Create a New Preservation Notice for a Hold
Legal hold administrators have the ability to create, edit, and manage preservation notices. Preservation notices differ from hold notices for data custodians in that the target audience for preservation notices are data stewards who control access to data sources. Preservation notices can be used to allow data stewards to make necessary decisions on what data can be removed from internal systems.
Steps to Create a New Preservation Notice
The preservation notice creation process is an optional workflow and includes several steps. Best practice suggests you complete the steps in order, but they can be completed at any point in the process or after a hold has been sent. Select a link below to navigate to that step:
Step 1: Enable preservation notices for a hold
Step 2: Create the preservation notice email
Step 3: Add Data Stewards
Step 4: Review and Send
Step 1: Enable Preservation Notices for the Hold
In this step, hold administrators can toggle the use of preservation notices to enabled or "on". Once this is enabled, two additional steps are added to the hold for the preservation notice and selection of data stewards to whom the notice will be sent.
If the Add Preservation Notice toggle is turned on in the global settings, the Add Preservation Notice toggle for new holds will be automatically set enabled.
Step 2: Add the Preservation Notice Text
In this step, hold administrators create the preservation notice(s) text, which serves as the first form of email communication to all possible data stewards of a hold. This screen allows hold administrators to manually write the notice text or copy it from a template.
Manually Add the Notice Text
The text in this notice can be edited at any point in this process and can be edited and resent after a hold as been sent to recipients.
- When the Preservation Notice screen appears, enter in a From and Reply To email address as well as the Notice Name and Subject. These fields will be auto-populated if SMTP is turned ON, but it's still possible to change the email address. If SMTP is OFF, the From and Reply To fields cannot be edited.
- Enable or disable the toggle permission below:
- When the Display recipients on preservation notice toggle is enabled, data stewards will be able to see a list of recipients of the legal hold notice when the preservation notice is sent out. - Type text for the Preservation Notice Text in the rich text editor. The preservation notice text can be entered manually, copy/pasted from third-party applications, or entered using the Copy from Template feature.
Text that is copied and pasted over from third-party applications, such as Microsoft Word, will maintain any formatting and font styles will be maintained by the rich text editor. The text editor in this screen has standard formatting tools for adding headings, aligning text, making inline edits (bold, strike through, or <code> for example).
- Add variables to the notice text.
- Add attachments to the notice text.
Note: Each of the options is explained in detail under these instructions. - Click the Send Test Email button to preview the preservation notice in your inbox before sending it out to data stewards. Variables will be unresolved in the Test Email feature.
Click Save and Continue to add data stewards to the preservation notice.
Note: Preservation Notice name is auto populated by the hold name.
Copy from Template
The Copy from Template feature allows hold administrators to directly import the verbiage of the notice from a pre-existing email template directly onto the Preservation Notice screen. This aids hold administrators by eliminating the need to create the same email each time they create a new preservation notice.
Note: A template must already exist before you can use this feature. See the Create an Email Template page for instructions on creating and saving new email templates.
The instructions below assume the user is in the Create A Preservation Notice workflow and the email template has already been created.
- Within the Preservation Notice workflow, navigate to the Preservation Notice page if not already there.
- Click the Copy from Template button toward the top of the Preservation Notice(s) screen.
- Use the search bar to quickly find the respective template you need or click through the pages of templates stored in the library.
- Click on a template name to preview the text in that template.
Template text can be edited once it appears in the Preservation Notice(s) screen.
Adding Variables and Attachments
Variables
Variables can be inserted into the preservation notice text so the system auto-fills the information once the preservation notice is sent out. This allows hold administrators to create personalized notices for each data steward with pre-populated information about the preservation notice.
Variables can be added to or removed from any location in the text and can be added multiple times to the same notice.
Out of the box variables include: Matter Name, Matter ID, Hold Name, Hold Number, Hold Open Date, Primary Internal Contact, and a link to the Custodian Portal (this will appear as a button in the data steward email).
Attachments
Users can click the paperclip icon in the text editor to add attachments to the notice.
- A maximum of two attachments can be added to each hold, each attachment having a 20 mb limit. The paperclip button is disabled after two attachments are added.
- Acceptable attachment types: .doc, .docx, .pgn, .jpg, PPT, PDF, and Excel.
Remove attachments by clicking the trashcan icon in the bottom right of the attachment.
Step 3: Add Data Stewards
In this step, hold administrators will add individual data stewards and groups of data stewards to the preservation notice. The data stewards are typically system owners or possible persons of interest that maintain internal systems of documents or information to preserve. There is no data displayed on the Add Data Steward screen when users initially land on this page. Click the Add Groups or Add People buttons to add data stewards.
Regardless if a data stewards is added as an individual or as part of a group, data stewards can be deleted one-by-one by clicking the trashcan icon next to their name.
Add Individual Data Stewards
Data stewards can be added and removed at any point in the Create a Preservation Notice process, and additional data stewards can be added after a notice has already been sent out. If this happens, the notice will only be sent to newly added data stewards.
- Click the Add People button in the top right corner of the screen to search and add data stewards to the notice.
- Use the search toggle to select a category to search by (e.g., First/Last Name, Email, Employee ID, etc.) then manually type in a search criteria to filter the results.
Note: A data steward must have an existing Person Record in the LegalHold system before they can be added as a data steward. New entries can be added directly from the Data Steward screen by clicking the Create New Person Record button that appears in the top right corner of the screen after the Add People button is clicked. - Place checkmarks next to as many data steward names as desired - the names will appear above the table as the Add People button is clicked.
- Click the checkbox next to the First Name column to select all data stewards on that page.
- Click the Select All Pages link to select ALL data stewards from every page in the table.
Add Data Steward Groups
Hold administrators can add groups of individuals to a hold by clicking the Add Groups button on the Data Stewards screen. Groups must already be created in the Manage Groups module before they can be added to a preservation notice.
- Click the Add Groups button in the top right corner of the screen to search and add groups to the notice.
A table containing a list of all saved groups will appear at the bottom of the screen. - Use the search bar to manually type and search for groups. Click the checkbox to the left of a group name to add it to the preservation notice.
Multiple groups can be added to a preservation notice at a time.
Individual users can be deleted from the Data Stewards list. - Click the Add Group(s) button at the bottom of the page to save the changes.
Once the changes have been saved and the list of selected data stewards appears, group members can be individually deleted by clicking the trashcan icon in the far right column. This feature is useful if an individual has been added to multiple groups.
Step 4: Review and send
Once the preservation notice has been configured, the hold administrator can review the notice and select to send it to attached data stewards.
Please find the hold notice email template as shown for your reference: