Email Thread Groups
Location: Browse >> Groupings Menu
Overview
An email thread is a grouping including an initial email message and succeeding replies and forwards, arranged chronological order from the first reply to the most recent. Lexbe’s Email Threading+ feature groups a string of related emails together in a chain. For example, if someone sends a message asking for a response to four people, and all four responds individually, all those messages will create a chain of emails, or an email thread.
Benefits
Email threading allows a document reviewer to review all emails in a thread together at one time. This allows for a more comprehensive view of the entire conversation, as increased time efficiency. Other benefits include:
Reducing time and cost of document review
Finding responsive or privileged emails contained within an email thread
Identifying the discussion topic and corresponding recipients/participants
Reducing inconsistent coding of related documents
Visualizing a timeline of a threaded conversation
Process
To construct email threads, Lexbe extracts and utilizes metadata contained within email headers that are unique to an email thread. This is programmed within the Lexbe eDiscovery Platform and is free of charge for all accounts. Email threading must be initiated by Lexbe’s Professional Services team and all processing must be complete before Email Threading can be run.
Viewing Email Threads
Once email threading is complete, there are a variety of views and functions available to aid in efficient review. To see a list of all unique threads/groups, navigate to the Browse screen and from the left side menu bar, expand the section “Groups” and click Email Thread Groups.
The ‘Select Email Thread’ page sets forth each unique thread group along with the total number of emails that belong to the thread ("Total Count"); however, only those documents uploaded to the case (the "Case Count") will be displayed when selecting a group. As such, if the Case Count is lower than the Total Count, then not all emails in the thread have been uploaded. Conversely, if the Case Count is higher than the Total Count, then this means the thread contains duplicates. Additional details on this follow below.
To view a list of the emails contained within a particular thread, simply click on the thread group. This will take you to the Browse screen where you can:
Mass code all emails in a thread (e.g., Responsive, Privileged, or for issue coding)
Display/hide column fields
Click on the email's title to view documents in Doc Viewer
Click the white arrow to view the next threading group
Click VISUALIZE to enter Lexbe’s Email Threading Visualizer
Select Email Thread Page
Browse View
Lexbe’s Threading Visualizer
Lexbe’s threading visualizer is an interactive, hierarchical display of the emails within a thread (screenshots below).
To view the Email Details on the right side, click the email square (this will turn the email square orange; to hide the details, simply click it again).
To view a particular email in the Doc Viewer, click on the email square and then click “View” from within the Email Details box on right side.
To compare two emails, click on their squares and hit the “Compare” button (additional details below).
To return back to Browse, click the “Browse” button.
Note, any email that has an orange box will be automatically selected when you return to Browse; this makes for easy coding.
To go to the ‘Select Email Thread’ page, click the three dots in the blue banner.
The “Not Available” boxes represent missing emails.
Missing emails are identified with a dotted line border and notated as “Not Available”. This allows users to quickly identify missing emails that were potentially deleted and/or missed during collection.
A green dot indicates that there is no reply that contains the exact same text, so that email is unique and should be reviewed.
A white dot with a green circle means the same as above, but that the email is marked as having already been reviewed.
Threading Visualizer: Email Thread Group View & Email Detail View
Redundant Emails
When Email Threading is run, an email is marked as redundant if its content is contained within another email in that thread. In the Threading Visualizer, redundant emails can be identified by the absence of a green or white dot as described above.
Examples of Redundant Emails
Scenario 1: If user A sends email X to user B, who replies to email X with email Y, then email X will be marked as redundant, since the content of email X is part of the email Y.
Scenario 2: If user A sends email X to user B, who replies to email X with email Y, and then user A replies to email Y with email Z, then email X and Y will be marked as redundant, since the content of email X and Y is part of the email Z.
Filtering on Redundant Emails
When working in Browse, users can review more efficiently by filtering on the "Redundant Emails" field. To exclude redundant emails add the field to the filter and select "Document is not a Redundant Email" from the dropdown. To view Redundant Emails, select "Document is a Redundant Email" from the dropdown.
Comparing Two Documents
The Email Threading Visualizer contains an offspring comparison tool. By selecting two documents and then clicking the Compare button, the documents will be opened in the Doc Viewer with their differences highlighted. The first document clicked is referred to as the “Compare to Document” (right side in green), and the second document clicked is referred to as the “Current Document” (left side in red). This tool allows users to spot document differences at a glance, and reduces the risk of overlooking important information that may not be part of every email within the thread.
By default, the two documents are displayed in Side by Side format, but this can be changed to a Line by Line format if preferred. The available viewing formats are located just above the Compare to Document, and can be selected by clicking Side by Side or Line by Line.
Doc Viewer: Document Comparison View
Additional Assistance
If you would like to have Email Threading run on your case, or if you have any questions, please contact professionalservices@lexbe.com