Chat conversations can span months or even years. When you upload chat data natively, Everlaw separates long conversations into multiple documents, called segments, based on your segmentation preferences. The Chat view in the review window lets you scroll through every segment of a conversation without moving between documents. This mimics the experience of reading the conversation in its original chat application, so you keep the surrounding context while you review.
In this article, we'll cover how to use the Chat view in the review window.
Requirements
The Chat view is available to all users by default.
Supported chat sources
The Chat view supports chat data from the following sources:
- Cellebrite: uploaded after January 2024
- Slack: uploaded locally or through our cloud connection to Slack after March 2025
- Teams: uploaded locally or through our cloud connection to Purview after February 2025
- RSMF
- Google Hangouts
- Bloomberg emails
- iMessage
- iOS WhatsApp databases
Note
Time based limits: Based on its upload date, some chat data from otherwise supported sources will not have a Chat view by default and will still only be reviewable in the PDF or Text view. This includes:
- Cellebrite data uploaded before January 2024
- Teams data loaded before February 2025
- Slack data uploaded before March of 2025
To find the upload date for a document:
- Identify the document set it was uploaded in: Use Document Set column in the results table or the Processing Info chip in the Codes tab of the review window.
- On the Homepage or Native Upload page, find the card for that dataset and identify the date of upload.
Contact support@everlaw.com for help with getting this data accessible in the Chat view.
Chat data from other sources opens in the PDF view or Native view instead.
Open the Chat view
When you open a chat document for review, the review window automatically opens to the Chat view. Every segment in the conversation loads into the view, and the segment you opened is the active segment.
If the document is not open to the Chat view, select Chat.
The active segment is brighter than the rest of the conversation, with a white background and darker text. In the image below, segment #278360.1 is active.
Segments and documents
A chat conversation is divided into segments during native upload. Each segment viewed in the Chat view is its own document on Everlaw: it has its own control number, displayed in the top left corner of the segment, and Everlaw treats it as an independent document for review, search, and production.
The Chat view does not change this relationship. It loads all of the segments (documents) of a conversation into a single scrollable view so that you can read the conversation as a whole, while each segment remains its own document.
How a conversation is broken into segments depends on the segmentation option selected during native upload.
Note
Images sent within a chat are displayed inline in the conversation. Depending on the option selected during upload, they may also be extracted as separate attachment documents. To learn more, see Upload Native Data to Everlaw.
Apply review work in the Chat view
Review work, such as codes, ratings, and notes, applies only to the active segment. Make sure the segment you intend to code is active before you apply review work.
To apply the same review work to every document in a conversation, use the chat conversation view in the context panel to batch modify documents.
Unsupported review work tools
The following tools are not available in the Chat view:
- Hit highlights
- Redactions
- Text selection and highlights
To use these tools, switch to another view, such as PDF or Text.
Navigate a conversation
To scroll through the conversation, use your mouse scroll wheel, the scroll bar in the review window, the single arrow paddles, or the keyboard shortcuts below.
To make a different segment active, select it, use the single arrow paddles, or use the keyboard shortcuts below.
Note
The viewer loads up to one million segments. Any segment beyond one million is accessible in a separate review window.
Page counts in the Chat view
In the Chat view, the page count reflects the position of the active segment within the conversation, rather than the number of pages in the document. The PDF view continues to count pages within the individual document.
The table below compares the page count for document #90843.1 in each view:
|
Pages in Chat view: Based on the entire conversation |
Pages in PDF view: Based on this segment |
Keyboard shortcuts
The following shortcuts are available in the Chat view:
| Shortcut | Function |
| Shift + ←/→ | Display and make the previous/next segment active |
| Page Up/Page Down | Scroll up/down to the next few messages not in view |
| ←/→ | Display the previous/next message |
| Home | Make the first segment active |
| End | Make the last segment active |