Unveiling the Future: "Reveal" Cultivates Innovation with Upgraded Features

Customer Sentiment Webinar Recap from 10/17/24

In a recent webinar Ryan Nichols, VP of Product Review & Process at Reveal, and Billy Belchev, Reveal’s VP of Product Management & Design, introduced the company’s latest product enhancements, focusing on simplifying workflows and improving the user experience. This post captures key insights from the session and provides a full list of the questions and answers discussed during the live Q&A.

Innovative New Features

• Simplified native file processing on the web – Streamlines the process, eliminating the need for additional load machines and enabling a smoother user experience.

• Streamlined importing of DAT files – Enhances seamless data integration, allowing users to manage data more effectively.

• New web-based Review Manager and Discovery Manager tools – Provides powerful, web-based solutions for managing reviews and discoveries with greater efficiency and control.

Conversations & Queries

Billy addressed a series of questions from the chat. This encompassed a broad range of topics, from auto ignore in load file fields, front-end exception detection, adding new custodians, and applying templates to projects. His insightful responses underscored the dedication Reveal has toward customer service. Here are those questions and the team’s answers:

1. Is there an ability to add new custodians in the front-end upload window? Currently, we use Discovery Manager to add a custodian, which is cumbersome when we’re only uploading a single document with a new custodian who isn’t already in the project.
   • Yes, this is a feature that is already available. There are a few minor adjustments being made to make it more visible in the standard workflow. Some users have already used it.  

2. Will this also allow us to apply a mapping template to a new project?
   • Field mapping templates are available in the next release, expected for a November timeframe. You can copy these mapping templates from one project to another. The next release allows Project A to Project B copying of a variety of non-document project settings, including copying field mapping templates, as long as the user has access to both projects.

3. Separating upload from processing is crucial, especially when delegating the upload talk to end clients.
   • In the current version, Native (unprocessed) files can only be uploaded, processed, and promoted to review as a single action. Future updates will allow for more flexible workflows, including more separation between the upload step and processing step.

4. We often receive load files with numerous fields, many of which contain no data. If we could identify fields with no data across all documents, that would be incredibly useful. Limiting this check to the first 100 rows is insufficient for this purpose.
   • It is useful for us to get context on a feature request, thank you. We will consider an option during field mapping and delimited file loading to ignore a mapped field, meaning to not overwrite existing field values or to not record an error, if a mapped field has no data for all documents in the delimited file. We may consider an option at the record level, such as skip if delimited field is empty. We also have a future addition planned where overlays may allow actions such as overwrite only if empty, append, or prepend.  

5. Can we have an auto-ignore feature for load file fields that contain no data in any document?
   • Currently, we present a warning for the first 100 rows of the data in the load file if there’s no data for a field. It’s not exactly auto-ignore, but it alerts you so you can decide whether to unmap the field. As mentioned in A4, such a feature will be considered.

6. Is there any front-end error/exception detection on load files? Can you provide examples of error handling during the load process?
   • Yes. There is a preview of the first 100 rows of a load file when it’s uploaded, and we also perform validations for common errors in the first 100 rows. For example, if a field is mapped as a date field but contains text that can’t be parsed as a date, or if a number field is mapped but contains text data, the system will present a warning. Similarly, if there are blank entries or missing required fields, you will receive an alert. Additional error checking happens during the actual ingestion process. For example, if there are duplicate documents, that check happens during ingestion. Any errors are meant to recorded in a downloadable error DAT file, and the process will continue to the next record without stopping the load job.

7. With error remediation on load files, will there be a way to handle it without having to re-trigger an upload? This is an issue with the Logikcull product line, where errors often require going through the upload wizard again.
   • We have some work to complete still in error remediation scenarios for delimited file loads. Our goal is to minimize the need for re-uploading files, especially when it comes to native renderings, if these files have been very recently uploaded. We have to define some parameters as to when we are able to reuse previously uploaded files and when we cannot. In any case, the loading process we demonstrated does not require zipping up all natives and delimited files in one file. We parse the delimited file and natives root folder, and we only upload the native renderings referenced in the delimited file, even if more are present in the root folder. We will evaluate whether we can also reliably detect if the same native renderings have also very recently been uploaded already.

Despite the significant progress made, Nichols acknowledged that there is still work to be done. As Reveal continues to refine its tools for seamless data handling and project management, users can look forward to more improvements on the horizon.

In conclusion, this webinar highlighted Reveal’s dedication to innovation and delivering solutions that prioritize user needs. For a more comprehensive understanding of these advancements, we encourage watching the webinar on-demand. Stay tuned for future sessions as we continue to explore the evolving landscape of legal technology.

Click here for a video recording of the Q&A session