Chat data, sometimes referred to as short message data, encompasses a range of applications including mobile data collaboration platforms and ticketing systems. Within those applications are a vast array of functionalities to assist businesses, such as modern attachments, bot integrations, workflow automations, generative AI solutions and more. The focus of systems which provide chat functionality is primarily improving collaboration and communication within the workspace, while eDiscovery considerations – such as preservation, collection, review, and production – are often an afterthought. With that in mind, what are the costs and burdens of producing chat data in the interest of proportionality?  

Most conversion solutions take an all-or-nothing approach, downloading and converting all the data at once. This method incurs processing and monthly hosting costs on large data volumes before any filtering occurs. CDS Convert aims to reduce data volumes prior to processing via de-duplication and filtering via ECA reporting. Our comprehensive reporting provides in-depth analysis of the contents of your collection, the level of deduplication, and how decisions such as filtering and document unitization will affect your review population.  

CDS Convert: The Key to a Successful Chat Data Production 

CDS launched CDS Convert in 2019 to simplify the production of data for regulators, including the DOJ and SEC. When converting data, CDS Convert automatically creates DOJ- and SEC-requested metadata fields, ensuring that key fields such as call length, message status, and direction are available from the start of a project, and do not require populating during the production process. 

The first step to a smooth production process is a simple, streamlined yet powerful review experience. Here are some of the functionalities that sets CDS Convert apart from other solutions: 

• Critical context. How do we understand the full meaning of a message? Keeping the context of a message intact and as close to the original as possible is critical. CDS built CDS Convert for Relativity Short Message Format (RSMF), which makes images, gifs, emojis, redactions, and edited and deleted messages easily reviewable. This occurs  via advanced searching, filtering, redaction and disclosure capabilities embedded within the solution. With CDS Convert, a single solution can be used to review all data from a mobile phone in the most appropriate format for the data: reviewing chat messages as RSMF, contacts as contact cards, internet history as excel reports, calendar as calendar cards, and location data with map tiles and  geolocation metadata, easily visualized via CDS Vision. 

• Pre-conversion reporting. CDS Convert offers up to 40 short-message-specific metadata fields to cater for DOJ and SEC requirements and more. These fields also drive powerful pre-conversion reporting and inform detailed visualizations and searches. Users can easily find deleted or edited messages, rooms created by specific people, and de-duplicate messages across different devices.  

• Pre-processing insight. Pre-conversion reporting provides in-depth analysis to help teams get to work faster and make informed decisions. CDS Convert offers ECA with pre-conversion reporting to enable teams to cull non-relevant material before incurring costs. Before processing, teams can decide what to cull and what to keep, and how best to unitize their data, driving downstream cost savings. 

• Regulator specific. Different regulators might request different types of unitization, from one message per document, and metadata for each message, to unitization by day, month or with the entire channel as a single document. CDS Convert offers six options for unitization—by the day, week, month, or year; by number of messages; or by “quiet time;” and the ability to preview how they will impact your data set and decide how to apply them—before processing and hosting. Teams can use CDS Convert’s ECA tool to understand each option’s impact on review and choose the method that best suits the case. 

• Flexible formats. Regulators and governmental bodies tend to have specific guidelines on how data should be produced as part of a matter, including information on the required format and metadata for chat and mobile data. Originally developed for output to the Relativity Short Message Format (RSMF), CDS Convert now offers four production formats, including the option for a platform-agnostic output for full-featured review in any eDiscovery platform.  

Our easy-to-understand pre-conversion reports allow legal teams to make informed decisions on their data early in the process, reducing data size and costs. Data can be quickly and easily filtered, reducing the need to process and host large amounts of data, or personal information which is irrelevant to the matter. 

Do You Want to Streamline Your Production of Chat Data in eDiscovery? 

CDS Advisory Services brings together leading advisors and technical experts to assist clients in the management of short message data. Contact us today to learn how we help you meet your organization’s eDiscovery challenges.