Background

The Universal Migrator's Folder Extractor is an easy way to backup documents and their logical metadata from an independent, unlinked file server that is not used by another application (ie, not Worldox or ProLaw). 

Because file servers are often messy and inconsistently organized there will always be a bit of manual work that either the law firm or the consultant has to do in order to clean things up prior to a migration.

When assisting their own customers with migrations, the developers of the Universal Migrator state the following:

"We provide transportation services.  We will take you from where you are to where you want to be.  But we do not provide janitorial services.  We will make clean-up recommendations prior to your migration, but whether you act on them or not is your decision."

In Summary:

• Organizations should generally clean up their own data
• Consultants add value by standardizing/polishing mostly-clean data

Standard Cleanup Instructions

When the developers of the Universal Migrator assist their own customers with folder migrations, they generally have customers follow cleanup instructions like this, however the folder extractor is flexible and you may vary your instructions based on the customer.

Using the Folder Extractor

The Folder Extractor expects that the target folder tree is consistently organized in some way.

For Example:

• By Client, By Matter
• By Author, By Client, By Matter
• By Client, By Matter, By Document Category

Once you are reasonably confident the root folder is generally consistent (but maybe not perfect), you are ready to run the Folder Extractor.

You will start off by selecting the root folder:

And then will begin configuring the local objects in your folder tree.

Mapping Folder Levels to Logical Objects

Next you will indicate what each folder at a given level represents.  To do this, select the "Level" folder and then choose the type of object it represents:

Object Fields

When the objects are extracted at a certain path level, three different fields can be extracted: Name, Display Number, and Id.

Name:  This is human-readable name that people will reference the object by.
Common Examples:
    Smith, John
    Motions
    Divorce

Display Number:  This is an optional "Code" that can be associated with the object.

Common Examples:
    ABC.001
    MOT
    22-10423

Id:  This is the internal identifier the object will be assigned.  It serves no purpose post-migration and only serves as a way to link records within the Universal Database pre-migration.

Learn More about the Universal Database

Assigning Values to Fields

When assigning a value to a field, there are a few built-in sources you can use.

You can review the full list within the Universal Migrator.

The Id Field is Special

The Folder Extractor will deduplicate any items of the same type that have an identical Id.  This allows you to easily work with nested items that represent the same logical object.

Example 1: Deduplicating Document Categories

For example, imagine you are going to backup from a folder with the following contents:

\ABC-001\Motions\...
\ABC-001\Drafts\...
\ABC-002\Motions\...
\ABC-002\Drafts\...

Logically, the Level1 folder represents a Matter and the Level2 folder represents a Document Category.

When the data is backed up, you only want there to be a single document category named "Motions" and a single document category named "Drafts" that is shared by all matters.  To accomplish this, set the Id for the Document Category folder to be "The name of the current folder".  Because two Document Categories will have the Id "Motions" and two will have the Id "Drafts" they will be deduplicated and only a single "Motions" and a single "Drafts" record will be saved to the database.

Example 2:  Not Deduplicating Matters

In another example, imagine you are going to backup from a different folder with the following contents:

\Smith, John\Divorce\
\Smith, John\Custody\
\Doe, Jane\Divorce\
\Doe, Jane\Custody\

Logically, the Level1 folder represents a Client and the Level2 folder represents a Matter.

When the data is backed up, you do not want the Divorce and Custody matters deduplicated because each client should have their own.  To accomplish this, set the Id for the Matter folder to be "The full path of the current folder".  Because no two items will ever have the same full path, all items will have unique Ids and deduplicating will cause no effect.

Backup - Review - Refine - Repeat

Once you have everything configured, run the folder extractor and it will generate database records for all the documents, folders, contacts, matters, and other objects you specified. 

Once you have done this, you should review the data in the Universal Database to make sure it makes sense.  The first time you do this, you will likely find situations where your client did not fully tidy things up.  For example, you may find a matter named "John Smith" or a document category named "ABC.001".  When you do, correct the issue within the folder and re-run the Folder Extractor.

Once you have completed the folder backup and are happy with the results, you may then use the Restore utility to onboard this data into your destination system.