Applying propagation to documents

The propagation function can help enhance your document review workflow to save time spent coding documents. For example, you can tag a document as Responsive and have the value propagate to that document’s family members.

To enable propagation, toggle Propagation on. Click the icon in the Propagate To row. The available options depend on the relational fields set for the workspace.

When you code a document in a field on which propagation is enabled, the propagation function automatically codes related documents with the same value. Click Save or Save & Next in the layout to apply the field propagation rules.

Note: Propagation works on all document object field types. Associative Object Lists do not work with propagation.

Propagation doesn't cascade or cause chain reactions, meaning that only the documents in the saved document’s groups receive the propagated values. For example, if you create a responsiveness field to propagate both family and duplicates, and you code a parent email as Responsive, these actions occur:

Family propagation - codes child email attachments as responsive
Duplicate propagation - codes duplicate emails of the parent as responsive

Duplicates of the child attachments aren't coded as responsive. This action would be a duplicate propagation triggered by family propagation.

Propagating to documents in multiple groups

When you code a document that's a member of multiple related groups – for example, Duplicates and Email Families – it's important to understand how coding decisions propagate in specific scenarios.

The following scenarios illustrate how propagation applies to a set of documents. Assume that propagation is active for both email families and duplicates.

There are two email families: