Welcome to part 2 of our series on critical considerations for Slack data in eDiscovery. To read part 1, where we discuss how to control expanding Slack data volumes, click here.  

Searching and Producing Slack Data  

When reviewing any short message data, context is key. Messages that retain their original context help the review team properly understand their importance, relevance, and connection to the matter.  

CDS Convert offers many tools to read Slack exports, including parsing messages, identifying usernames, downloading attachments, and ensuring gifs and emojis appear inline. Slack communications are not simply organized and accessible, but also searchable, producible, and representative of the original content.  

Slack’s robust collaboration features can present complications for collection and eDiscovery. CDS Convert retains the nuances of Slack data so that legal teams can review if the full picture. 

• Linked Posts: Slack users can link to an earlier message within a chat room, or link to that message in an entirely different room. This appears as a link to the original post and as a message in the Slack app. Within the Relativity Short Message Format (RSMF) viewer, CDS Convert shows the original post content, including message, sender, date and original room, providing the review team with key details as to the origin of a message. 

Slack Linked Posts

• Threads: Most chat applications typically allow a user to respond directly to an earlier message in the chain by quoting the earlier message (like Slack-linked posts). With Slack, this differs by creating threads. When a user responds directly to a message, a new message chain (thread) is created and embedded within the main thread, where an entirely new conversation can take place. CDS Convert preserves this chain in context to help case teams understand how the embedded thread relates to the wider conversation.  

• Mentions: When composing a message, a user can mention/tag another user to draw their attention to a piece of content and send a notification. By default, this tag includes an alphanumeric code unique to each user. CDS Convert displays the user’s name instead of the code – more like the original message – making it easier for reviewers to interpret.  

• Slack Connect:  Outside vendors, partners, and collaborators can access the Slack platform via Slack Connect. CDS Convert identifies rooms with Connect enabled, in addition to which users in the room are external, which can be critical during an investigation. 

• Forms: Organizations can set up templated forms to track requests, sending tickets to IT teams, reports on HR issues, or spending approvals. CDS Convert displays the fields as well as the outcomes in a coherent, easy to read way.  

• Bot Messages: Bot-generated data is often irrelevant, but since bots often automate organizational tasks (report IT issues, broadcast information, deliver form results), they can create a lot of data. In one case, 48% of the total message volume in an export was bot messages. CDS Convert’s ability to identify channels containing bot messages and exclude entire rooms of IT alerts can vastly reduce the amount of data processed. 

How Slack Retention Settings Affect Document Review 

Slack retention settings, particularly those preserving message edits, will directly impact context and defensibility in eDiscovery. If enabled, the original content will often need to be available for searching and review.  

Slack Retention Settings

When message edits are enabled, deleted and edited messages will automatically be extracted in a standard Slack export, along with the most recent version of the message. Parsing the data can be straightforward if the conversion tool has the capability, but it can still be complex to display.  

Within RSMF 1.0, messages with edits can be assigned flags, and custom arrays can be used to store embedded content, including the original message. With the release of RSMF 2.0, message edits become their own array, allowing more detailed information, including the editor, time stamps, and the original message, to be stored in a more easily reviewable format within the files. 

Overcoming RSMF Searching Limitations 

Although the RSMF format provides useful and clean functionality for review, allowing a reviewer to hover over the message to access the previous content, there are two current limitations:

• Searching: Relativity does not allow for the search of custom arrays and embedded content. With the release of RSMF Search, this will change, allowing for these extended attributes to be searched. However, review teams will need to know how to search the extended attributes through this new method. CDS is part of Relativity’s early access program for select providers to test and offer feedback.  

• Producing Content: Currently there is no Relativity functionality to produce message edits stored in custom arrays. Reviewers need to hover over the arrays and screenshot each one or copy text into a separate document. Legal teams are often unaware of the need for this labor-intensive process until moments from production. 

We built CDS Convert in part to overcome limitations with RSMF functionality. Using CDS Convert, reviewers can determine whether they want to store original messages in a searchable and producible format. This can be critical when dealing with regulators who require access to historical edits.

CDS Convert was purpose-built by our in-house eDiscovery professionals and data scientists to provide law firms, corporations, and government entities with vitally improved workflows, defensible approaches, and cost-management when handling emerging data types.   

Questions about short message data? Contact or request a demo of CDS Convert today.