Custodian portal

Custodians can only access custodian portals via a secure link in a legal hold communication. Custodians do not need to have a Relativity account to view the portal. In the portal, custodians can acknowledge their participation in a hold, answer questionnaires, view all of the active projects they're associated with, and easily address any other outstanding tasks.

Note: After upgrading a workspace to Legal Hold 3.2+ from a previous version, run the Upgrade Old Legal Hold Portal Links script once in the Administration > Scripts sub-tab to upgrade the Portal links with the 3.2+ application. If you don't run this script, all former portal links sent prior to upgrade will not work. This script only applies to previous version upgrades to Legal Hold 3.2+.

Custodian portal browser compatibility

Access the Custodian portal from the following browsers:

Browser Supported Browser Version  
Internet Explorer 9, 10, 11
Chrome 42+
Firefox 37+
Safari on Mac

(OS X 10.9+)

 7.1+

Accessing the Custodian Portal

To access the portal:

  1. Click the portal link in the email. This link takes you directly to the acknowledgment or questionnaire in which the portal opens in a separate browser window to the homepage.
    Note: Use the email merge field, PORTALLINK, to include the portal URL in the communication. See Email merge fields.
  2. From the portal homepage, review any Tasks Requiring Attention, Completed Tasks, and any Active Holds that you're associated with.
    • This includes acknowledgment requests and questionnaire response requests for all projects with which you're associated.
    • The Active Holds grid only shows projects containing a communication that Legal Hold sent to the custodian with the Is Legal Hold flag set to Yes. See Communication detail layout fields. This differentiates between informational communications that Legal Hold sends to employees that should not be treated as litigation holds.
      Note: The Custodian Portal does not display any projects in which a custodian's role in that project includes the Do Not Notify role tag.
      The Custodian Portal showing the Tasks Requiring Attention and Active Hold tabs.
  3. Click the links to open each outstanding item.
  4. Once you've acknowledged participation in a project or answered a questionnaire, Relativity sends an acknowledgment notification to the project owner.

If you receive a portal link expiration error, your link has expired. Click Send Link for Relativity to send you a new link.

Click on any of the holds in the Active Holds grid to view the corresponding communication to the hold. Holds containing multiple communications that Legal Hold sent to the custodian appear as separate entries in the Active Holds grid.

Portal link expiration modal to send new link.

System admins can set the number of times custodians can access the portal link before it becomes invalid. See Installing Legal Hold.

Portal states

Conditions need to be met before a Legal Hold project will display in the different portal states, or sections. The following are the sections of the custodian portal:

For each state, Relativity will display a project to the user in the portal if all the conditions are met.

Active holds

In the Active Holds section, you can view the following fields:

  • Hold Name—this is the name of the project.
  • Communication—this is the name of the communication sent with the hold.
  • Received—this is the date that the hold was sent.

You can find Active Holds where the Acknowledgement Required field is set to Yes in this section.

For holds to appear in the Active Holds section, the projects must meet the following criteria:

Field Setting Description More information
Acknolwedgement Required Yes This section only shows active holds where the Acknowledgement Required field, in the Portal Content section, is set to Yes. Portal Content
Is Legal Hold Yes In the default template this is preset to Yes. Portal Content
Message Status Sent This is a system field that is auto-populated when the holds are sent. Mailbox
Message Sent Date Populated with date This is a system field that is auto-populated when the holds are sent. Mailbox
Project Status Active In the default template this is preset to Active.
If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “Active” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included		 Projects
Portal Detail Must contain the text to display in the portal If you click on a hold that does not have this populated, it will be blank. Portal Content
Message Type General In the default template this is preset to General.
If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “General” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.		 Creating a communication
Project type Legal Hold In the default template this is preset to “Legal Hold”.
If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “Legal Hold” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included. 		Project Details layout fields
Custodian Role Custodian If this is set to another value, records are not displayed in the portal. Assigning roles to custodians

Note: You need to require an acknowledgement. Active projects meeting the above criteria will not be displayed here if an acknowledgement is not required.

Tasks requiring attention

In the Tasks Requiring Attention section, you can view the following fields:

  • Name—this is the name of the communication.
  • Project Hold—this is the name of the project.
  • Received—this is the date that the hold was sent.
  • Type—this indicates whether the task was a communication, a questionnaire, or questionnaire response.

Holds must meet the following criteria in this section of the portal:

  • Acknowledgement Required is “Yes”—this section only shows active holds where the Acknowledgement Required is set to Yes.
  • Display In Portal is “Yes”—in the default template this is preset to Yes.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to General for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Message Status is “Sent”—this is a system field that is auto-populated when the holds are sent.
  • Message Sent Date is populated—this is a system field that is auto-populated when the holds are sent.
  • Project Status is “Active”—in the default template this is preset to Active.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “Active” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Portal Detail must contain the text to display in the portal. If you click on a hold that does not have this populated, it will be blank.
  • Message Type is “General”—in the default template this is preset to “General”.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “General” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Project Type is “Legal Hold”—in the default template this is preset to “Legal Hold”.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “Legal Hold” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Custodian Role is Custodian—if this is set to another value, records are not displayed in the portal.
  • Is Read By Hold Owner is “No”—this is a system generated field that is defaulted to “No”

Completed tasks

The associated object which contains the property is mentioned after each condition.

In the Completed Tasks section, you can view the following fields:

  • Name—this is the name of the communication.
  • Project Hold—this is the name of the project.
  • Received—this is the date that the hold was sent.
  • Type—this indicates whether the task was a communication or a questionnaire/response.

This section contains all active holds regardless of whether an acknowledgement is required or not. It contains holds where the required action is completed and holds where no action or acknowledgement is required.

  • Display In Portal is “Yes”—in the default template this is preset to “Yes”.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “Yes” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Message Status is “Sent”—this is a system field that is auto-populated when the holds are sent.
  • Message Sent Date is populated—this is a system field that is auto-populated when the holds are sent.
  • Project Status is “Active”—in the default template this is preset to “Active”.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “Active” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Portal Detail must contain the text to display in the portal. If you click on a hold that does not have this populated, it will be blank.
  • Message Type is “General”—in the default template this is preset to “General”.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “General” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Project Type is “Legal Hold”—in the default template this is preset to “Legal Hold”.
    If a new template is created or if not using a template, then this needs to be set to “Legal Hold” for all communications that you want to view in the template. Need to be careful if using a custom layout that this field is included.
  • Custodian Role is Custodian—if this is set to another value, records are not displayed in the portal.
  • Is Read By Hold Owner Is “Yes”—this is a system generated field that is auto-populated when the custodian acknowledges that they have read the hold order.

Note: Holds not requiring an acknowledgement also display in this section.

Customizing the Custodian Portal

System admins can customize the Custodian Portal's for the custodians in Legal Hold projects.

To customize the portal:

  1. Navigate to the Legal Hold Settings tab.
  2. In the Custodian Portal section, update the following fields:
    The Custodian Portal section on the Legal Hold Settings page.
    • Portal URL—this URL should only be modified if its displayed value does not match the current instance URL.
    • Portal Title—enter a title that helps identify the name of the company, the litigation, or the custodian. The portal title appears on the top left of the custodian portal. By default, the maximum number of characters is 95. If you want to change that number, see Fields.
    • Portal Custom Image—click Choose File and select a custom image for the portal. The portal custom image appears in the top left of the custodian portal next to the portal title. The size of the image is hard coded to be 130px x 28px.
    • Link Access Limit (Clicks)—enter the number of times between 1 and 100 that a custodian can click the link.
    • Link Expiration (Days)—enter the of days the link will be valid. This link can be valid for any number of days.

SSO for Custodian Portal

Use single-sign on (SSO) for a layer of security of the custodian portal. SSO requires a custodian to authenticate through your organizations SSO provider prior to gaining access to the custodian portal.

Note: Relativity Legal Hold supports OpenID Connect using Microsoft Entra ID. For more information, see Integrating Azure with Legal Hold.

Use SSO to have custodians access the custodian portal securely by signing into the organization’s identity provider.

Send personalized custodian portal links to custodians. The link contains a token that recognizes authentication. If a custodian is not authenticated, they are redirected to the organization's sign on page. Once signed into their organization, the custodian is redirected to the portal.

Custodian console

Within the Custodian console, you can send an email containing the link to the Custodian Portal or you can access the Custodian Portal as a specific custodian.

Navigate to the Entities tab and click on a custodian. Select the Legal Hold Custodian view, which contains the Custodian console. Within the console, click the Send Portal Link button or the Use Portal As button.

  • Send Portal Link—sends an email with the link to the custodian portal to the custodian.
  • Use Portal As—admin access to the custodian portal as the custodian.

Highlighting the Use Portal As and Send Portal Link buttons in the Custodian console.