
• Title
• Testimony text
• Document contents
• Description
• Relevance
• Metadata values
• Date

To filter, select the Filterbutton, then enter the value(s) you want to filter on. 

The search syntax follows the same rules and restrictions as content searching in Everlaw’s query builder. 

To search by date, select Filter by date, and enter a date range in the dialog. All filtered documents will be selected, and any previously selected documents that were filtered out will be unselected.

Evidence page export

You can export your Evidence page data in CSV or PDF format using the Export button in the toolbar.

The exported data reflects any filters you have applied to the evidence.

CSV export

Required permission: View, Edit, or Full Access permission on the Story and CSV export permission

A CSV export of your Evidence page includes a customizable set of information about the evidence in a spreadsheet, with a row for each piece of evidence included.

To create a CSV export:

1. Select Export, then CSV. This opens the Export Story to CSV dialog.
    
2. Select the fields you want to include in the export. The fields you select are added to the Export fields section and define the column headers in the export. 
   
   The available fields are categorized as:
   • Evidence fields
   • Highlight fields (for document highlights)
   • Categories fields
   • Testimony fields
   • Metadata fields 
3. [Optional] Update your export name in the Export name field. The default name is [Story name].csv
4. Select Export to initiate the export. Once it's complete, it's available in the Batches & Exports column of the Homepage for 28 days.

PDF export

Required permission: View, Edit, or Full Access permission on the Story and PDF export permission

A PDF export includes images of the evidence in your Story. PDF exports can be configured either as a single PDF or as a ZIP of individual PDFs. 

To start a PDF export, select Export, then PDF. This opens the Export Story to PDF  dialog, where you can configure your export.

For a detailed explanation of each configuration option, see our Export article.