

Use Inventory to narrow down your files before discovering them by eliminating irrelevant raw data from the discovery process through a variety of preliminary filters. With inventory you can exclude certain file types, file locations, file sizes, NIST files, date ranges, and sender domains. Doing this gives you a less-cluttered data set when you begin to discover your files.
Inventory reads all levels of the data source, including any container files, to the lowest level. Inventory then only extracts data from first-level documents. For example, you have a .ZIP within a .ZIP that contains an email with an attached Word document, inventory only extracts data up to the email. Deeper level files are only extracted after you start Discovery. This includes the contents of a .ZIP file attached to an email and the complete set of document metadata.
You aren't required to inventory files before you start file discovery. Note, however, that once you start file discovery, you can’t run inventory on that processing set, nor can you modify the settings of an inventory job that has already run on that set.
Note: Inventory isn't available in the Processing Console.
The following is a typical workflow that incorporates inventory:
Note: You can't use Inventory (in Processing) on IE 8. You can only use Inventory on IE 9 and 10.
To do this, you inventory your data sources, click Filter Files on the processing set console, load the inventoried set in the filtering files, and apply a Location filter to exclude the location of the “2012 Backup.PST” container.
You can then move on to discover the remaining files in the set.
To inventory the files found in a processing set's data source(s), click Inventory Files on the processing set console. This option is only available if you've added at least one data source to the processing set.
Note: The default priority for all inventory jobs is determined by the current value of the ProcessingInventoryJobPriorityDefault entry in the Instance setting table.
The Inventory Files button on the console is disabled in the following situations:
When you start inventory, the Inventory Files button changes to Cancel. You can use this to cancel the processing set. For more information, see Canceling inventory.
Note: The processing set manager agent sends the password bank to the processing engine when you start inventory. If a custodian is associated with a Lotus Notes password bank, that custodian's information is sent with the inventory job.
You can re-inventory files any time after the previous inventory job is complete. For more information, see Re-inventory.
The following graphic and corresponding steps depict what happens behind the scenes when you start inventory. This information is meant for reference purposes only.
You can monitor the progress of the inventory job through the information provided in the Processing Set Status display on the set layout.
Through this display, you can monitor the following:
See Processing error workflow for details.
If you skip inventory, the status section displays a Skipped status throughout the life of the processing set.
Once inventory is complete, the status section displays a Complete status, indicating that you can move on to either filtering or discovering your files.
If the need arises, you can cancel inventory before the job encounters its first error or before it is complete.
To cancel discovery, click Cancel.
Consider the following regarding canceling inventory:
When inventory is complete you have the option of filtering your files in the Inventory tab before moving to discovery.
Note that Relativity only filters on the files that you've inventoried. Everything else that cascades down from the files that were discovered is not subject to the inventory filters that you set.
To do this, click Filter Files on the console.
When you click this, you're redirected to the Inventory tab, which loads your processing set.
When you click the Inventory tab for the first time from anywhere else in Relativity, no processing set is loaded by default, and you're presented with a list of sets that are eligible for filtering.
Click on a set and click Select to load the set on the Inventory layout.
A processing set is not eligible for use in the Inventory tab if:
If no processing sets are eligible for use in the Inventory tab, you'll be directed to the Processing Sets tab to create a new set or check on the progress of an existing set.
The following considerations apply to all processing sets in Inventory:
Note: If you leave the Inventory tab after having loaded a processing set, that set and any filters applied to it are preserved for you when you return to the Inventory tab.
You can add filters to the inventoried data and see how those filters affect the data in your processing set. You can't add filters if inventory is not complete or if the processing set has already been discovered.
There are six different filters you can apply to a processing set. You can apply these filters in any order; however, you can only apply one filter of each type. This section describes how to apply file location, file size, file type, and sender domain filters.
To add a new filter, click Add Filter.
Note: Filters affect the data set only at the time at which you apply them. This means that if you apply a filter to exclude a certain file type from your data but someone from your organization adds more files to the set, including instances of the excluded type, then the recently added files aren't actually removed when you start discovery. In order to exclude the added file types, you must first re-inventory the files in the updated data set. You can then run discovery and expect to see all instances of that file type excluded.
Clicking Add Filter displays a list of the following available filters:
Note: Renaming a file extension has little effect on how Relativity identifies the file type. When processing a file type, Relativity looks at the actual file properties, such as digital signature, regardless of the named extension. Relativity only uses the named extension as a tie-breaker if the actual file properties indicate multiple extensions.
The following considerations apply to all filter types:
When the selected processing set loads, no filters are applied to the files by default; however, a graph displays the date range for all files in the processing set.
Note: The deNIST filter is applied by default if your processing profile has deNIST field set to Yes.
Note: When you filter for dates, you're filtering specifically on the Sort Date/Time field, which is taken from the file's Sent Date, Received Date, and Last Modified Date fields in that order of precedence. This happens on email messages repeated for the parent document and all child items to allow for date sorting.
You have the following options for applying a date range filter:
Note: When processing documents without an actual date, Relativity provides a null value for the following fields: Created Date, Created Date/Time, Created Time, Last Accessed Date, Last Accessed Date/Time, Last Accessed Time, Last Modified Date, Last Modified Date/Time, Last Modified Time, and Primary Date/Time. The null value is excluded and not represented in the filtered list.
Note: If you run a re-inventory job on a processing set to which you've already added the date range filter, the date range display doesn't update automatically when you return to the Inventory tab from the processing set layout. You have to re-click the date range filter to update the range.
To filter your processing set files by size:
Inventory reduces your processing set by the date parameters you defined. You can now apply additional filters to further reduce the data set, or you can discover the files.
You can toggle the deNIST Filter on or off to exclude commonly known computer system files that are typically useless in e-discovery. You'll do this on the processing profile, and the selection you make there is reflected in the Inventory interface.
If the DeNIST field is set to No on the processing profile, the DeNIST filter doesn't appear by default in Inventory, and you don't have the option to add it. Likewise, if the DeNIST field is set to Yes on the profile, the corresponding filter is enabled in Inventory, and you can't disable it for that processing set.
To filter your processing set files by location:
You can now apply an additional filter to further reduce the data set, or you can discover the files.
To filter your processing set files by type:
You can now apply an additional filter to further reduce the data set, or you can discover the files.
To filter your processing set files by email sender domain:
You can now apply an additional filter to further reduce the data set, or you can discover the files.
Some of the domain entries in your filter window might not be displayed in a traditional domain format. For example, if there are files from an unspecified domain in your processing set, these files appear as a number in parentheses without a domain name next to it. Note the other instances in which Relativity returns unspecified domains and how it handles those items:
The two-list filter lets you filter processing set files by the following filter types:
When you add any of these filters, all instances of the variable being filtered for appear in the Included list to the left (or top). To exclude any instance, highlight it and click the single right arrow button to add it to the Excluded list on the right (or bottom).
Note: If you add items from the Included list to the Excluded or vice versa, and these additions affect the sort and search criteria of the modified list, you can refresh the list to re-apply the sort and search.
Note: Items removed from the data by edits to a previously applied filter are displayed in later filters with a value of (0) next to them. For example, if you apply the file type filter and then later narrow the date range to the extent that it filters out all files of the PDF type, then the next time you view the file type filter, PDFs are listed as having a count of (0).
You can use any of the following options in the two-list filter:
Clicking Remove All under Filter Controls removes all the filters from the menu on the left side of the menu.
You can also remove filters individually by clicking the X on a single filter in the menu. You can't delete a filter if you're currently working with it.
You will be redirected to the processing set page if any of the following occur:
The graph in the Inventory Progress pane reflects all the filters you've applied to the processing set. This graph updates automatically as the inventory job progresses, and provides information on up to six different filters. The vertical axis contains the number of files. The horizontal axis contains the filters.
This graph provides the following information to help you gauge the progress of your filtering:
You can view the exact number of files that remain in the data set by hovering over the gray dot above or below the file type box.
At any time before you discover the files reflected in the Inventory Progress pane, you can reset or delete any filters you already applied.
Once you determine that the filters you've applied have reduced the data set appropriately, you can discover the remaining files.
You can discover files from the Inventory tab using the Discover Files button in the bottom right corner of the layout.
Clicking Discover Files puts the discovery job in the queue and directs you back to the processing set layout, where you can monitor the job's progress.
The same validations that apply when you start discovery from the processing set layout apply when discovering from the Inventory tab.
If the processing set you select for inventory encountered any errors, the triangle icon appears in the upper left corner of the set. Hover over this icon to access a link to all applicable errors.
Clicking the link to view errors takes you to the Job Errors tab, which contains all errors for all processing sets in the workspace. By default, Relativity applies search conditions to this view to direct you to errors specific to your inventory data. Click any error message in the view to go to that error's details page, where you can view the stack trace and cause of the error.
All inventory errors are unresolvable. If you need to address an error that occurred during inventory, you must do so outside of Relativity and then re-run inventory on the processing set.
See Processing error workflow for details.
You receive an error when starting file inventory if any of the following scenarios occur:
You may be prompted to run inventory again in the status display on the processing set layout.
You must run inventory again on a processing set if:
You can also voluntarily re-inventory a processing set any time after the Inventory Files option is enabled after the previous inventory job is complete.
To re-inventory at any time, click Inventory Files.
When you click Inventory again, you're presented with a confirmation message containing information about the inventory job you're about to submit. Click Re-Inventory to proceed with inventory or Cancel to return to the processing set layout.
When you re-inventory files:
Why was this not helpful?
Check one that applies.
Thank you for your feedback.
Want to tell us more?
Great!