Creating and Running Productions

Creating a Production

Before You Begin

• Workspace Admins and above can create productions.
• The documents included in a production are determined when the production is run, not when it is created.
• The document count shown during creation is an estimate and may change before the production is run.
• After a production is created, it cannot be edited, renamed, or deleted. 

How to Create a Production

1. After navigating to a workspace, click the Productions button in the navigation panel on the left of your screen
2. Click Create Production. A new menu will appear.

3. Configure the production settings:

   • Production Name: Enter a name for the production. Production names can contain up to 255 characters.
   • Production Date: Optionally select a date to associate with the production. The Production Date is informational and does not determine which documents are included.
   • Naming Strategy: Select Bates Number or Original Document Name.

     • When Original Document Name is used, converted documents retain the original file name and extension before the produced extension. For example, memo.docx is produced as memo.docx.pdf. Duplicate file names are automatically numbered, such as memo.docx (1).pdf.

   • Tags: If tags exist in the workspace, you can optionally filter the production to documents matching selected tags.
   • If Bates Number is selected, configure the following:
     • Start Number: 0 through 2,000,000,000. The default is 1.
     • Number of Digits: 0 through 10. The default is 4.
     • Prefix: Optional, up to 50 characters.
     • Suffix: Optional, up to 50 characters.
       • Prefixes and suffixes cannot contain the following characters: < > : " / \ | ? *

Note: AND includes documents containing all selected tags. OR includes documents containing any of the selected tags. Bates numbers are assigned to successfully produced documents in upload order. Documents that fail to produce do not receive a Bates number and do not create gaps in the Bates sequence.

4. Click Create. Blackout will automatically navigate to the created production, but all productions can be accessed from the Productions tab.

Note: The documents included in a production are determined when the production is run. Documents uploaded or tagged after the production is created may still be included if they match the production criteria when it is run.

Now that the production has been created, you are ready to run the production.

Running a Production

Before You Begin

• Workspace Admins and above can run the production using the steps below. 
• Productions can only be run once.

• The documents included in the production are determined when the production is run.

• When a production is run, document preparation occurs. For more information on this process, please refer to the following link.
• CSV and TSV files will be produced as near-native XLSX files
• PDF documents, Word documents, PowerPoint documents, images, email documents, and other supported spreadsheet types are produced as PDF files.
• The Run Production button is unavailable when no documents match the production criteria.

• Once a production begins running, it cannot be canceled. Failed documents cannot be retried within the same production; create a new production to produce them again.

How to Run a Production

1. Select a production in the Productions tab.

2. Click the Run Production button in the top right.

   

3. A progress bar will be displayed showing the production's progress and runtime.
4. After the production is complete, the Last Run section displays information about the completed production, including the number of documents produced and the number of documents that failed. 

If any documents fail to produce, a Failed Documents section displays the Document Name and Error Message for each failed document.

Note: Only Workspace Admins and above can review production details.

After the production has run, you are ready to share it. To learn more, see Sharing Productions.

Document Preparation

Document preparation occurs when a production is run and helps ensure that sensitive or historical information cannot be restored from the produced documents.

The preparation steps performed depend on the document type and production output format.

What to Know

• Redactions are applied to the produced documents when the production is run.
• Native spreadsheets undergo spreadsheet-specific document preparation.
• PDF output undergoes a separate preparation process.
• CSV and TSV files are converted to XLSX but do not undergo the native spreadsheet preparation process.

Document Preparation will perform the following actions

• Replace all formulas with static values
• Replace all pivot tables with static values
• Remove all change history from documents
• Unhide all hidden and very-hidden rows, columns, and sheets
• Unmerge all merged cells
• Replacing formulas with static values.
• Replacing pivot tables with static values.
• Accepting tracked changes.
• Unhiding hidden and very-hidden rows, columns, and sheets.
• Unmerging merged cells.
• Removing hyperlinks and external links.
• Clearing custom document properties.
• Removing print areas.
• Converting tables to standard ranges.
• Ungrouping shapes.
• Removing workbook password protection.
• Flattening annotations and layers.
• Removing embedded files.
• Removing private information from the produced PDF.

Comments are retained during document preparation.

Document Preparation ensures

• Data is not lost after content is removed from the document
• That all data is visible to reviewers
• That content can’t be restored after markups are placed