Note:
The Relativity Short Message Viewer displays conversations or individual messages sent using SMS such as iMessage and instant messenger services such as Skype Messenger, Slack, Bloomberg, etc. To learn more about the RSMF files which allow you to view short message data, visit Relativity Short Message Format.
Using the Viewer's built-in search capabilities, the Short Message Viewer allows you to find participant names, specific statements, or emojis in conversations. Additionally, you can easily find what was said during a particular time period by using the Timeline Navigator.
Note: You can determine the maximum document file size in megabytes that can be loaded in the Short Message Viewer by editing the value of the MaximumNativeSizeForViewerForRSMFFilesInMegaBytes instance setting. To ensure stable performance, we recommend entering a value of 250 or less.
(Click to expand)
This page contains the following:
- Short Message Viewer mode
- Navigating the Short Message Viewer
- Short Message Viewer Image mode
- Navigating the Short Message Viewer Image mode
- Viewer Extracted text mode
See these related pages:
- Relativity Short Message Format
- Creating an RSMF file
- Processing an RSMF file
- RSMF-supported Emoji emoticons and attachments
- Viewer
RSMF/Short Message Viewer Feature Releases
The following table contains information about when features have been released to Short Message Viewer to help you track what is available in your version of Relativity.
| Relativity Feature | New Feature Supported |
|---|---|
| Relativity 10.3.287.2 | |
| Server 2021 | SMS Filtering |
| Server 2022 | Updated Short Message Viewer and Imaging, support for RSMF 2.0 specification |
| RelativityOne | Ability to slice RSMF files |
Short Message Viewer mode
Short Message Viewer mode displays an HTML rendering of the message or conversation including attachments, reactions, events, and emojis. Viewer mode provides options for navigating through a single document and between documents in a document set. In Short Message Viewer mode you can also conduct text searching and highlighting text to copy and paste.
Viewer mode provides the following toolbar options:
Note: Relativity automatically hides toolbar buttons and controls that aren't applicable to the currently loaded document type so that your toolbar isn't cluttered while you're reviewing documents.
- Show/Hide Persistent Highlight Pane
- displays or hides a panel containing all Search Highlights from the criteria entered in the Search Bar, terms in a search terms report, and any persistent highlight sets in the workspace. 
-
Zoom Out/In
- zooms out and in on the current document in increments of 10% within a range of 10% to 4,000%. If you attempt to zoom out to a percentage lower than 10%, the Short Message Viewer automatically sets the display to 10%. If you attempt to zoom in to a percentage higher than 4,000%, the viewer automatically sets the display to 4,000%. Your zoom setting persists as you navigate through a document set. This means that if you've set one document to 150% and you go to the next document, the next document defaults to 150% zoom.To specify a zoom percentage without using the zoom out/in toolbar buttons, type the number in the percentage field and press the Enter key.
- Search Bar
- searches for terms and/or emojis in the current document and navigates through the hits. This searches the entire document, not just the active page. You can use the arrows 
to view the search results. - You can search for emojis using any of the following methods:
Option Description Search using copy and paste If you would like to search for an emoji that displays in the Short Message Viewer, do the following:
- Highlight the desired emoji.
- Either right-click on the emoji and select Copy or press Ctrl+C on your keyboard.
- Either right-click in the Search Bar and select Paste or click in the Search Bar and press Ctrl+V on your keyboard.
Search using an emoticon If you would like to search for a popular emoji that has an emoticon, you can find the emoticon by visiting RSMF-supported Emoji Emoticon and Attachments. To search using an emoticon, do the following:
- Either type the emoticon or copy and paste it into the Search Bar.
- Press Enter on your keyboard or click
to navigate to the first search result.
- To search for terms in the Search Bar, consider the following:
- Entering a term and either clicking the left or right arrow button or pressing Enter in this text box scrolls to and highlights the text of the next instance of the term (from the placement of the cursor).
- Searching in Search Bar is not case sensitive.
- Search results match partially-entered words.
- Matching is done on the literal character typed into the Search Bar, including non-alphanumeric characters. This means that the viewer doesn't treat non-alphanumeric characters as wildcards. To find variations on words or phrases use an asterisk (*).
- Replace document
- replace a document native for the selected document. - Upload Image
- upload an image for the selected document. - Generate image
- generate images for the current document. -
Go To Next/Previous Highlight
- moves through previous and next highlighted terms in the document. -
About
- displays the version of the Short Message Viewer that converted the document when you opened it from the document list.
Navigating the Short Message Viewer
The Short Message Viewer offers a number of features to make finding the desired information in a conversation as easy as possible.
Short Message Filtering
Short Message Filtering allows users to quickly locate and investigate messages leveraging the following data dimensions: conversations, participants, events, and dates. See the table below for more information on what data is pulled in from the RSMF file to populate these filters’ values. For more info on the RSMF file format, visit Relativity Short Message Format.
| Filter Category | Data from RSMF File |
|---|---|
| Conversations | In the ‘conversations’ dictionary, there is a field called “display”, that relates to “id”, and is used to populate the conversations filter. |
| Participants | In the ‘participants’ dictionary, there is a field called “display”, that relates to “id”, is used to populate the participants filter. |
| Events | In the ‘events’ dictionary, there is a field called “type”, which is used to populate the events filter. |
| Dates | In the ‘events’ dictionary, there is a field called “timestamp”, the date filter uses to focus on messages in a certain timeframe. |
Once a filter is selected, the Viewer will only display messages that meet that criteria. If multiple filters are selected within a specific filter category, OR logic is applied to those criteria. When making selections across multiple filter categories, AND logic will be applied. In other words, all selections within a filter category are additive to your results due to the OR logic, and selections across filter categories are subtractive to your results due to the AND logic.
Note: The filter only supports investigative workflows and you are unable to code or produce a filtered conversation.
Platform Icon
The following table displays the different platform icons that can display in the Short Message Viewer. If a file does not contain any information about the messaging platform, the SMS platform displays by default.
| Icon | Name of Platform | Platform Value in RSMF |
|---|---|---|
|
Slack | slack |
|
SMS or MMS | sms or mms |
|
Bloomberg | bloomberg |
|
Skype | skype |
|
iMessage | imessage |
Conversation Pane
The Conversation Pane displays a list of the conversation's participants as well as the exact number of messages that were sent during the RSMF file's duration.
To view additional information about a participant, including any custom information included in the RSMF file, hover your cursor over their badge or avatar.
Note: Links to existing entity objects are created by matching participant email metadata or participant display name metadata to entity aliases in the workspace.
Navigating the Conversation
To view additional information about the conversation such as start and end date, participants, and any additional custom data, hover your cursor over the platform icon.
To view additional information about a participant, including custom info entered in the RSMF file, hover your cursor over the participant's badge or avatar.
To see which participants used a reaction or completed an event, hover your mouse over the reaction/event.
Additional information displays to the right of each message to indicate whether a message was tagged by a participant as important or EDITED or DELETED displays to indicate a participant changed or removed that message from the conversation.
If there are images that are placed in-line within a message and are either a jpg, jpeg, png, or gif, you can click on an image to expand it.
If a message or conversation has an attachment, there are several ways you can open it depending on which mode of the Viewer is open. If an attachment does not open in a new window, we recommend disabling any pop-blockers associated with your internet browser for that page and trying again.
Note: Starting in Relativity 10.3.142.22, you cannot upload duplicate attachments to a single message.
| Viewer Mode | Option | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Viewer | Left-click |
|
| Viewer | Shift+left-click | Opens the attachment in the Standalone Viewerin a new window. |
| Viewer | Ctrl+left-click | Downloads the attachment in your internet browser. |
| Undocked and Standalone Viewer | Left-click | Opens the attachment in the Standalone Viewer in a new window. |
| Undocked and Standalone Viewer | Shift + left-click | Opens the attachment in the Standalone Viewer in a new window. |
| Undocked and Standalone Viewer | Ctrl + left-click | Downloads the attachment in your internet browser. |
Timeline Navigator
The Timeline Navigator at the bottom of the Short Message Viewer allows you to track the duration and message activity within a conversation. You can also view event activity with an RSMF file in the Timeline Navigator.
To quickly jump to a particular date, click in the Timeline Navigator and the conversation in the Short Message Viewer will move to the selected time. As you scroll through the messages, a blue highlight window will display in the Timeline Navigator to indicate where you are in the conversation.
(Click to expand)
To view additional information about the conversation on a particular date or time, hover your cursor over the desired time in the Timeline Navigator.
If you have active persistent highlights or search highlights, any bars in the Timeline Navigator that contain highlights display in orange. Click on the desired bar to conveniently navigate to the desired highlight.
You can re-size the Timeline Navigator by left-clicking and dragging the top of the Navigator to the desired size.
You can click to the Hide Timeline button in the bottom-right to minimize the Timeline Navigator. To return to displaying the Timeline Navigator at its previous size, click Show Timeline.
Copying text in the viewer
While viewing a document in Viewer mode, you can copy text from the document you're currently viewing and then paste it into another application.
To do this:
- Highlight either the text in a single message or the entire text from multiple messages that you want copied.
- Right-click, and then select Copy from the menu.
You can't copy text if you:
- Haven't highlighted any text.
- Don't have permission to the Local Access option on the Document object. This is the same permission that permits you to open the file in its native application.
Audit Records
Audits populated when viewing an RSMF include:
-
"View" for an RSMF file
-
"Download" for in-line images on that RSMF file only (not for other attachments)
Adjusting the Time Zone in Short Message Viewer
To adjust the Short Message Viewer to display messages in a different time zone, use the Relativity Native Time Zone Offset field in the Coding Panel.
Short Message Viewer Image mode
RSMF files function like documents in the Short Message Viewer with the exception of the Navigation features described below.
When emojis are rendered in HTML5, Relativity uses the native browser to render. When the emojis are imaged, the Google set is used. To learn more about the Google set, visit Emojipedia.
Beginning in Relativity 11.1.152.1, when RSMF files are imaged, all messages will be imaged, regardless of if any filtering was applied to the RSMF file in the Short Message Viewer. The image of the RSMF will mirror what you see in the Viewer, and will produce a PDF version of what you see in the Viewer.
Also beginning in Relativity 10.3.142.22, by default, we will add a ‘Summary Report’ to the first page of the imaged version of the RSMF file. Redactions and other edits are able to be applied to imaged version of the conversation, much like traditional email documents.
Imaging does respect the date format, “DD/MM/YYYY”, for example. The date used for Imaging is based on the Windows regional settings on a given machine as of Relativity 11.1.152.1.
The Relativity Short Message Format native type is set to use basic imaging in the Native Types tab. It is possible to image in color using the basic imaging engine by setting the Basic Image Format to JPEG on the imaging profile.
Navigating the Short Message Viewer Image mode
The Short Message Viewer Image mode offers a number of features to make finding the desired information in a conversation as easy as possible.
Short Message Report and Outline of Conversations
Note: The Short Message Report is displayed by default when viewing images in the Short Message Viewer.
At the top of the RSMF file, the Short Message Report displays data about the messages contained within.
The Outline of Conversations displays underneath the Short Message Report and also contains statistical data about the messages. In addition, the name of each participant in the conversation also displays.
Navigating the conversation
If a participant enters or leaves a conversation, a message displays underneath their name and avatar to help you track who was involved in the conversation.
If a reaction or event occurs in the conversation, the name of each participant who used that reaction or event displays next to it.
Additional information displays to the right of each message to indicate whether a message was tagged by a participant as important or EDITED or DELETED displays to indicate a participant changed or removed that message from the conversation.
Viewer Extracted Text mode
RSMF files can also be viewed in the Viewer's Extracted text mode if data is included in the Body. and the extracted text comes from the EML file. For more information about Extracted text mode, visit Viewer.
