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Do you need to migrate your eDiscovery data to a new platform? If so, you’ve landed in the right place. In this article, we’ll go over what you need to consider before transferring your matters and data into a new eDiscovery tool.
Read on to learn:
- Best practices to migrate your case data between eDiscovery platforms
- Key steps you need to take when migrating eDiscovery data
- How to transfer data from your current eDiscovery solution into Logikcull
If you are in the process of transferring your eDiscovery data to a new platform, congratulations! Though migrating eDiscovery projects can seem like a challenge, the benefits of switching to a better solution—improved ease of use, greater data security, and cost reductions—are well worth it.
In some cases, however, replacing your eDiscovery software can come as the undesired result of a sudden event, like the discontinuation of your existing solution as it’s the case with eDiscovery Point right now. After Thomson Reuters announced the retirement of their signature eDiscovery software in June 2022, eDiscovery Point users have no choice but to find an alternative eDiscovery platform and migrate all their case data to it.
But regardless of the reason behind your data migration, it’s crucial that you arm yourself with a well-defined and thought-through plan to minimize the chances of any missteps during the data transfer.
And, although each case is different, there are some universal best practices and steps that you can follow to ensure your data migration process is as seamless and secure as possible. Here’s a breakdown of the most effective ones:
It’s crucial that you arm yourself with a well-defined and thought-through plan to minimize the chances of any missteps during the data transfer.
Plan Your eDiscovery Data Migration the Right Way
Let’s start with the most crucial step of all: planning. With a solid plan in place, you’ll maximize the chances for a smooth and successful migration
Data migrations can get pretty technical, so if database components and structure are not your thing, you should start by identifying a person, whether an IT manager, litigation support or legal operations specialist or technically savvy lawyer or paralegal, who can assist you with the most specialized aspects of the process. At the very least, this person should have a good understanding of your eDiscovery software database and know how to generate different types of data exports from it.
Next, with the help of that person, determine the data that needs to be migrated. You can create an inventory with all your data to better understand the volume of your entire database and the different components that need to be migrated. For example, do you need to migrate saved searches, productions, or databases?
In most cases, you won’t be able to transfer all your data in one shot, so determine which data needs to be transferred first, what can wait, and which data (if any) doesn’t need to be transferred at all. For example, you may want to prioritize data relevant to your current matters, or use prioritization criteria like reviewed vs. unreviewed documents.
If you find that the volume of data that needs to be migrated is too large, consider splitting your data into smaller sets no bigger than 300 GB This will allow you to reduce ingestion times in your new platform, making sure that you can start working with your most important data as soon as possible.
The last aspect you need to consider during your planning is the ingestion requirements of your target system. This is a crucial step to determine whether you’ll be able to transfer some challenging elements like annotations and redactions and find appropriate solutions if any incompatibility issues arise. For example, you might want to capture burned-in redactions in images. If you’re switching to Logikcull, you can find Logikcull’s database uploading requirements here.
Determine which data needs to be transferred first, what can wait, and which data (if any) doesn’t need to be transferred at all.
And while becoming familiar with the uploading specifications of the target tool is an essential step, it’s also advisable to ingest a small data sample into your new tool to uncover any other incompatibilities or issues before ingesting the bulk of your data.
eDiscovery Data Migration Planning Checklist
Here’s a quick summary of all the relevant actions to include in your data migration plan:
- Find a person that can help you with the most technical aspects of the migration
- Create an inventory of the data that needs to be migrated
- Split your data into blocks no bigger than 300 GB
- Divide your data sets by priority to make sure your most important data gets migrated first
- Become familiar with the ingestion requirements of your target system
- Export a data sample to test out the new tool
The Migration Begins: Time to Extract your Data
Now that planning is over, the actual migration can begin. Data exportation is the first step in the data migration process, and at this stage, you have three main goals:
- Ensure data accuracy: You’ll need to make sure that the data exported is actually the data that you were trying to export and that no important records like activity logs or metadata have been altered.
- Ensure data integrity: It’s important to verify that no data was left behind or lost during the export. Make sure that you check your exported data against the data source types, field names, and structure mapped on your data inventory.
- Ensure compatibility with target system: Although you may have already tackled this during the planning phase, make sure that all the considerations around the format and structure you laid down actually apply to your exported data.Before you start exporting your database, you need to understand the export settings and requirements of your current eDiscovery tool. Be sure to check their support documentation for guidance.
It’s important to modify your export settings to ensure that your exported data will be ingested correctly by your new platform. Check for relevant specifications around the format of your exported metadata, images, native files, Bates stamping, and text paths, among others.
If you’re migrating your eDiscovery data to Logikcull, there are only a few simple exporting settings you need to consider. Check them out here.
In addition to your documents, don’t forget to manage other export items such as tags, notes, or comments. In some eDiscovery tools—like Logikcull—these elements can be mapped to new fields, which ensures you won’t lose those important assets. Finally, if you’re using persisting highlights or any similar feature, export the list of search terms in use to be able to re-upload them into the new platform.
Ingesting Your Data Into the New Platform
At this point, you’re halfway through your data migration process. Hooray!
If you haven’t used it already, this is the last chance to upload your sample data into your new system and solve or account for any potential problems before ingesting the bulk of your data.
Have you taken all the security measures? Then, you can finally upload your data into the new platform.
Ingest a small data sample into your new tool to uncover any other incompatibilities or issues before ingesting the bulk of your data.
Since you probably won’t upload your entire database at once, be strategic about the order in which you ingest your datasets. For example, if you have a review deadline coming up, you need to make sure that any unreviewed documents from that case are available on the new platform as soon as possible. Also, don’t forget to upload both your data and metadata and, if you’re in Logikcull, you will also need to select images, natives, and/or text, depending on what was included in the export.
In Logikcull, it’s easy to map your old fields to the new platform, as Logikcull automatically suggests matching fields for your data. However, you can also decide to create new fields or not to export certain fields at all.
Also, if uploading multiple datasets, you will only need to map fields once as Logikcull will remember your settings. This makes the process much faster and more streamlined. If you’re migrating your data to a different platform, you might need to check their field mapping features in advance to define how your data will be transferred.
Final Check
Your data is finally available on your new eDiscovery platform and you can’t wait to start benefiting from all its amazing new features. However, your job is not entirely over yet...
It’s important to allocate enough time in your migration process to spot check your new database and make sure that everything has been transferred successfully. Double-check aspects like the Bates numbering range and page count, images, native files and text displaying correctly in the document viewer, correct parent-child relationships, etc.
Here’s a QC checklist that can help you ensure whether your data was correctly ingested into the new eDiscovery platform:
- Check if the entire document Bates range and page count match your data load file
- Check if images, native files, and text are displayed correctly in your platform’s document viewer
- If parent-child relationships are present in your documents, verify these items were properly identified
- Check if metadata such as document date, file path, or email from/to were loaded appropriately
- See if work products like tags or comments were correctly transferred
Ensuring a Simple, Straightforward eDiscovery Data Migration
Migrating data across eDiscovery platforms might sound like the kind of task you wish someone else could do for you, but with the right planning and software, the process can actually be pretty seamless.
And while there are definitely some technical aspects involved in the data migration process, at Logikcull, we’ve made it so easy that you’ll be able to handle most of this process by yourself—with minimal to no external assistance required. This doesn’t mean you’re ever on your own. Our best-in-class support team is always one chat away to assist you at any step of the way.
You can learn everything about migrating your case data into Logikcull in this simple guide.
Migrating your data from eDiscovery Point? Sign up to Logikcull today to get free migration support and free archiving of your data.
