Processing sets

A processing set is an object to which you attach a processing profile and at least one data source and then use as the basis for a processing job. When you run a processing job, the processing engine refers to the settings specified on the data sources attached to the processing set when bringing data into Relativity.

Note: Never upgrade your Relativity version while there are jobs of any type currently in progress in your environment. Doing this leads to inaccurate results when you attempt to finish those jobs after your upgrade is complete. This is especially important for imaging and processing jobs.

Consider the following about processing sets:

• A single processing set can contain multiple data sources.
• Only one processing profile can be added to a processing set.
• You can't delete a workspace in which there is an in-progress inventory, discovery, or publish job in the Processing Queue.
• Don't add documents to a workspace and link those documents to an in-progress processing set. Doing this distorts the processing set's report data.
• When processing data, Relativity works within the bounds of the operating system and the programs installed on it. Therefore, it can’t tell the difference between a file that's missing because it was quarantined by anti-virus protection and a file that was deleted after the user initiated discovery.

• Never stop Relativity services through Windows Services or use the IIS to stop a processing job.

Note: When you upgrade from Relativity 8.1 to 2023 with processing sets that are in an agent error state, the status section of the upgraded processing set doesn't display the agent error. This is because there is no job in the queue for the data source that contains the error.

Processing sets default view

Use the Processing Sets sub-tab to see a list of all the processing sets in your environment.

Note: You can manually search for any processing set in the workspace by entering its name in the text box at the top of the list and clicking Enter. Relativity treats the search terms you enter here as a literal contains search, meaning that it takes exactly what you enter and looks for any processing set that contains those terms.

This view provides the following information:

• Name - the name of the processing set.
• Inventory Status - the current status of the inventory phase of the set. This field could display any of the following status values:
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Completed
  • Completed with errors
  • Re-inventory required - Upgrade
  • Re-inventory required - Data sources modified
  • Canceled
  • Finalized failed
• Inventoried files - the number of files across all data sources on the set that have been inventoried.

Note: Inventory populates only job level errors.

• Discover Status - the current status of the discovery phase of the set. This field could display any of the following status values:
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Completed
  • Completed with errors
  • Canceled
• Discovered files - the number of files across all data sources on the set that have been discovered.

Note: Discovery populates job and document level errors.

• Publish Status - the current status of the publish phase of the set. This field could display any of the following status values:
  • Not started
  • In progress
  • Completed
  • Completed with errors
  • Canceled
• Published documents - the number of files across all data sources on the set that have been published to the workspace.

Note: By adding the Originating Processing Set document field to any view, you can indicate which processing set a document came from.

From the Processing Sets sub-tab you can:

• Open and edit an existing processing set.
• Perform the following mass operations on selected processing sets:
  • Delete
  • Export to File
  • Tally/Sum/Average

Note: The Copy, Edit, and Replace mass operations are not available for use with processing sets.

Creating a processing set

When you create a processing set, you are specifying the settings that the processing engine uses to process data.

To create a processing set:

1. Navigate to the Processing tab and then click the Processing Sets sub-tab.
2. Click the New Processing Set button to display the Processing Set layout.
3. Complete the fields on the Processing Set layout. See Fields.
4. Click Save.
5. Add as many Processing Data Sources to the set as you need. See Adding a processing data source.

Note: The frequency with which the processing set console refreshes is determined by the ProcessingSetStatusUpdateInterval entry in the Instance setting table. The default value for this is 5 seconds. 5 seconds is also the minimum value.

Processing Set Fields

To create a processing set, complete the following fields:

• Name - the name of the set.
• Processing profile - select any of the profiles you created in the Processing Profiles tab. If you haven't created a profile, you can select the Default profile or click Add to create a new one. If there is only one profile in the workspace, that profile is automatically populated here. See Processing profiles.
• Email notification recipients - the email addresses of those whom you want to receive notifications while the processing set is in progress. Relativity sends an email to notify the recipient of the following:
  • Inventory
    • Successful inventory completed
    • Inventory completed with errors
    • First discovery job-level error
    • Inventory error during job submission
  • Discovery
    • Successful discovery completed
    • Discovery completed with errors
    • First discovery job-level error
    • File discovery error during job submission
  • Retry - discovery
    • First discovery retry job-level error
    • Discovery retry error during job submission
  • Publish
    • Successful publish completed
    • Publish complete with errors
    • First publish job-level error
    • Publish error during job submission
  • Retry - publish
    • First publish retry job-level error
    • Publish retry error during job submission

Note: Email notifications are sent per the completion of processing sets, not data sources. This ensures that a recipient doesn't receive excessive emails. The exception to this is job-level errors. If all data sources encounter a job-level error, then Relativity sends an email per data source.

After you save the processing set, the layout is updated to include the process set status display. The display remains blank until you start either inventory or file discovery from the console. The console remains disabled until you add at least one data source to the set.

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The Processing Set Status section of the set layout provides data and visual cues that you can use to measure progress throughout the life of the processing set. This display and the information in the status section refresh automatically every five seconds to reflect changes in the job.

Note: To create a Quick-create set, see Quick-create set(s) for more information.

Adding a data source

A Processing Data Source is an object you associate with a processing set in order to specify the source path of the files you intend to inventory, discover, and publish, as well as the custodian who facilitates that data and other settings.

Note: You have the option of using Integration Points to import a list of custodians from Active Directory into the Data Sources object. Doing this would give you an evergreen catalog of custodians to pick from when preparing to run a processing job. 

You can add multiple data sources to a single processing set, which means that you can process data for multiple custodians through a single set. There is no limit to the number of data sources you can add to a set; however, most sets contain ten or fewer.

Note: During publish, if you have multiple data sources attached to a single processing set, Relativity starts the second source as soon as the first source reaches the DeDuplication and Document ID generation stage. Previously, Relativity waited until the entire source was published before starting the next one.

To add a data source:

1. Create and save a new processing set, or navigate into an existing set. See Creating a processing set.
2. On the Processing Data Source object of the processing set click New.
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3. Complete the fields on the Add Processing Data Source layout. See Fields.
4. Click Save. When you save the data source, it becomes associated with the processing set and the console on the right side is enabled for inventory and file discovery.

For details on what information is displayed in the data source view while the processing set is running, see Processing Data Source view.

Note: If you add, edit, or delete a data source associated with a processing set that has already been inventoried but not yet discovered, you must run inventory again on that processing set. You can't add or delete a data source to or from a processing set that has already been discovered or if there's already a job in the processing queue for the processing set.

Data Source Fields

To add a data source, complete the following fields:

• Source path - the location of the data you want to process. Click Browse to select the path. The source path you select controls the folder tree below. The folder tree displays an icon for each file or folder within the source path. You can specify source paths in the resource pool under the Processing Source Location object. Click Save after you select a folder or file in this field. For processing and imaging data sets containing CAD files, you can configure the timeout value in the AppSettings table. See AppSettings table.
  
  
  • The processing engine processes all the files located in the folder you select as your source as one job. This includes, for example, a case in which you place five different .PSTs from one custodian in a single folder.
  • You can specify source paths in the resource pool under the Processing Source Location object. The Relativity Service Account must have read access to the processing source locations on the resource pool.
  • Depending on the case sensitivity of your network file system, the source location that you add through the resource pool may be case sensitive and might have to match the actual source path exactly. For example, if the name of the file share folder is \\files\SambaShare\Samba, you must enter this exactly and not as “\\files\SambaShare\samba” or “\\files\sambashare\Samba”, or any other variation of the actual name. Doing so will result in a document-level processing error stating, “The system cannot find the file specified.”
  • If you process files from source locations contained in a drive that you have attached to your computer, you can detach those original source locations without issue after the processing set is finished. This is because Relativity copies the files from the source locations to the Relativity file repository. For a graphical representation of how this works, see Copying natives during processing.

  Note: Processing supports long file paths, but in the case of other Windows parsing issues outside of long path issues, Relativity won't be able to read that path. It is recommended that you pull documents out of subfolders that are nested in deep layers so that they are not hidden.

• Custodian - the owner of the processed data. When you select a custodian with a specified prefix, the default document numbering prefix field changes to reflect the custodian's prefix. Thus, the prefix from the custodian takes precedence over the prefix on the profile.
  • When you open the Add Entity window, the last accessed entity layout is selected by default in the layout drop-down list. For example, if you last created an entity with a Collections layout, that layout is selected here, even though you've accessed this window through the processing data source. To create a new custodian with processing-relevant fields, select the Processing Entity layout from the drop-down list.
    

  • Type

    • Person - the individual acting as entity of the data you wish to process.
    • Other - the entity of the data you wish to process that isn't an individual but is, for example, just a company name. You can also select this if you wish to enter an individual's full name without having that name include a comma once you export the data associated with it. Selecting this changes the Entity layout to remove the required First Name and Last Name fields and instead presents a required Full Name field.
  • First Name - the first name of the entity. This field is only available if you've set the Type above to Person.
  • Last Name - the last name of the entity. This field is only available if you've set the Type above to Person.
  • Full Name - the full name of the entity of the data you wish to process. This field is only available if you've set the Type above to Other. When you enter the full name of an entity, that name doesn't contain a comma when you export the data associated with it.
  • Classification - differentiates among entity records created for Processing or Name Normalization.
    • Custodian – Processing - the indicator that this custodian was created for Processing.

    Note: When new custodians are created using the Quick-Create Set(s) layout, the classification is set to Custodian – Processing.

    • Communicator - the indicator that the record was created by Name Normalization. For more information see Name normalization.

  • Document numbering prefix - the prefix used to identify each file of a processing set once the set is published. The prefix entered on the entity appears as the default value for the required Document numbering prefix field on the processing data source that uses that entity. The identifier of the published file reads: <Prefix> # # # # # # # # # #.

  • Notes - any additional descriptors of the entity.
  • If you add processing to an environment that already has custodian information in its database, Relativity doesn't sync the imported custodian data with the existing custodian data. Instead, it creates separate custodian entries.
  • If a single custodian has two identical copies of a document in different folders, only the master document makes it into Relativity. Relativity stores a complete record internally of the duplicate, and, if mapped, the duplicate paths, all paths, duplicate custodian, all custodian fields in the master record are published. Additionally, there may be other mapped fields available that can describe additional fields of the duplicates.

  Note: One of the options you have for bringing custodians into Relativity is Integration Points (RIP). You can use RIP to import any number of custodians into your environment from Active Directory and then associate those custodians with the data sources that you add to your processing set.

• Destination folder - the folder in Relativity where the processed data is published. This default value of this field is pulled from the processing profile. If you edit this field to a different destination folder location, the processing engine reads this value and not the folder specified on the profile. You can select an existing folder or create a new one by right-clicking the base folder and selecting Create.
  • If the source path you selected is an individual file or a container, such as a zip, then the folder tree does not include the folder name that contains the individual file or container.
  • If the source path you selected is a folder, then the folder tree includes the name of the folder you selected.
• Time Zone - determines what time zone is used to display date and time on a processed document. The default value is the time zone entered on the profile associated with this set. The default value for all new profiles is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). If you wish to change this, click Select to choose from a picker list of available time zone values.
• OCR language(s) - determines what language is used to OCR files where text extraction isn't possible, such as for image files containing text.
  • The OCR settings used during processing are the same as those used during standard OCR.
  • Selecting multiple languages will increase the amount of time required to complete the OCR process, as the engine will need to go through each language selected.
  • The default value is the language entered on the profile associated with this set.
• Document numbering prefix - the prefix applied to the files once they are published. On published files, this appears as <Prefix>xxxxxxxxxx - the prefix followed by the number of digits specified. The numbering prefix from the custodian takes precedence over the prefix on the processing profile. This means that if you select a custodian with a different document numbering prefix than that found on the profile referenced by the processing set, this field changes to reflect the prefix of the custodian.
• Start Number - the starting number for the documents published from this data source.
  • This field is only visible is your processing set is using a profile with a Numbering Type field value of Define Start Number.
  • If the value you enter here differs from the value you entered for the Default Start Number field on the profile, then this value takes precedence over the value on the profile.
  • The maximum value you can enter here is 2,147,483,647. If you enter a higher value, you'll receive an Invalid Integer warning next to field value and you won't be able to save the profile.
  • If you leave this field blank or if there are conflicts, then Relativity will auto-number the documents in this data source. This means it will use the next available control number for the document numbering prefix entered. For example, if you've already published 100 documents to the workspace and you mistakenly enter 0000000099 as a start number, Relativity will automatically adjust this value to be 0000000101, as the value you entered was already included sequentially in the previously published documents.
  • You can use the Check for Conflicts option next to this field. When you click this, you'll be notified that the start number you entered is acceptable or that it's already taken and that the documents in that data source will be auto-numbered with the next available control number. Note that this conflict check could take a long time to complete, depending on the number of documents already published to the workspace.
• Name - the name you want the data source to appear under when you include this field on a view or associate this data source with another object or if this data source encounters an error. Leaving this blank means that the data source is listed by custodian name and artifact ID. Populating this field is useful in helping you identify errors later in your processing workflow.

Note: The processing data source is saved with <Custodian Last Name>, <Custodian First Name> - < Artifact ID> populated for the Name field, if you leave this field blank when creating the data source. Previously, this field only displayed the artifact ID if it was left blank. This is useful when you need to identify errors per data source on an error dashboard, as those data sources otherwise wouldn't display a custodian name.

• Order - the priority of the data source when you load the processing set in the Inventory tab and submit the processing set to the queue. This also determines the order in which files in those sources are de-duplicated. This field is automatically populated. For more information, see Order considerations.

Note: When you delete a document that has been published into Review, Processing will re-calculate deduplication to identify and publish the duplicate if there is one, and will not include the deleted document in subsequent deduplication logic.

Order considerations

The Order field determines:

• The job priority of the data source within a given processing set when the set is submitted to the queue (e.g., for discovery or publication). For example, a data source with a lower order number assigned is discovered and/or published before a data source with a higher order number assigned in a given set.
• Changing the order of a data source has no effect on the priority of the processing set. This means that if you set the order of a data source in one processing set to a higher priority than all of the data sources in another processing set, the priorities of the processing sets won't be modified.
• The priority of deduplication if you select a deduplication method other than None. For example, if Global deduplication is specified for a processing set, the data source with the lowest order number assigned would be designated as the primary data source within that processing set. This means that all duplicate files in higher-ordered data sources within that processing set would be deduplicated out against the files in the “primary” source. Any files in the source with the lowest order number assigned would not be removed via deduplication.

Note the following about the Order field:

• It isn't editable after you publish the files in this data source.
• If two data sources have the same order, or if you don't specify an order, Relativity sorts them by their system-assigned artifact ID number. At the time of publish, if two data sources have the same order, or if you don't specify an order, deduplication order is also determined by Artifact ID.
• You can change the priority of data sources in the worker manager queue. If you change the priority of a publish or republish job, you also update the priorities of all other jobs associated with the same data source. When you change the priority of a publish or republish job, Relativity respects the deduplication method used by the processing set containing the modified data sources.
• This value should always be lower than the maximum allowable integer of 2,147,483,647. If this is at or higher, subsequent data sources will have a negative order value.

Edit considerations for data sources

Note the following guidelines for modifying data sources:

Note: If you've started a processing job with a priority value that is higher than 1, and you want to start and finish a Mass PDF job before that processing job completes, you must go to the Worker Manager Server and manually change the priority of the Single Save as PDF choice to be lower than any of the processing choices (Inventory, Discovery, and Publish). Setting the priority of a Mass PDF job must be done before the job begins for it to finish before other processing jobs. For details, see Worker manager server.

• You can't add or delete a data source to or from a processing set if there's already a job in the queue for that set or if discovery of that set has already completed.
• If you add a data source to a processing set that has already been inventoried but not yet discovered, you must run inventory again on that processing set.
• If you edit a data source that is associated with a processing set that has already been inventoried but not yet discovered, you must run inventory again on that processing set.
• If you delete a data source from a processing set that has already been inventoried but not yet discovered, you must run inventory again on that processing set.
• If the processing set to which you've added a data source has already been inventoried, with or without errors, but not yet discovered, you're able to edit all fields on that data source; however, you must run inventory again on that processing set after you edit the source.
• If the processing set to which you've added a data source has already been discovered, with or without errors, you can only edit the Name and Document numbering prefix fields on that data source.
• If the processing set to which you've added a data source has already been published, with or without errors, you can only edit the Name field on that data source.

Note: When you make a change that merits a re-inventory job, Relativity applies a "Force reinventory" flag to the processing set's table in the workspace database.

Processing Data Source view

At the bottom of the processing set layout is the Processing Data Source view, which will display information related to the data sources you add.

This view provides the following fields:

• Status - the current state of the data source as inventory, discovery, publish, or republish runs on the processing set. This and the Percent Complete value refresh automatically every five seconds. This field was introduced in Relativity 9.5.162.111. The status values are:
  • New - the data source is new and no action has been taken on the processing console.
  • Waiting - you've clicked Inventory, Discover, or Publish Files on the console and an agent is waiting to pick up the job.
  • Initializing - an agent has picked up the job and is preparing to work on it.
  • Document ID Generation - document ID numbers are being generated for every document. You'll see this status if the profile attached to the set has a deduplication method of None. This status was added in Relativity 9.5.253.62 as part of the distributed publish enhancement.
  • DeDuplication and Document ID Generation - the master and duplicate documents are being identified, and the document ID number is being generated for every document. You'll see this status if the profile attached to the set has deduplication set to Global or Custodial. This status was added in Relativity 9.5.253.62 as part of the distributed publish enhancement. If you have multiple data sources attached to a single processing set, the second source is started as soon as the first set reaches the DeDuplication and Document ID generation stage. Previously, Relativity waited until the entire source was published before starting the next one.
  • Deduped Metadata Overlay - deduped metadata is being overlaid onto the master documents in Relativity. This status was added in July 2017 as part of the distributed publish enhancement.
  • Inventorying/Discovering/Publishing - an agent is working on the job. Refer to the Percent Complete value to see how close the job is to being done.
  • Inventory/Discovery/Publish files complete - the job is complete, and the Percent Complete value is at 100%.
• Percent Complete - the percentage of documents in the data source that have been inventoried, discovered, or published. This and the Status value refresh automatically every five seconds. This field was introduced in Relativity 9.5.162.111.
• Source path - the path you selected for the source path field on the data source layout.
• Custodian - the custodian you selected for the data source.
• Document numbering prefix - the value you entered to correspond with the custodian on the data source layout. If you didn't specify a prefix for the data source, then this is the default prefix that appears on the processing profile.
• Time zone - the time zone you selected for the data source.
• OCR language(s) - the OCR language(s) you selected on the data source.

Job Errors View

At the bottom of the processing set layout is the Job Errors view, which displays information related to all job-level errors that occurred on all data sources associated with the set.

The Current Job Errors view in the Job errors tab displays all unresolved job errors while the All Job Errors view displays any job error that has occurred throughout the lifecycle of the matter. Both views contain the following fields:

• Error Identifier - the unique identifier of the error as it occurs in the database. When you click this message, you are taken to the error details layout, where you can view the stack trace and other information. Note that for Unresolvable errors, the console is disabled because you can't take any actions on that error from inside Relativity. For more information, see Processing error workflow.
• Error Status - the status of the error. This is most likely Unresolvable.
• Message - the cause and nature of the error. For example, "Error occurred while trying to overlay deduplication details. Please resolve publish error or republish documents from data source below. DataSource Artifact Id: 1695700".
• Custodian - the custodian associated with the data source containing the file on which the error occurred.
• Processing Set - the name of the processing set in which the error occurred.
• Data Source - the data source containing the file on which the error occurred.
• Error Created On - the date and time at which the error occurred during the processing job.
• Republish Required - the error must be retried in order to be successfully published.
• Notes - any manually added notes associated with the error.

For more information on handling document errors, see Processing error workflow.

Processing Data Sources tab

To see all data sources associated with all processing sets in the workspace, navigate to the Processing Data Sources sub-tab.

The default view on the Processing Data Sources tab includes the following fields:

• Processing Data Source - the name of the data source. If you originally left this blank, then this value will consist of the name of the custodian and artifact ID.
• Processing Set - the name of the processing set the data source is attached to.
• Custodian - the custodian attached to the data source.
• Preprocessed file size - the total size, in bytes, of all the files in the data source before you started the processing set.
• Preexpansion file count - the number of files in the data source for all non-container files at the first level after initial expansion.
• Nisted file count - the number of files from the data source that were then removed, per the de-NIST setting.
• Inventoried files - the number of files from the data source that were inventoried.
• Preexpansion file size - the total size, in bytes, of all the files in the data source for all non-container files at the first level after initial expansion.
• Preprocessed file count - the number of files in the data source before you started the processing set.
• Nisted file size - the total size, in bytes, of the files from the data sources that were then removed, per the de-NIST setting.
• Filtered file count - the number of files from the data source that were filtered out before discovery.
• Filtered file size - the total size, in bytes, of the files from the data source that were filtered out before discovery.
• Discover time submitted - the date and time at which the files in the data source were last submitted for discovery.
• Discovered document size - the total size, in bytes, of all the documents from the data source that were successfully discovered.
• Discovered document count - the number of files from the data source that were successfully discovered.
• Last publish time submitted - the date and time at which the files in the data source were last submitted for publish.
• Deduplication method - the deduplication method set on the processing profile associated with the processing set.
• Duplicate file count - the number of files that were deduplicated based on the method set on the processing profile.
• Published documents - the number of documents from the data source that were successfully published.
• Published document size - the total size, in bytes, of all the documents from the data source that were successfully published.
• Status - the current status of the data source.

Deleting a processing set

If your Relativity environment contains any outdated processing sets that haven't yet been published and are taking up valuable space, or sets that simply contain mistakes, you can delete them, depending on what phase they're currently in.

The following table breaks down when you're able to delete a processing set.

Point in processing	Can delete?
Pre-processing - before Inventory and Discovery have been started	Yes
While Inventory is in progress	No
After Inventory has been canceled	Yes
After Inventory has completed	Yes
While Discovery is in progress	No
After Discovery has been canceled	Yes
After Discovery has completed	Yes
While Publish is in progress	No
After Publish has been canceled	No
After Publish has completed	No

If you need to delete a processing set that is currently being inventoried or discovered, you must first cancel inventory or discovery and then delete the set.

Note: Deletion jobs will always take the lowest priority in the queue. If another job becomes active while the delete job is running, the delete job will be put into a “paused” state and will resume once all other jobs are complete.

The following security permissions are required to delete a processing set:

• Tab Visibility - Processing Application. (Processing and Processing Sets at minimum.)
• Other Settings - Delete Object Dependencies. This is required to delete the processing set's child objects and linked associated objects.
• Object Security
  • Edit permissions for Field, with the Add Field Choice By Link setting checked
  • (Optional) Delete permissions for OCR Language
  • Delete permissions for Processing Data Source, Processing Error, Processing Field, and Processing Set

To delete a processing set, perform the following steps:

1. In the processing set list, select the checkbox next to the set(s) you want to delete. If you're on the processing set's layout, click Delete at the top of the layout.

Note: If you use the Delete mass operation to delete a processing set, but then you cancel that deletion while it is in progress, Relativity puts the set into a canceled state to prevent you from accidentally continuing to use a partially deleted set. You can't process a set for which you canceled deletion or in which a deletion error occurred.

2. (Optional) Click View Dependencies on the confirmation window to view all of the processing set's child objects that will also be deleted and the associated objects that will unlink from the set when you proceed with the deletion.

3. Click Delete on the confirmation window. When you proceed, you permanently delete the processing set object, its children, and its processing errors, and you unlink all associated objects.

The following table breaks down what kinds of data is deleted from Relativity and Invariant when you delete a processing set in certain phases.

Phase deleted	From Relativity	From Invariant
Pre-processed (Inventory and Discovery not yet started)	Processing set object - data sources	N/A
Inventoried processing set	Processing set object - errors, data sources, inventory filters	Inventory filter data; inventoried metadata
Discovered processing set	Processing set object - errors, data sources	Discovered metadata

When you delete a processing set, the file deletion manager deletes all physical files and all empty sub-directories. Files that the system previously flagged for future deletion are also deleted.

The following graphic and accompanying steps depict what happens on the back end when you delete a processing set:

1. You click Delete on the processing set.
2. A pre-delete event handler inserts the delete job into the worker manager queue while Relativity deletes all objects associated with the processing set.
3. A processing set agent picks up the job from the worker manager queue and verifies that the set is deleted.
4. The processing set agent sends the delete job to Invariant.
5. The delete job goes into the Invariant queue, where it waits to be picked up by a worker.

6. A worker deletes the SQL data associated with the processing set and queues up any corresponding files to be deleted by the File Deletion agent.
7. The File Deletion starts up during off hours, accesses the queued files and deletes them from disk.

Note: If an error occurs during deletion, you can retry the error in the Discovered Files tab. see Retry Delete for more information.

Avoiding data loss across sets

Due to the way that processing was designed to deal with overwrites during error retry, there is the chance that you can inadvertently erase data while attempting to load documents into Relativity across different modes of import.

To avoid an inadvertent loss of data, do NOT perform the following workflow:

1. Run a processing set.
2. After the processing set is complete, import a small amount of data using the RDC so that you can keep one steady stream of control numbers and pick up manually where the previous processing set left off.
3. After importing data through the RDC, run another processing set, during which Relativity tries to start the numbering where the original processing job left off. During this processing set, some of the documents cause errors because some of the control numbers already exist and Relativity knows not to overwrite documents while running a processing set.
4. Go to the processing errors tab and retry the errors. In this case, Relativity overwrites the documents, as this is the expected behavior during error retry. During this overwrite, you lose some data.

Copying natives during processing

To gain a better understanding of the storage implications of copying natives during processing, note the behavior in the following example.

When you process a PST file containing 20,000 unique total documents while copying natives:

1. You copy the PST from the original source to your Processing Source Location, as this is the identified location where Relativity can see the PST. Note that you can make the original source a processing source by opening the original source to Relativity.

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Note: If you run Inventory on this set, Relativity will identify all parents and attachments, but it will only extract metadata on the parent email.

1. The EDDS12345\Processing\ProcessingSetArtifactID\INV12345\Source\0 folder displays as the original PST.
2. Relativity begins to harvest individual MSG files in batches and processes them. If an MSG has attachments, Relativity harvests files during discovery and places them in the queue to be discovered individually. Throughout this process, the family relationship is maintained.
2. Relativity discovers the files, during which the metadata and text are stored in Relativity Processing SQL.
3. Relativity publishes the metadata from the Relativity Processing SQL Datastore to the Review SQL Datastore and imports text into the text field stored in SQL or Relativity Data Grid. This metadata includes links to the files that were harvested and used for discovery. No additional copy is made for review.
4. Once processing is complete:
   • You can delete the processing source PST.
   • You can delete the PST file in the EDDS folder, assuming there are no errors.

   Note: You can't automate the deletion of files no longer needed upon completion of processing. You need to delete this manually.

   • You should retain files harvested during processing, as they are required for review.

The following graphic depicts what happens behind the scenes when the system copies native files to the repository during processing. Specifically, this shows you how the system handles the data source and EDDS repository across all phases of processing when that data source isn't considered permanent.

This graphic is designed for reference purposes only.