Entity object

The Entity object functions as the central location for people, companies, organizational groups, and their metadata. Relativity Legal Hold, Processing, and Analytics all leverage the Entity object.

Required security permissions

Object Security Tab Visibility Other Settings
Entity - View, Edit Entities

Overwrite Inherited Security disabled for the Classification field.

  • Set this through the Edit Permissions option on the Classification field layout.

There are several ways to add a new entity:

  • Manually create an entity from the Entities tab. See Creating and editing an entity.
  • Load and sync entities via Integration Points. See Integration Points.
  • Load entities via the Relativity Desktop Client. See Importing entities through the RDC.
  • Run Analytics name normalization to identify entities from email headers. See Name normalization.
  • Manually create a key entity in the Review Interface. A key entity is one that has the multi-choice field Classification set to either Key Person or Key Organization on the Entity object. These values are set automatically when you create an entity with either one of the respective views (Key People and Key Organization.) See Case Dynamics for more information on creating a key entity.

Creating and editing an entity

To create an entity, complete the following:

  1. From the Entities tab, click New Entity.
  2. Select a layout from the drop-down list. For more information, see the following:

    Note: Layouts only appear for the applications you have installed.

    1. Legal Hold Custodian layout
    2. Processing Entity layout
    3. Entities - Communicators Layout
    4. Default Case Dynamics layouts
  3. Complete the fields in the layout.
  4. Click Save.

Importing entities through the RDC

You can add multiple entities by uploading a .CSV or .DAT file via the Relativity Desktop Client.

Use the following basic steps for importing entities through the RDC.

  1. Compile or locate the entity load file you wish to import. For more information about the load file, see the following:
  1. Log in to the RDC and select the workspace into which you want to import these entities and eventually publish data.
  2. From the object drop-down list in the RDC, select the Entity object.
  1. Click Tools | Import | Entity Load File.
  1. Click the ellipsis next to the Load File field and select the file containing all of your entities.
  2. Map the Relativity entity fields to the fields included in your load file.
  3. Complete the import. For more information, see Importing through the RDC.

Deleting an entity

You can use the Mass delete operation to delete aliases. For more information, see Mass delete. You can only delete an entity if it's not associated with any alias, Processing data source, or Legal Hold project.

Note: If the Legal Hold application is installed in the workspace, it will negatively impact the performance of the Mass delete operation.

Legal Hold entities

The following section contains entities information specific to Legal Hold.

Processing entities

The following section contains entities information specific to Processing.

Analytics entities

The following section contains entities information specific to Analytics.

Case Dynamics entities

Case Dynamics comes with four layouts on the Entity object.

For an entity to appear in Case Dynamics, either Person or Organization must be selected for the Type field and Key - Case Dynamics must be selected for the Classification field. For these four layouts, there is an event handler that sets the Type field to save the user time.

The following sections contains entities information specific to Case Dynamics.

Custom Case Dynamics layout requirements

When creating custom Case Dynamics layouts for the entity object, keep the following requirements in mind:

  • The layout should include the Type field, as well as, the Classification fields. Both fields should be editable so that entities can be tagged properly.

  • If you're creating entities with Organization selected for the Type field, then the Full Name field must be included on the layout.

  • If you're creating entities with Person selected for the Type field then the First Name, Last Name, and Full Name fields must be included on the layout.