Chronicle makes it easy to eliminate repetitive work, get moving quickly, and stay productive by giving your team the ability to repurpose and effectively reuse existing work product.
Here are some common questions you can respond to confidently once you activate Chronicle in your Relativity workspaces if you'd like to accelerate projects with existing work product.
"Do I really have to do it again?"
It’s not uncommon for the same set of [people / custodians / entities] to be involved in more than one case. In this scenario, it’s important to take advantage of previous work product in order to save time, money, and the potential for inconsistency across cases. When it comes to cleaning up names (normalizing, let’s say) - whether for a Priv Log or a 2nd request or whatever - the story is no different.
Pre-loading normalizations into Chronicle requires just one (or two) pieces of information - an original value (optional) and the normalized version of it. And the vehicle for getting them in is a CSV file, so it doesn’t matter where your previous normalizations come from as long as you can get them into that format.
"So where do you find these values?"
There’s no limit to where it could come from, but common starting points include:
Custodian List
Relativity’s Name Normalization functionality (Entities & Aliases)
Another case in Relativity where Chronicle was used
Take my existing work product, please!
So let’s go through building CSVs for the examples above.
"What's the role of my Custodian List?"
If you have a list of custodians for a case, you can use those names to help guide the normalization process. Specifically, you can load them up as the normalized value, so reviewers know the exact name you want from the get-go.
Create a new CSV file with two columns:
Original Value
Normalized Value
Copy all of the custodian names into the Normalized Value column.
Save (that’s it, your file is ready)
"What can I do with Relativity’s Name Normalization?"
If you’ve used Relativity’s name normalization functionality and want to take advantage of the work that was done there, you can easily export that data for use in Chronicle.
Navigate to the Alias tab in your workspace
Select (or build) a View that includes the following columns:
Name (of the alias)
Entity
Click the checkbox that selects all of the rows
At the bottom of the list, select “All” (not “Checked”) from the drop down list
Select “Export to file” from the mass action dropdown list.
In the modal, select “csv” for the format and click “Run” to download the CSV.
Open the CSV and modify it so that there are just two columns
Name (header row = “Original Value”)
Entity (header row = “Normalized Value”)
Save (that’s it, your file is ready)
"What about another case where Chronicle was used?"
If you’re already normalizing values with Chronicle in another case, you can grab those normalizations from the Manage Normalizations tab in the source workspace.
Navigate to the Manage Normalizations tab
Filter (if needed) to select the normalizations that you’d like to reuse
Click “Export” and select the data you want to reuse
To use both the original values and the normalized values, select “Export all data to CSV”
To use just the normalized values, select “Export all Normalized Values to CSV”
Open the CSV and modify it so that there are just two columns
Original Value
Normalized Value
Save (that’s it, your file is ready)
"So... I could just prepare the terms and load 'em up?"
Once you’ve prepared your file, it’s time to load the pre-made normalizations into your case.
Navigate to the Manage Normalizations tab
Click “Import” and select the CSV you’ve created
Click “Upload” and Chronicle will load your normalizations.
After uploading, you will see a message indicating how many normalizations were created, as well as if there were any errors.
"Cool. Now what?!"
With all the previous work product loaded into your new workspace, it’s time to get to work. Fortunately, there should be less to do.
All previously normalized original values are already normalized, so the only items in the list are the newly identified values.
Reviewers don’t need to try to figure out (and spell correctly) the normalized values because the list has already been loaded.
After the remaining normalizations have been created, they can be exported and used again in the next case.
There’s time to move on to the other things that your clients need. Or maybe even time to go home!