Data Requests in IBM StoredIQ for Legal

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Introduction

This document introduces you to setting up data requests in IBM StoredIQ for Legal. After reading the document and working through the tasks, you will know about the basic concepts, all required settings for data requests, and which steps are required for creating one. 

This document is covers these topics:

1. Data request overview
2. Setting up the system
3. Testing your data request

Data request overview

A legal matter often requires the discovery of data that pertains to specific custodians. With StoredIQ for Legal, you can create data requests that are fulfilled manually by fulfillment teams.

Before starting with the the setup, let's go through the items that make up a data request to help you understand the requirements and tasks during setup and testing.

1. Data Request: A data request entity is the representation of an entire data request. A data request has one or more work packages. Its main workflow is specified in a data request template. 
2. Work Package: A work package is a collection of fulfillment items packaged by specific criteria such as the data source and the custodians of the same priority and jurisdiction who have an ID on that data source. By default, a work package contains one fulfillment item for each custodian. After a requestor submits a work package, it is assigned to a person on the fulfillment team who is then responsible for satisfying the request detailed in the work package's fulfillment items. 
3. Fulfillment Item: A fulfillment item is smallest unit of a data request. It represents a specific type of request (and eventually the results) regarding data in a selected data source for a custodian, for example, a request for identifying data for a specific custodian in an email server.
4. Entity Attributes: Information such as the ID, name, or status of an entity is called an Entity Attribute (or just attribute) in StoredIQ for Legal. Attributes are defined for each type of entity: data request, work package, and fulfillment item. In data requests, attributes are exposed to users in forms and to workflows within workflow services. By changing the attribute values of an entity, users and workflows interact. You can define your own attributes and manage them in Admin > Attributes.
5. Forms: A form is an interface for users to access entity attributes. Within StoredIQ for Legal, each stage of a data request workflow has its own form: request information form, refinement request form, work package form, fulfillment detail form, and fulfillment result form. You define and manage forms in Catalog -> Templates -> Forms.
6. Data Request Workflow: Each submitted data request has one main workflow. This workflow controls the state of the data request, creates user tasks, and performs other activities (tasks, events, interactions) as defined in a workflow definition file (BPMN file).
7. Fulfillment Workflow: Each work package has a fulfillment workflow for the fulfillment phase. When a work package is submitted, the fulfillment workflow specified in the selected data request template is triggered. After the fulfillment workflow is completed, the work package status is changed to the completed state.
8. Data Request Template: A data request template is a set of workflow definitions and forms. A data request entity is created by instantiating it from a data request template. A data request template consists of two workflow definitions (main workflow and fulfillment workflow) and five forms (one for each stage of the data request workflow). You create and manage templates in Catalog > Templates > Data Request Templates.

Setting up the system

To be able to create data requests, you must complete these prerequisite tasks:

1. Add roles
2. Add attributes
3. Deploy workflow definitions
4. Create forms
5. Create a data request template

1. Add roles

We use the following roles in our demo request:

• Email Fulfillment Technician: fulfills data requests for email servers
• Home Drive Fulfillment Technician: fulfills data requests for home drives

To add new roles to the system, go to Admin > Users and Roles > Role Assignments.
Click New Role and provide the following information:

Email Fulfillment Technician:

Home Drive Fulfillment Technician:

2.  Add attributes

To be able to work with the roles defined in step 1, update the work package and the data request attributes. In addition, define a custom attribute that can be used to either allow or deny further processing of a data request if a custodian has no data source assigned.

2-a.  Add fulfillment teams

Go to Admin > Attributes > Work Package Attributes. Click the wrench icon for the Fulfillment Team entry and add Email Fulfillment Technician and Home Drive Fulfillment Technician as shown. Make sure to save the change.

2-b.  Add data source categories

Go to Admin -> Attributes -> Data Request Attributes. Click the wrench icon for the Data Source Category entry and add Email and Home Drive as shown.

2-c.  Add custom attributes

In the demo workflow, a flag named Allow Unmapped is used, which indicates whether the data request allows to proceed with the workflow process when it has any custodians with no mapped data source. For this purpose, define a corresponding custom attribute.

Still on the Data Request Attributes page, click New and enter the following information:

Make sure to save the change.

3.  Deploy workflow definitions

This document references ready-made workflow definitions instead of detailing how to create new ones from scratch.
If you want to learn how to create your own workflow from scratch, the following link might be helpful: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg22001296

3-a. Overview

Before deploying the workflow definitions, let's take a closer look at the user tasks defined there.

Data Request Workflow:

Fulfillment Workflow:

1. Refine Request: In this task,  the requestor maps data sources to custodians. You can block further workflow processing here by using the custom attribute Allow Unmapped. If the value of Allow Unmapped is False, the requestor will see this task again unless every custodian has a data source mapped.
2. Submit WP: In this task, the requestor submits work packages to fulfillment teams.
3. Manage & Monitor: In this task, the requestor tracks the progress of fulfillment requests.
4. Confirm Not Completed: This task is triggered when the requestor is trying to close the data request although it still has work packages that are not completed. The requestor can then either return to Manage & Monitor task or confirm the closure of the data request.
5. Fulfill Data Request: In this task, a fulfillment technician works on fulfillment.

3-b. Deploy the definitions

Download the workflow definitions attached to this document (StoredIQ_for_Legal_Data_Request_Process.bpmn and StoredIQ_for Legal_Fulfillment_Process.bpmn).

Go to Admin > Workflows > Workflow Definitions and click Add Workflow Definition.

After you add the workflows, you can see the workflow details as shown:

Main workflow

Fulfillment Flow

Then, activate the workflows in the details views.

4.  Create forms

Go to Catalogs > Templates, click New Template > Create, and complete the fields as shown.

Open the Layout and Contents page and delete all fields except for Allow Unmapped.

In the middle section of the Design pane, click Allow Unmapped. Then, change the editor type to Check box.

Click Activate (bottom left) and then close the editor.

Now you created the form for request refinements. For other types of forms, use the preconfigured definition files attached to this document (Request Information Form - Sample.json, Work Package Form - Sample. json, Fulfillment Details Form - Sample.json, and Fulfillment Result Form - Sample.json)

Download the files and import them one by one. Go to Catalog > Templates, then click New Template > Import. Make sure to activate each template.

5.  Create a data request template

Go to Catalog > Templates, click New Template >Create. In the Create Template window, complete the fields as shown. Then, click Create.

On the Definition page, you can specify a data request type and workflow definitions. Select Preservation as request type and, for Main workflow and Fulfillment workflow, select the respective workflow definitions from the ones you imported.

On the Forms page, you can specify the forms to be used in the requests. Select the appropriate forms from the ones you created or imported.

Make sure to save the changes and activate the template.

Test your data request

Before you start testing, make sure you have some test users and data sources available. If you don't have any, create them with the appropriate configuration. If you already have some test users and data sources, update their configuration:

1. Configure test users and data sources

1-a.  Configure test users

You need at least one user with the role Email Fulfillment Technician, one with the role Home Drive Fulfillment Technician, and one with the role Paralegal.

Go to Admin > Users and Roles > Role Assignments.
Click Add Test User and add users as shown in the following screen capture.

If you already have a sufficient set of test users, you can skip this user creation step and assign the roles to existing users. Alternatively, you can create a superuser with all roles for convenience.

1-b.  Configure data sources

A data source describes the source of data itself and the connection information that is necessary for accessing the data. Data sources are needed to fulfill data requests. You must import the data sources from a CSV file.

To test our data request, you need some data sources where the fulfillment team consists of Email Fulfillment Technician and Home Drive Fulfillment Technician and the data source categories are Email and Home Drive.

If you already have some data sources available for test purposes, you can reuse those, updating the fulfillment team field and the data source category field. If you have no data sources, you have to import some data sources via the StoredIQ for Legal import API. For details, see https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSZL2P_2.0.3/com.ibm.biq.manage.doc/m_import.htm

As a result of this step, you can see two data sources when you go to Catalog > Data Sources:

Tip: If you need to import data sources, have a look at the sample CSV file attached to this document (datasources.csv).

2. Create and submit a data request

Sign in as a paralegal and go to Matters. If you don't already have a matter for test purposes, create one (click New Matter).

Within the matter, open the Data Requests page. The page won't have any entries because you haven't yet created any data request. Create a data request: click New Data Request and complete the Create Data Request window as shown.

Click Create. This creates a draft version of the data request.
On the Request Information page, specify the following information:

On the Custodians page, click Add. In the Add Custodians window, select two custodians.

These two custodians are added to the custodians list.

Now, the data request ready for submission. Click Submit to start the data request workflow. 

2.  Refine the request

Go to Tasks.
You will see a task named Refine Request.

Click the name to see the details.

Click the link to the data request.

Add data sources to one of the custodians.

Then, you will see the custodians in the view like this:

On the Work Packages page, you will also see two work packages generated for the custodian.

Go back to the task details view and click Complete to move on to the next task.
You will see a new urgent task generated in the task list. This task shows you are not allowed to move on to the next task as long as you have a custodian without any data sources.

Now you have three options:

1. Add a data source to the custodian
2. Remove the custodian from the data request
3. Edit the data request to allow the custodian to have no data sources

In this scenario, you will go with option 3. Go back to the data request view and click Actions > Edit. Go to the refinement request form.

Select Allow Unmapped and save the new setting by clicking Update.

Now you can complete the task despite the custodian having no data sources.

3.  Submit work packages

Go to the tasks list. There you will see a new task named Submit WP.

Go to the data request view again via the task details view. On the Work Packages page, you will see several Submit buttons. Click Submit All to submit all work packages at once to fulfillment technicians.

Then, go back to the task details view and complete the task.

4.  Execute fulfillment requests

After you submit the work packages, they appear in the fulfillment technicians' task list.

Sign in as a user with the role Email Fulfillment Technician and go to the tasks list.
You can see the fulfillment task in the list of unassigned tasks. Any user with the role Email Fulfillment Technician can take this task by clicking Assign to Me.

Taking the task moves it to the user's task list and can be accessed on the My Tasks page. 

Select the task to view the details. Click Assign to Me.

Then, click the link to the work package.

You will see one item in the list. Click it to view the details.

In this step, in a real case, the fulfillment technician would access the email server to preserve the custodian's data of the custodian and enter the result in the form. In our scenario, enter a dummy result as shown in the screen capture and click Mark as Complete.

Go back to the task details view and complete the task.
That's all of the Email Fulfillment Technician's work.

Sign in as the paralegal again and go to Tasks.
You will see a task named Manage & Monitor in the list. Click the name and go to the details view.

In this task, you can track the status of each work package. Now it shows that we have completed one of two work packages and preserved 210 KB of data.

You can complete this task after the Home Drive Fulfillment Technician user's task is complete.

Sign in as a user with the Home Drive Fulfillment Technician role and make the task done in the same way as we have done with the Email Fulfillment Technician.

5.  Complete the data request

Login with the Paralegal again and go to the data request view. Now you can see all work packages completed.

Go to the task details view of the Manage & Monitor task and complete the task.

This is the end of the data request workflow. On your Matters page, you can see that the request is completed.

Conclusion and next steps

In this document, we described how data requests work and how to set them up in StoredIQ for Legal. To learn more, see the documentation on data requests in IBM Knowledge Center: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSZL2P_2.0.3/com.ibm.biq.manage.doc/m_datarequests.htm