Posted in New Features | Tagged as: batch update, delimited text, edd, metadata, readysuite | No Comments »
We’re about ready to wind down our Introduction to ReadySuite series with discussions geared towards enhancements to some of the core functionality. This post will focus on changes made to the import and export of delimited text.
First up, we’ll highlight how we’ve improved the import of delimited text files. One of most requested changes by our users was to allow new records to be created by this process. Previously, you had to link the delimited text import with an existing record (i.e. native and/or image based document). The benefit here was we could tell you which documents were “un-linked” or not found. Now you can add the record as a new document if it can’t be linked. If you don’t need to add these as new records, the option to generate a warning is still there.
We’ve also implemented an update-mode if the record already exists. You can choose to replace an existing field value or append the new value to the existing record. For example, if you had a field named PRODRANGES with the value “ABC001-ABC002” and a delimited text file with a PRODRANGES field having the value of “DEF001-DEF002”, the append mode would combine the values to be “ABC001-ABC002 DEF001-DEF002”.
Additionally, you can now choose to repeat the value of a field during the import delimited text process. If a field is marked to have its values repeated, any empty values will be replaced with the previous non-empty value. If you’re importing a FOLDER field whose value is only entered for the first document inside that folder, but you need it repeated for each document inside that folder, then mark the field to be repeated. The folder information will be re-used for each document until a new folder is encountered.
Moving on to exporting delimited text files, we’ve added the ability to export page records. When setting up the delimited text export, you can simply check a box to export all the pages or images in a document. Page level fields, such as filename, page number, folder and color status will be available. Document level fields will simply be repeated for each page in the document.
Group fields are now available to the delimited text export in addition to the EDRM and DII exports. This feature allows you to specify two or more fields to be “merged” on export in the event that one field does not have a value. This is useful if you have three fields called Author, From, and Creator but you only need one export field called Author. Based on the order you add the fields to the new group field, the first non-empty item will be used in the export field.
For those users who want to merge two or more fields together regardless of any existing data, we’ve added that ability to the Batch Update dialog. For example, if you want to merge BEGPROD1, BEGPROD2, and BEGPROD3 into a BEGPRODS field, you would use the following syntax:
${META:BEGPROD1}; ${META: BEGPROD2}; ${META: BEGPROD3}
Don’t worry if the above is confusing: we have an easy-to-use field picker to help in the process.
The changes highlighted in this post are also being provided to our ReadyConvert users, among other bug fixes, free of charge. ReadyConvert is our free load file verification and conversion tool used by many litigation professionals.
Our next blog post will focus on overall stability improvements and important changes to the document grid.
Posted in New Features | Tagged as: bates, edd, export, number, preview, readysuite | No Comments »
Document and page level numbering is the latest addition to our Introduction to ReadySuite series. This feature fits nicely with the discussed endorsing and exporting options. Utilizing the new numbering functionality allows users to re-brand existing image sets or create new production image sets. We let you easily create cross reference fields, use custom fields in the numbering scheme, and support a bates counter larger than 18 numerical digits with no limit in the prefix.
In page-level numbering, we divide the numbering scheme into three parts: prefix, separator, and counter. Typically the prefix value is static in content; however, we allow you to use one or more custom fields when building the prefix. For example, if each document being numbered has a field called “ExhNo”, you can use the document’s exhibit number in the prefix of each document. The separator lets you specify a character to put in between the prefix and counter. If no separator is desired, leave it blank.
The counter field allows you to indicate the starting number to use and the amount of leading zeros to pad. Entering “001483” in the counter field will yield 6 digits for each document, starting at 1483 and incrementing by 1 for each page until the end. Additionally, we allow you to reset the counter back to its original starting value for each document. Utilizing this feature lets you number each page in a document separate from the previous document.
In the above illustration, you can see we’ve defined two documents each with a unique exhibit number. Using the exhibit number field in the prefix, with 0001 as our counter and allowing the counter to reset after each document, would yield the above starting and ending exhibit numbers.
Generating cross reference reports is just as easy. At the time of numbering, we let you specify or create new fields to indicate the previous starting and ending document numbers. For example, if you are re-numbering your review set to create a production set, you can save the starting and ending review numbers in fields ReviewStart and ReviewEnd respectively.
As we inch closer towards releasing ReadySuite, we’re looking for a few additional beta testers. Contact Justin Blessing if you’re interested in joining our test team.
Posted in New Features | Tagged as: edd, export, imaging, native, pdf, readysuite, tiff | No Comments »
Moving on with our Introduction to ReadySuite series, we’ll be discussing new features aimed at exporting image and loose native files. From the ground up, ReadySuite is designed to support various image formats including TIFF, PDF and JPEG. Image files can be in either single or multi framed format and added using load files and/or image folders. Additionally, loose native files can be associated with their image counterpart through a delimited text file. Along with these advanced import capabilities, users can now tailor an export designed to meet their delivery requirements.
First up is conversion among image formats. You can use ReadySuite to convert single-page images to multi-page images and multi-page images to single-page images. Images can be saved in TIFF, PDF, PDF/A or a combination of TIFF and JPEG/LZW formats. For example, you can import multi-page TIFF images with LZW compression and export to PDF with color intact. Do you have a need to save color PDF files to a combination of single-page TIFF and JPEG files? All these options are handled by the export wizard. A key feature for ReadySuite was to allow flexibility with image formats, for both imports and exports.
Once the destination image format has been decided, we provide several options for the folder and file naming structure. For example, you can adjust the primary image folder to “IMAGES”, “IMG”, or leave it blank. ReadySuite gives full control on the naming convention. Image files can then be placed under an incremental folder scheme, allowing specified number of files per directory. For example, if you’re exporting 1,000 single-page images with 250 files per folder, folders “001” thru “004” will be automatically created. This is a very basic feature – but on the advanced side, we allow you to merge several fields together to create a directory structure of your choice. If you want image files to be placed under the custodians name and then under the original file extension, so be it. We extend this functionality to file naming. File names can be the original bates number or a combination of any custom fields.
Do your delivery specifications require you to deliver multi-page images with the original Excel spreadsheets? We provide the capability to accomplish this task without manually deleting files and removing entries from load files. Our loose native export functionality allows you to specify document types to exclude or include from the export process. The same advanced folder and file naming options for exporting images can be applied to exporting loose native files.
Other export options allow you to specify the volume name, load file formats, and if the new documents should be added to the grid once complete. Next up, we’ll be discussing new features aimed at document and page level numbering.
