Overview
This article discusses the DISCO Case Builder Timeline integration with DISCO Ediscovery. With this new feature, your team can:
- View and search your Case Builder timeline in DISCO Ediscovery, providing critical context when reviewing documents
- Build your timeline facts while viewing documents directly from the document viewer
- Add relevant evidence (such as the document in view) to the timeline directly
Accessing the timeline in Ediscovery
On the document viewer on any document, users will see the timeline panel on the left sidebar.
Please keep in mind that for your organization to use the Case Builder Timeline in Ediscovery it must have access to DISCO Case Builder. Case Builder must also be activated on the matter by an organization admin or matter creator.
For an individual user to be able to add a fact, the user must have search and review permission in Ediscovery and access to Case Builder for the Ediscovery matter.
Lastly, to add a fact to a document, the document must be in "Active Review” (documents in ECA must be promoted to Active Review before they can be added to a timeline).
For assistance adding Case Builder to your matter, see this article. For help adding users to Case Builder, please see this article. If your organization needs access to Case Builder, contact DISCO here.
Viewing and searching timeline facts
Once users have access to the timeline, there are several ways to view and search facts on the timeline from the Ediscovery viewer.
Users can jump directly into the full timeline in Case Builder from the Ediscovery viewer panel using the window pop out icon circled in red below.
From the viewer panel, browse timeline facts in time-period buckets (bucket size varies depending on the range of the timeline facts). As seen below, clicking a “bucket” creates a drop down for viewing the facts within that time-period.
Alternatively, by clicking the expand/collapse arrows in the action bar, all time-period buckets will expand or collapse at once.
To search existing facts, click the magnifying glass to pull up the search bar. Search keywords or phrases found in the facts on the timeline or narrow down for particular timeline tags or witnesses. The guide to searching on the timeline in Case Builder can be found here.
Creating timeline facts and adding evidence to them
If you have access to the timeline but your timeline is empty, “Get started with a timeline” will display in the Ediscovery timeline panel. Clicking “Create fact” will help you create your first timeline fact. Users can also add a fact to the timeline at any time from Case Builder.
After there is at least one fact on the timeline, use the “add” icon to create additional facts.
Once selected, the “quick add” popover appears. Directly add (or remove) the Ediscovery document as evidence to the fact, identify its relationship to the fact, and provide additional details. Only a title is required to add a fact. However, you can also add additional information such as a date or date range and details. Select “Use document’s date” to automatically populate the document date for the fact’s date.
Select “More options” if you would like to add additional information to the fact, such as statuses (key fact, case impact, or disputed), Case Builder tags, or Case Builder witnesses. This will pull up the "New fact" form. Note that you must click on the evidence’s pill and click “edit” to add a title, change the fact’s relationship to the evidence (proves, disproves, etc.), or add details about the evidence.
To add the document as evidence to an existing fact, simply find an existing fact either by browsing the timeline or searching, then select the fact and add the document you are viewing as evidence.
Once a fact or facts are associated with a document, they are surfaced in the left panel and categorized according to the document’s relationship to the fact (e.g., proves, disproves, neutral, or not assigned). You can select the associated facts to see details or edit the fact.
Finding evidence associated with the timeline in Ediscovery
Documents that are associated with one or more timeline facts can be found on the Ediscovery search and review page via filters or using the search bar. The search syntax for on a timeline is “onTimeline(yes)” or “onTimeline(true).” The search or filter will return all documents that have been associated with any facts. Both the search and filter can be used in conjunction with other syntax, such as “tag(hot) % onTimeline(yes)” to find all documents that have been tagged “hot” but are not on the timeline.
Create a custom view in order to see all of the documents that have been associated with facts on the timeline by changing your view and selecting “On Timeline” as a column.
If “On Timeline” is selected as a Custom View, search results identify documents with a checkbox in the relevant column. You can export a document list to include the “On Timeline” designation for each document included in that export.
