Pre-Production QC Checks

After you create a production protocol, Everlaw automatically performs quality control (QC) checks on the documents that meet the protocol's associated production criteria. This pre-production QC tool identifies documents with potential issues and suggests recommended fixes. 

Everlaw’s pre-production QC tool offers two types of checks: standard checks (built by Everlaw) and custom checks (built by you and your team). 

This article explains the difference between these types of checks, how to use them on your protocols, and how to create and manage custom checks. 

For guidance on how to incorporate this tool into your workflow, visit Perform Pre-Production QC on Everlaw. 

Requirements

To build, implement, and run pre-production QC you must be an Organization Admin, Project Admin, or have Admin permissions for productions.

Everlaw’s QC check types

Everlaw’s production tool supports two types of QC checks:

• Standard checks
• Custom checks

Standard checks

Standard checks are provided by Everlaw by default for all production protocols. 

You may choose to disable any standard individual protocols. This can be helpful if one or more default checks contradicts your QC preferences (e.g. The default “broken families” check is not helpful because you do want to include broken families in your production).

For a complete list of Everlaw’s standard checks, visit our standard checks reference table.

For instructions on how to select or deselect standard checks for a protocol, visit this article’s section on selecting QC checks for protocols. 

Custom checks

Custom checks are created on a per-project level and can be added to any protocol in the project. This allows you to template, incorporate, and re-use checks that are unique to a project’s needs, going beyond Everlaw's default list. 

Custom checks must be created in the project prior to being added to a protocol.

They can also be carried over to new projects via project templating.

While your use cases for custom QC checks may vary, here are a few common examples:

• Check for documents marked as privileged
• Check that a specific code was applied
• Check that documents match only specific file types (e.g. include only emails)

Understand custom QC checks

When you build a custom check, you’re defining what you want to be true for all documents you produce. Any document that doesn’t meet that criteria will trigger a warning. In other words, the logic of your search should be to identify the inverse of what you want to flag and create a warning for during the production QC step. 

For example, if you want to flag all the documents in your production that do not have the Responsive code applied, you should build a search for documents with the Responsive code. The search will then flag any documents that do not have the Responsive code applied.

Think of building a QC check  as "Here is what a good document looks like. Give me a warning for any document that doesn’t meet this criteria,” rather than “search for what to exclude.”

The table below shows how a few example custom QC checks work

Desired outcome	Custom QC search	Warning for documents flagged
Make sure all documents in my production have the Responsive code	The search is built to identify documents with the Responsive code	In this example, 11 documents in the production set do not have the Responsive code
Identify any documents more than 1,000 pages to consider an alternative production method	The search is built to identify documents up to and including 999 pages.	In this example, 6 documents in the production set are 1,000 pages or longer
Identify any container/compressed files to make sure we don't produce them	The search is built to identify all documents that are not compressed, since those are the file types that the team is ok with producing	In this example, 1 document in the production set is compressed

View a protocol’s pre-production QC checks

To view the status of a protocol’s pre-production QC checks:

1. Select Data Transfer > Productions to access the Productions page.
2. Select the Protocols tab.
3. Choose a protocol from the list provided.
   
    

If a check triggers a warning during QC, meaning that documents are identified that do not meet the production check criteria, it is displayed on the protocol’s Production QC page in the Warnings section, along with its severity and a suggested resolution. 

If a check passes QC without triggering a warning, meaning all the documents meet the criteria identified by the check, it is listed at the bottom of the page. Select Show checked warnings (or Hide checked warnings to close) to see a complete list of these warnings.

This expands the All checked warnings list.

Create and manage custom QC checks

Custom QC checks are created at the project level and then individually applied to protocols as needed.

Create a custom QC check

To create a custom QC check for a project:

1. Go to Data Transfer > Productions > Advanced settings.
2. Select the Custom quality checks tab.
   
3. Select + New custom check.
   
   This opens the New custom check dialog.
4. In the Check name field, enter a name for the check. This will be used to identify the warning if/when it is encountered.
   

5. In the Define custom check section, use the search query builder to identify the criteria that you want the documents you produce to meet. Documents not meeting this criteria will be flagged during production QC.
   

   Note

   When you build a custom check, you’re defining what you want to be true for all documents you produce. Any document that doesn’t meet that criteria will trigger a warning. See the Understand custom QC checks section above for additional tips on building searches for custom QC checks.

6. In the Severity field, choose between Minor or Major. Severity does not impact how or when the check is run; it is solely for user reference during QC.
   
7. In the Enter a suggested resolution field, enter a suggested resolution for anyone who encounters the check as a warning during QC. 
   
8. When you’re ready, select Create.
   The dialog closes, and the check appears in the table on the page, where it can be viewed or later edited or deleted, as needed.
   

Edit custom QC checks

To edit a custom QC check:

1. Go to Data Transfer > Productions > Advanced settings.
2. Select the Custom quality checks tab.
3. Select the edit button associated with the check.
   
   This opens the Edit custom check dialog.
4. The dialog fields are identical to those used when creating a custom QC check. Edit these fields as needed.
5. When ready, select Save.

Delete custom QC checks

To edit a project’s custom QC check:

1. Go to Data Transfer > Productions > Advanced settings.
2. Select the Custom quality checks tab.
3. Select the delete button associated with the check.
   

Select a protocol’s QC checks

QC check selection for protocols takes place in the protocol wizard. Once you've created custom checks on the project, you select them (along with any standard built-in checks) in the optional Customize quality checks step of making a protocol.

If you are creating a new protocol, you can learn how to do this by following the instructions in our Create a Production Protocol article.

If you instead want to edit an existing protocol's checks: 

1. Open the protocol from the Productions page. Then select Edit.
   
   This opens the Edit Protocol wizard, which mirrors the New Protocol wizard.
2. Continue to the second step of the wizard — Customize quality checks. It has two tabs: Standard, for Everlaw default checks, and Custom.
3. [Optional] On the Standard tab, switch off any default checks that are not applicable to your protocol.
   
4. [Optional] Select the Custom tab. Then select the custom check(s) you want to apply to the protocol from the list.
   
5. Select Next to continue creating your production protocol.

A protocol’s selected QC checks are included in the protocol summary both at the end of the wizard and on the protocol’s summary page.

Reference: Everlaw standard QC checks

The table below is a reference for all standard QC checks provided by Everlaw by default.