Bell County E-Discovery Portal Training Guide 1/8/2014 Version 1.0
The E-Discovery portal has been developed to provide the District Attorney s Office with the ability to electronically upload discoverable documents to a secure website. The documents can then be downloaded by authorized attorneys assigned to the case. Auditing capabilities have been provided to track when attorneys access the system as well as when specific files are downloaded. In order to meet requirements, there are two independent web applications. The first system is an internal application for the DA s Office to administer the process which includes creation of the case, uploading discovery items, and management of attorneys. The secondary or external system is for attorney interaction to login, view and download discovery documents that have been uploaded and marked for attorney download. Internal URL for Management of Cases: http://dsdevbbts.bellcounty.local:8040 External URL for Attorneys Access : http://dadefenseportal.co.bell.tx.us:8080/ To use the external Attorney Portal a browser that meets the following requirements is required: Chrome any version Firefox 7 or greater IE 8 or greater Opera 11+ or greater Safari 5+ or greater To use the internal application for the management of cases the following browser is required (to support the drag and drop feature). IE 10 or greater Chrome version 30 or greater I. Case Creation/Edit To create a new case or update an existing one, follow the URL http://dsdevbbts.bellcounty.local:8040 and enter your username and password if requested. The first screen to display is a search screen which allows for a query of existing cases for review or edit. Simply enter the search criteria and select Search. The following grid displays with the results from the search. Locate the case in the grid and click edit to load the case for viewing or editing.
If creating a new case select Create Case from top navigation tabs which will display the Case Initiation page. Enter header case information: Case Number, Case Description, Date Created, LE Agency, LE Incident Number, Expiration Date, Assigned Attorney
In the Case Involved Parties section enter a Defendant. As you type a list will appear of known names in the County system. Once entered press Add New The name will be added to grid with a party type of defendant. The ability to edit or remove an existing name is also located in the grid for each entry.
The user must next add an Attorney, which is in the same manner as the defendant was added, except select radio button for attorney. Email address is required for each attorney, which is the primary means of communication for the system. This will alert the attorney that they have access to a case, that new files have been added, or that a password has been reset. User may enter as many Attorneys as needed for each case. Each Attroney in the grid has the capability to be edited or removed. The remove is not a delete but a removal from an active status which means the attorney can no longer download files from the portal. Reset password is also available for attorneys who forget their password. Once the password button is pressed an email will be generated and sent to the email address for the attorney.
After Case Involved Parties is complete, the next step is to attach the case documents. If you are running a supported browser described above, the system will allow drag and drop functionality. To use drag and drop, reduce the size of the browser window running the E-Discovery system as shown below. Locate the file(s) in a folder or desktop, highlight and click and drag the contents into the area labeled drop files here to upload of Case Documents. Videos can be uploaded into the Video Files section in the same manner. If the browser does not support drag and drop a button will be available to click and locate the files for uploading.
Once files have been dropped into the zone the files will be displayed as shown below. These files are now ready to be submitted for upload along with the case data entered. Selecting the Submit button will begin saving the case and uploading the documents.
Depending on the size and number of documents to upload to the system, it could take an extended amount of time. Once all files have been uploaded and the case has been saved, a message indicating all files have uploaded successfully will display. After successful submission of a new case, up to two emails will be generated to each attorney: If the Attorney is new to the defense portal, the following email will generate with a temporary password and instructions on how to login and change the temporary password. The second email is sent to each attorney to notify them that they have been assigned to a new case on the portal.
Once files are uploaded, the next step is to select the files to send to the attorney portal. Under the Case Documents selection, a grid displays all files that are available to send to the portal. Select individual files to upload or click the checkbox in the header of the grid which will select all files. Once the documents have been selected click the Send to Portal button. This uploads the files to the attorney portal and makes them available for download. An email is generated to all active attorneys that new files are available for download on the case and provides a password that is required to open the zip file which contains all of the documents.
A message will display once the files have successfully been sent to the portal.
Case Document will now show yes in the In Portal column along with specifying the Archive Name. Additional documents can be added as needed. Each time documents are sent to the portal, a separate Archive Name is created and an email generated with a unique password for each attorney assigned to the case. This concludes the steps necessary to create a new case, assign involved parties, upload case documents and send the appropriate documents to the portal. At this time in the process the attorney will have received an email to notify them that documents have been uploaded and provide a password for extracting the contents. The attorneys can then follow the next section to login, view case information, and download documents.
II. Attorney Portal Login During the creation or updating of a case in section I of this document, the attorney will have received emails notifying that they have been registered for the E-Discovery portal, have been assigned cases, and/or that documents for assigned cases have been added to the portal. The attorneys can follow the link provided in the email or by entering http://dadefenseportal.co.bell.tx.us:8080 in one of the supported browsers. Using the email address as the username and the temporary password provided in the email the attorney can log into the portal
If the attorney has not logged in before they will be required to reset the password upon the first successful login. Once logged into the portal all cases assigned to the attorney will display in the grid below. Note: if the expiration date on the case has passed or if the attorney has been removed the case will not display.
To download the files the attorney will select View Files. A disclaimer is displayed to the attorney to specify the regulations surrounding the downloading of the case documents. The attorney must agree or disagree. If they disagree they will not be able to download the files. Once the attorney agrees with the disclaimer, the file(s) are displayed for download. The attorney simply clicks the file name to begin the download process. The system will prompt the attorney to save the file to a location on their system. All files downloaded from the E-Discovery portal will be in compressed zip format.
Once the file has been downloaded to the attorney s computer, the zip file can be opened to extract the contents. For security purposes, the zip file is password protected. The attorney will need to reference the email provided by the system when the documents were uploaded for the password to access the files. The user will need to follow the Windows zip extract process to save the individual files.
III. Auditing The E-Discovery portal contains auditing capabilities to determine when attorneys have logged into the system as well as when they have downloaded files. When working on an individual case the audit logs are at the bottom of the screen. This audit indicates when an attorney has downloaded specific documents. There is also audit logging at the Portal level that will indicate when attorneys log into the system as well as when the download documents.