Add a New Custodian or Edit a Custodian Entry

Project Data > Custodians > right-click > New Custodian

Requires Custodians - View Permissions for viewing,
Custodians - Add/Edit Permissions for New or Edit,
Custodians - Delete Permissions for Delete

Custodians can automatically be created for you at the time of import (for example, based on staged data that is associated with a Custodian). Each Custodian is identified by the icon .

These auto-created Custodians and their associated data automatically become part of the Project. The first Custodian in the Custodian list is the Unassigned Custodian (which represents the documents not currently assigned to any Custodian).

You can also add Custodians to the Project yourself (for example, from the Custodian Summary). After you add a Custodian, you can use the Add to option from any documents list to save and assign documents to that Custodian (for example, after you discover that a set of documents are associated with that Custodian).

A document can only be assigned to one Custodian. If you do not have the Project set up for auto-generated Custodians at import, all of the documents added to Project Data will be in the Unassigned Custodian initially. After import, you can then save documents to a Custodian you have added, which would move the documents from the Unassigned Custodian to the Custodian you select. Removing documents from a given Custodian will cause the documents to return to the Unassigned Custodian view. For more information about managing Custodian views, see Manage Custodians and Data Assigned to Custodians.

After you create a Custodian, you can edit the information for a given Custodian (for example, if you wanted to fix a typo in the Custodian name). You cannot edit or remove the Unassigned Custodian.

New Custodian or Edit Custodian Options

  • NameClosed The unique name of an item. For many items, the name can have up to 100 characters. Some items, such as a Connector name, can have up to 255 characters. An Excluded Content Block name is limited to 32 characters. (required) — Assign a name for the Custodian that you want to add. The Custodian name must be unique within the Project and is subject to validation upon creation or edit. A Custodian name can include alphanumeric characters, spaces between characters in the name (leading and trailing spaces are ignored), as well as a number of supported characters (such as a hyphen, underscore, period, pound sign, dollar sign, percent sign, ampersand, and apostrophe). During validation, the software will also allow characters from foreign languages (for example, Korean characters). However, the following characters are not supported for Custodian names and will generate an error message indicating that your entry contains invalid characters:

    ! " * + / : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ { | } ~ “ ”

    Note: To support auto-discovery of Custodians based on staging, a Custodian name has fewer restrictions regarding invalid characters. Other items in the tree, including Tags, Imports, eDiscovery Exports, Folders, Saved Searches, Workflows, Comparisons, Samples, and Synthetic Documents. have additional restrictions.

  • If you include the supported special characters in the name, you must escape those characters as part of a Search query (for example, custodian_view::savings\&loan), or you must place the entire name in quotes (for example, custodian_view::"savings&loan"). You cannot change the name of the Unassigned Custodian.
  • DescriptionClosed Provides a helpful description of an item. A description can have up to 255 characters. — Optionally enter a helpful description of the Custodian.
  • Priority (cleared by default) — By default, Priority is not used for a Custodian (that is, None appears for a configured or auto-generated Custodian and the Unassigned Custodian). If the Project is set to use Global Deduplication (the default), you can enable use of a Priority value for a Custodian to influence export deduplication and reporting. (If you establish Custodian Priority values, and the Project does not define Survivorship Model queries, when performing deduplication, the Custodian with the highest priority in each duplicate group will serve as the master Custodian and have the master duplicate for export and reporting.) To use a Priority value for a Custodian, select this checkbox setting and supply a value, as follows:
    • <value> — If you select Priority for a Custodian, you can supply a value in the range 1-999, 1 being the highest priority. Custodian Priority values do not have to be unique (that is, multiple Custodians can have the same Priority value). Note that the Priority value is not considered if the Project uses Custodial Deduplication.

    To clear a Custodian Priority that you have set and reinstate a value of None for the Custodian, clear the Priority checkbox.

  • OK — Issues a request to add or edit the Custodian with the specified information. The OK button will not become active until you supply all required information, such as the Name.
  • Cancel — Cancels the operation.

The new Custodian appears in the Custodians Summary.

If you want to delete a Custodian from the Custodian list, click Delete from the Custodians Summary. You cannot delete the Unassigned Custodian.