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Last date modified: 2025-Nov-07
Non-Relativity platform data migration
This page guides you through steps and considerations when moving data from another e-Discovery platform to RelativityOne. It covers the following topics:
The goal of this guide is to provide an overview of the different migration workflows and to assist with planning the migration of data to RelativityOne.
RelativityOne Data Migration Program
The RelativityOne Data Migration Program provides you with guidance, training, and advice on moving case data to RelativityOne from any e-Discovery platform. Data Migration projects are led by members of the Cloud Services team. The team reviews the project and develops a plan that is based on your needs and resources.
Most customers complete a data migration project by following the plan developed in cooperation with the Cloud Services Specialist. Other customers have engaged one of Relativity’s many service providers to assist or run the project.
The Data Migration Program consists of the following:
- Cloud Services Specialist assigned to work with you through the life of the migration.
- Review of the customer’s data footprint and working with the customer to develop a plan for moving data.
- Training on the Relativity applications that will be used during the data migration.
- Guidance on issues as they arise based on the experience of assisting hundreds of customers moving to RelativityOne.
- Resources from Engineering, Customer Support, or Product Management to help with unique or customized considerations for your migration.
When planning a data migration, it is important to consider all aspects of what a migration involves. Listed below are key considerations that will impact the plan and timelines for the project.
- Case Priority and Status
- Size (number of files, file sizes, SQL sizes, etc.)
- Download/upload speed
- Schedule including any downtime
- Staffing
Relativity migration tools
Relativity does not offer a product or feature that allows direct migration from other e-Discovery platforms. Relativity Professional Services team can be engaged for a custom project. We recommend working with your CSM or Account Executive to engage this team. The only method for importing data from a non-Relativity platform is to use the Import/Export application. The following links provide documentation and videos on using the Import/Export application. The Data Migration Specialist can provide guidance on how to use it to execute your migration.
- Documentation:
- Import/Export application, most specifically Importing data using Import/Export.
- Webinars in Relativity Learning:
Other e-Discovery platform to RelativityOne migration
This type of migration will require that data be exported to loadfiles and uploaded to RelativityOne using the Import/Export application. The process follows the same steps as outlined in the Data Migration Program:
- Planning
- Pre-flight exercises
- Data migration
- Validation
Planning
The process of migrating data from one platform to another involves making decisions based on an understanding of how those platforms manage data and the differences in functionality and features for those platforms. Several items will need to be considered as part of the planning for the migration. The questions and notes offered in this section are not exhaustive but should bring up the important things to consider.
- Case status
- Is the case active or closed?
- Is the case near being finished or has it just begun?
- File types
- What are the types of data that will be moved to Relativity and how will they be incorporated into Relativity?
- How will images, redacted images, and produced images be migrated to Relativity?
- Are there any special file types that are not supported in Relativity?
- Field mappings
- Is there always a one-to-one mapping of fields? Are there fields in the current platform that do not have the same functionality or meaning in Relativity?
- Do all fields need to be mapped in Relativity? Does there need to be any record of the fields for record keeping or defensibility purposes?
- Is there parity in how the fields handle relationships, for example, family, duplicates?
- Productions
- Relativity handles productions as a dynamic object. How will this impact importing productions and maintaining any parity for how productions are handled in the current system?
- Is it necessary to keep the original image or only keep the production image?
- User expectations
- Do users understand and are they aware of the user experience in Relativity?
- Are they prepared to change the way they are reviewing documents if features they like are not present in Relativity?
- What are the features that users care the most about and will find be missed if they are not present in Relativity?
- Will any changes in security impact users’ ability to review and work with the documents in a manner they are accustomed to?
- In-house or out-source
- How manual will the process be and what would be involved in automating any of the steps?
- What are the costs and risks associated with outsourcing the process?
- Migration process
- What parts of the process can be automated?
- How can speeds to upload/download be improved?
- What additional resource would be required to move the data safely and speedily?
- Data fidelity
- What information will be lost in the move to RelativityOne?
- What risks are involved in not retaining audit logs or document history that was stored in the source case?
- Validation
- Which items need to be validated?
- What are automated processes or scripts that can be used to assist with validation?
- Will the case team be involved in validating the data or will it be the role of admins?
- Prioritization
- Do you move the active cases first to get them into Relativity as soon as possible?
- Are there features or functions in Relativity that would help the case team with their work, for example, Active Learning?
Pre-flight exercises
This step is designed to help you develop benchmarks, identify risks, develop a schedule and priorities, and finalize a plan for migration. A sample of cases would be chosen based on how well they represent the cases in the current system. These samples cases help establish baselines that would be used as part of a formula to predict how long it will take to move all of the data from the current system to RelativityOne.
Data migration & validation
Once all of the planning and pre-flight exercises have been completed, this process should proceed without too much work, but challenges will arise once the actual work has begun. Some of the issues that can occur include previously unknown data corruption or poor coding choices in the source data base, missing files or data in the source data, and other items that may require remediation in the source case before moving to Relativity. Anticipated speeds and functionality may also not be as robust as noted in pre-flight planning. This time can involve some ad hoc decision making and the involvement of several teams in Relativity to make sure the migration proceeds as smoothly as possible.
Every data migration is unique but the steps that are followed for planning and executing the migration are similar. The RelativityOne team is available to help plan and support your migration efforts.
