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DISCO uses Westlaw and Lexis-style search syntax with boolean search operators. These can be used in a fieldless search or with a field such as tag(Responsive or "Further Review"). This guide explains how to search in DISCO. For a training video about DISCO's search and review features, see DISCO 101: Search & Review.

Contents

  • Search basics
    • Order of operations
    • Searching documents in families
  • Document fields
    • User-created information
    • Document metadata & attributes
    • Date fields
    • Tag predictions
    • Tag decisions
  • Numeric searches
  • Metadata redactions
  • Custom fields

Click below to download the guide.

Search basics

Operators Description Example
&, and

Includes results with both terms

contract & payment 

contract and payment — Documents that contain both contract and payment

[space] or

Includes results with either term or field

contract payment 

contract or payment — Documents that contain contract or payment

%, not

Excludes term or field from results

contract % payment

 contract not payment — Documents that contain contract but do not contain payment

+family

Includes family members as search hits for the entire query or any portion of a query; learn more here

to("Jane.Smith@email.com")+family & "risk factors" — Returns emails, and family members of those emails, sent to Jane.Smith@email.com that include the phrase “risk factors”

tag(Responsive)+family % tag(Attorney-Client)+family — 

Returns documents tagged Responsive and documents whose family members are tagged Responsive, but removes documents tagged Attorney-Client and family members of documents tagged Attorney-Client.

“ ”

Exact phrase intended

“contract payment” — Documents that contain the exact phrase contract payment

“Matt.Motley@email.com” — Documents that contain the email address Matt.Motley@email.com

Be sure to include quotes when searching for an email address.

!

Truncation search or root expander;  can be used at the beginning of a term, end of a term, or both. Also can be used to return all documents.

contract! — Documents that contain any term starting with contract, for example, contract, contracts, contractual, contracting, or contracted

!contract — Documents that contain any term ending with contract, for example, subcontract

filename(!contract!) Documents with the term contract anywhere in the file name

!All documents

! % type(email)All documents except those of type email

*

Wildcard search for single character

contract* — Searches for words that have one, but only one, character after contract, such as contracts, but not contracted, contractual, or contract

/n

Proximity search, searching within n words, in any order

contract /10 payment — Documents that contain contract within ten words of payment, where the order is irrelevant

+n

Proximity search, searching within n words in prescribed order

contract +10 payment — Documents that contain contract within ten words of payment, where contract must precede payment

~

Fuzzy or approximate word search. Fuzzy searching allows for the addition, deletion, or substitution of up to two letters in a word.

guaranty~ — Searches for guaranty, guarantee, garanty, and similar (mis)spellings

.

Period in a name or email address

Matt.Motley — Documents that contain Matt.Motley (with the period), but not MattMotley (without the period)

( )

Grouping syntax

(failure & consideration) & (contract agreement) — Documents must contain both failure and consideration, and must also contain either contract or agreement

sample(n, search)

Returns n documents randomly selected from results of search. If n is less than 1, this number is treated as a percentage.

 

sample(.5, contract)

sample(700, contract)

Returns 50% and 700 of the search results for contract at random, respectively

field(terms)

Field searching (see below for standard DISCO fields)

custodian(Holcombe) — Documents with Holcombe in the custodian field

DISCO ignores most punctuation and non-alphanumeric characters when searching. Periods, colons, semicolons, and apostrophes within a word are not removed. As an example, periods in a name or email address are indexed and searchable. Word operators (and, or, and not) can be searched if placed in quotation marks, “contract and payment”.

Order of operations

DISCO performs a search using the following order of operations:

  1. Term modifiers: !, *, ~
  2. Exact phrases: “ ”
  3. Groupings: ( )
  4. Proximity: /n, +n
  5. Family subsearch: +family
  6. &, and , % , not
  7. [space], or

Reviewing & searching document families

DISCO has two powerful features to help you navigate and search families of documents: family inclusion mode and family subsearch.

  • Family mode allows reviewers to review documents in the context of their entire family by including family members in the search results list.
  • Family subsearch is a search syntax capability allowing you to include family members as search hits. +family can be added to any valid query, or any portion of a query that would be a valid standalone query.

Document fields

Fieldless, or keyword, searches the document text, document notes, subject lines, custodians, authors, and user defined fields.

User-created information

Field Description Example
documentNote

A notes field for each document

documentNote(hot) — Documents with the word hot in the document note field

documentNote(!) — Documents with any document note

field

Custom metadata field added by admin-level users that is used to capture additional information

field(important) — Documents with important in any user defined field

contract(draft) — Documents with draft in the Contract user defined field

folder

Folder created in DISCO by a user

folder("Hot Documents") — Documents in the Hot Documents DISCO folder

folder("Hot Documents/Experts") — Documents in the Experts subfolder

folder("Hot Documents/!") — Documents in the Hot Documents folder and all subfolders

privilegeNote

A privilege notes field for each document

privilegeNote("Legal Advice") — Documents using the phrase Legal Advice inside the privilege note

privilegeNote(!) — Documents with any privilege note

production

A name assigned by the user to each set of documents produced using DISCO

production("defense") — Documents produced in the defense production set

redactionReason

Optional user-created text that can describe redactions

redactionReason("Trade Secret") — Documents with Trade Secret applied as a redaction reason

referenceid

Optional identification number users can assign (contact DISCO Support to do so)

referenceid(245) — Document with Reference ID number 245

searchTermReport

Documents matching the search criteria within a search term report

searchTermReport("Responsive Terms") — Documents matching the search scope and search terms within the Responsive Terms search term report
stage

A set of documents created by users for linear review

stage("First Pass Review") — Documents in the First Pass Review stage

stageBatched

Documents in stages that have been pulled into batches

stageBatched("First Pass Review") — Documents in the First Pass Review stage that have been placed in batches (whether or not yet reviewed)

stageComplete

Documents in stages that have been marked "reviewed" and checked-in

stageComplete("Privilege Review") — Documents in the Privilege Review stage that have been marked reviewed and contained in a checked-in batch (i.e.  complete)

stageReviewed

Documents in stages that have been marked "reviewed"

stageReviewed("Privilege Review") — Documents in the Privilege Review stage that have been marked reviewed

tag

Fields appended to documents by users 

tag(responsive) — Documents with the responsive tag

tagGroup

Fields from a specific group appended to documents by users 

taggroup(Issue) — Documents with a tag from the Issue group

Document metadata & attributes

Metadata is data about a document that is not part of the document’s content. Metadata can include things like the creation date, author, sending and receiving information, file name, and file path.

Field Description Example
author

Identifies the author or creator of a file

author(Jones) — Documents that Jones authored

batesNumber

Bates numbers applied to documents, either from a DISCO production or elsewhere

batesNumber(Enron000009) — A document receiving the Bates stamp Enron000009

batesNumber(Enron000007 to Enron000950) — Documents with Bates numbers within the identified range

batesPrefix

The English portion of the Bates stamp

batesPrefix(Enron) — Documents that use Enron as a Bates prefix

batesPrefix(!) — Documents with any Bates prefix

bcc

A recipient that was blind carbon copied on an email

bcc("Sarah.Smith@email.com") — Emails in which Sara Smith is blind copied

billingSize

Returns all documents with the indicated size in bytes relative to the review database's billing statement

billingSize(>1000000) — Documents with a billing size greater than 1,000,000 bytes

billingSize(10 to 10000) — Documents with a billing size from 10 to 10,000 bytes

cc

A recipient that was carbon copied on an email

cc("Bill.Jones@email.com") — Emails in which Bill Jones is copied

cc(Smith) — Emails where a CC recipient has Smith in the first or last name

childCount

Returns all parent documents that have the specified number of children. A child is typically an attachment to an email or an embedded file in a document. A parent is the document containing the attachment or file. 

childCount(2) — Emails or other documents that have two children

childCount(1 to 1000) — Emails or other documents that have between 1 and 1000 children

comment

Returns all documents with the indicated text left inline in the original file

comment(!) — All documents with comments in the original files

company

Returns all documents created by the same company

company(Enron) — Documents created by Enron

conversationCount

Returns all emails belonging to conversations that contain the number or range of emails specified.

Conversations include the various responses, replies, and forwards of an email chain.

conversationCount(3) — Emails that contain three emails within the conversations

conversationCount(3 to 15) — Emails that contain between three and 15 emails within the conversations

custodian

Typically the individual or location from which a document was collected

custodian(Peterson or Jones) — Documents that have Peterson or Jones in the custodian name field

custodian("Andrew Lewis") — Documents in which exactly Andrew Lewis is the custodian

dataSpace

Searches for documents in a specific data space - see this feature spotlight for more information

dataSpace(ECA) — Documents in the ECA data space

dataSpace("Active Review") — Documents in the Active Review data space

dedupHash

The unique identifier used to deduplicate documents at the time of ingest

DeDupHash(ABC123!) — Document with a deduplication hash starting with ABC123

domain

An email domain (typically, the text after the @ symbol)

domain(winlaw.com) — Emails sent to or from email addresses (also including cc and bcc fields) having winlaw.com as the domain (e.g., johnsmith@winlaw.com)

See more detailed feature notes with examples here.

domainCount

Domain count is the unique count of email domains found within the from, to, cc, and bcc fields on email messages.

domainCount(2)Emails that have only two domains (this includes the from, to, cc, and bcc fields)

See more detailed feature notes with examples here.

extension

Returns all documents with the specified file extension

extension(.doc) — Documents with the .doc file extension

familyConsistentTag

Returns documents where every family member has the specified tag. Limited to documents in families.

familyConsistentTag(Responsive)— Documents where every family member has a Responsive tag

familyInconsistentTag

Returns documents that do not have the specified tag, where at least one of its family members has the specified tag. Limited to documents in families.  

familyInconsistentTag(Responsive)— Documents without a Responsive tag, where at least one of its family members has a Responsive tag

fileLength

Returns files corresponding to the specified size of the file (in bytes)

fileLength(25000) — Documents that are exactly 25,000 bytes
fileLength(>1000000) — Documents with file sizes greater than 1,000,000 bytes

filename

The filename of any document

Emails often have filenames, though largely hidden in most applications

filename(Agenda.pdf) — Documents with the exact filename agenda.pdf

filename(Agenda!) — Documents that begin with Agenda in the filename (e.g., Agenda.pdf; AgendaForMay11.doc; or Agenda for Meeting.ppt)

filename(!Agenda!) — Documents with Agenda anywhere in the filename

folderpath

Any folder in which a document was saved (such as a computer or network drive)

folderpath("Deleted items") — Documents that were in the Deleted items folder when collected

This search locates any discrete folder within the tree of folders and subfolders (e.g., MyComputer/Files/DeleteItems

from

Identifies the sender of an email 

from(Lee) — Emails sent by Lee

hasDetectedSlipsheet

DISCO identifies when a slipsheet is produced in conjunction with a native file for load file ingests, and will create a near-native image from the native file

hasDetectedSlipsheet(yes) — Documents that have a slipsheet

hasDocumentNote

Returns documents that include a document note

hasDocumentNote(yes) — Documents that have a document note

hashes

Searches across deduphash, sha1hash, md5hash, and objecthash 

hashes(xyonqy!)

Document with a hash starting with xyonqy

hasHiddenType

Returns documents with hidden content detected. Hidden content can include comments, hidden sheets, notes, hidden rows, etc. 

hasHiddenType(yes) — Documents that have hidden content detected

hasImage

Indicates if an item was processed as an image or not. An image is sometimes also referred to as a “near native” or “PDF.”

hasImage(yes) — Documents that were processed as images

hasLanguage

Documents that have an identified language

hasLanguage(yes) — Documents that have a language identified

hasNative

Indicates if the native file was not supplied. If an image is supplied, DISCO will use that to populate the native file link. If no native or image is supplied, DISCO will create a near-native image from the supplied text and use that to populate the native link.

hasNative(yes) — Documents with a native file supplied

hasOCR

Returns documents for which any of the extracted text was derived via OCR

hasOCR(yes) — Documents with text extracted via OCR

hasPrivilege

Returns documents that include a privilege tag

hasPrivilege(yes) — Documents with a privilege tag

hasPrivilegeNote

Returns documents that include a privilege note

hasPrivilegeNote(yes)— Documents that have a note

hasRedaction

Searches for documents that have redactions, do not have redactions, or have redactions in a specific location. 

hasRedaction(yes)— Documents with a redaction

hasRedaction(onDocument) % hasRedaction(onMetadata) — Documents with a redaction on the document but not on metadata

hasRedactionReason

Searches for documents that have redaction reasons, do not have redaction reasons

hasRedactionReason(yes) — Documents that have a redaction reason

 

hasRedactionWithout Reason

Searches for documents that have a redaction, but no corresponding redaction reason. 

hasRedactionWithoutReason(yes) — Documents with a redaction that does not have a corresponding redaction reason

hasRedactionWithoutReason(onMetadata) — Documents with metadata redactions that do not have a corresponding redaction reason

hasSearchText

Returns documents that include searchable text

hasSearchText(yes) — Documents with searchable text

hasWrongExtension
Indicates if the extension of an ingested item is inconsistent with the determined type

hasWrongExtension(yes) — Documents ingested as a file type that differs from the indicated type

hiddenText

Hidden text is text that has been set to be hidden in the original file

hiddenText(yes) — Documents that have hidden text in their original files

hiddentype

Identifies whether hidden data is in a file, including comments, revisions, notes, hidden sheets, or very hidden sheets

hiddentype(revisions) — Documents with hidden revisions

id

An identification number assigned by DISCO that is unique to each document in the database

id(1200) — The document with DISCO identification number 1200

id(>500) — Documents with DISCO identification numbers greater than 500

imageSize

Returns documents with the indicated size in bytes of the document’s image file

imageSize(>1000000) — Documents whose image size is greater than 1,000,000 bytes

imageSize(10 to 10000) — Documents with 10 to 10,000 bytes

ingestSessionId

A number assigned to each group of documents ingested into DISCO

ingestSessionId("IngestSessions/1") — Documents ingested into DISCO in Ingest Session 1

ingestType

Indicates which of the two types of data deliveries can be processed

ingestType(native) — Documents processed as native files

  • Native — Files delivered as they were maintained during the normal course of business
  • Load file - Files (either images only or images with natives) accompanied by a load file that supplies family relationship and metadata information
invisibleText

Invisible text is text that is the same color as its background

invisibleText(yes) — Documents that contain invisible text

isDetectedEmail

Files identified as emails during processing based on an examination of the file's text/OCR

isDetectedEmail(yes) — Documents identified as emails

isInclusive

Returns emails with unique content

isInclusive(yes) — Filters out emails that are duplicated within inclusive emails

isProcessedAsNative

Indicates that some aspect of processing was unsuccessful. However, DISCO will create a record in the matter with a link to the native file.

isProcessedAsNative(yes) — Documents that were processed unsuccessfully

md5Hash

MD5 hash of the file binary; 32 characters

md5hash(vgbc2c!) — Document with an MD5 hash starting with vgbc2c

objectHash

Hash of the file document, without considering the parent document; 40 characters

For non-email files, objecthash is the same as sha1hash. For email files, objecthash is computed by extracting and hashing parts of an email including sent date, sender, message body, and a few more.

objecthash(hpsrxo!) — Document with an object hash starting with hpsrxo
pageCount

Returns documents containing the specified number of pages

pageCount(1) — Documents that have one page
pageCount(101 to 3000) — Documents with 101 to 3000 pages

parentCount

Returns documents with the specified number or range of parents

parentCount(1) — Children (such as attachments or embedded files) that have only one parent
parentCount(0) — Only parents (i.e., excludes all attachments and embedded files), and "loose" files that have no children or parent files

participant

Searches the from, to, cc, and bcc fields on email messages.

participant(jones@winlaw.com) — Emails that have jones@winlaw.com as a participant

See more detailed feature notes with examples here.

participantCount

Participant count is the unique count of email participants in the from, to, cc, and bcc fields on email messages.

participantCount(1 to 3) — Emails that have 1, 2, or 3 participants

See more detailed feature notes with examples here.

path

Location from which the document was collected

path("My Computer/Deleted Items/!") — Documents that were saved, when collected, in the My Computer/Deleted Items folder, as well as all documents in subfolders

prediction

Tag predictions are useful for finding documents that DISCO predicts are likely or unlikely to receive a specific tag

prediction("responsive", highly likely) — Documents that are highly likely to be tagged responsive

prediction("Work-Product", >20) — Documents that have a likelihood score over 20 to be tagged Work-Product

primaryLanguage

Returns documents that have the specified primary language

primaryLanguage(French) — Documents in which the greatest portion of the content is in French

processingDetails

Returns documents with the specified processing reason

processingDetails(Password protected) — Documents that were identified as password protected during processing

processingStatus

Returns documents with the specified processing outcome

processingStatus(Successful) — Documents that were successfully processed

recipient

Searches the combined email metadata fields: to, cc, and bcc (i.e., anyone who was the recipient of an email)

recipient(Jones) — Emails in which Jones appears in the metadata of the to, from, or bcc fields

See more detailed feature notes with examples here.

recipientCount

Recipient count is the unique count of recipients in the to, cc, and bcc fields of an email.

recipientCount(3) — Returns emails in which exactly 3 unique email addresses were in the to, cc, and bcc fields

See more detailed feature notes with examples here.

search

Searches using the criteria of a saved search

search("Privileged Emails")— Returns documents responsive to the saved search Privileged Emails

sha1hash

SHA-1 hash of the file binary; 40 characters

sha1hash(wyt9sz!) — Document with a SHA-1 hash starting with wyt9sz

similarCount

Returns documents with the specified number of similar documents

similarCount(5) — Documents with exactly 5 similar documents

similarCount(>7) — Documents with more than 7 similar documents

speakerNote

Speaker notes are slide-specific notes that are hidden from the audience, but are visible to the presenter while editing

speakerNote(yes) — Documents that include speaker notes

subject

Searches the subject (or "re:" line) of an email

subject(meeting) — Emails with meeting in the subject line

text

The extracted text in a document image - does not search metadata

text(Peter) — Documents containing Peter anywhere within the document image

to

Identifies to whom an email was sent

to(Duncan) — Emails in which Duncan (either as a first or last name) was in the to field

to("Duncan Kennedy") — Emails sent to Duncan Kennedy

tagcount

Documents with a specific count of tags

tagcount(2) — Documents with exactly two tags

tagcount(>0) — Documents that have any tag

textLength

Returns documents with the specified number of characters in the text, including spaces

textLength(3000000) — Documents with 300,000 characters in the text

textLength(500 to 2000) — Documents with 500 to 2,000 characters in the text

title

Returns documents with the specified document title

title(GAS PURCHASE AGREEMENT) — Documents whose metadata title is GAS PURCHASE AGREEMENT

type

The type of a document in DISCO is the file type  such as email, Word, or PDF

type(Word) — All Word files

type(email) — All emails

unfoldered

Documents that are, or are not, within a folder

unfoldered(yes) — Documents that are not in a folder

Date fields

Dates can be searched by exact date, a range of dates, and before or after a date. Dates can be formatted as date certain (12/10/2015), month and year (9/2016), or year (2012). For example:

  • Exact: date(5/4/09)
  • Range: date(5/4/09)
  • Before: date(before 5/10/09)
  • After: date(after 5/10/09
Field Description
conversationDate

For all documents in an email conversation, the conversation date is the send date of the first email in the conversation.

createDate

Created date is the date the file was created.

date

Date searches the send date of emails and the last modified date of all other document types.

familyDate

For all documents in a family, the family date is the sent date (for emails) or last modified date (for non-emails) of the family head document.

lastAccessedDate

The last accessed date is the date the file was last accessed.

lastModifiedDate

The last modified date is the date changes were last made to a file.

lastPrintedDate

The last printed date is the date the file was last printed.

loadDate

The load date is the date documents were ingested into DISCO.

receivedDate

The received date is the date an email was received.

sendDate

The sent date is the date an email was sent.

Tag predictions

Tag prediction uses AI to predict a tag or tags that should be applied to a document. Tag prediction search syntax is displayed below. Search syntax can accommodate multiple tags, e.g., prediction("tag name1" & "tag name2", >20).

Field Description
prediction("tag name", Likeliness value)

prediction(Attorney-Client, Highly likely) — Documents that are highly likely to be tagged Attorney-Client

prediction(Attorney-Client, Likely) — Documents that are likely to be tagged Attorney-Client

prediction(Attorney-Client, Neutral) — Documents that are neither likely nor unlikely to be tagged Attorney-Client

prediction(Attorney-Client, Unlikely) — Documents that are unlikely to be tagged Attorney-Client

prediction(Attorney-Client, Highly unlikely) — Documents that are highly unlikely to be tagged Attorney-Client

prediction("tag name", score range)

prediction(Attorney-Client, -20 to 20) 

— Documents that have a likelihood score in the range of -20 to 20 to be tagged Attorney-Client

prediction(Attorney-Client, >20) 

— Documents that have a likelihood score over 20 to be tagged Attorney-Client

prediction("tag name", exact score)

prediction(Attorney-Client, 20) 

— Documents that have a likelihood score of 20 to be tagged Attorney-Client

Tag decisions

Tagging decisions can also be searched by dates applied and users applying them, using the following syntaxes:

Field Description
tag(by "reviewer@lawfirm.com") Documents tagged by reviewer@lawfirm.com
tag(responsive & by "reviewer@lawfirm.com") Documents tagged responsive by reviewer@lawfirm.com
tag(non-responsive % by "reviewer@csdisco.com") Documents tagged non-responsive by someone other than reviewer@csdisco.com
sample(10, tag(by "reviewer@csdisco.com")) Ten random documents tagged by reviewer@csdisco.com
tag(by "reviewer@csdisco.com" & on 10/16/2015) Documents tagged by reviewer@csdisco.com on 10/16/2015
tag(responsive & by "reviewer@csdisco.com" & before 10/16/2015) Documents tagged responsive by reviewer@csdisco.com before 10/16/2015
removedTag(responsive) Documents from which the responsive tag was removed (by anyone)
removedTag(by "reviewer@lawfirm.com") Documents from which any tags were removed by reviewer@lawfirm.com

Numeric searches

The following numeric fields can search for an exact document, a range of documents, or documents greater than or less than the indicated value. For example:

  • id(1234)
  • id(1 to 1234)
  • id(>1234)
  • id(<1234)

Numeric fields

  • id( )
  • billingSize( )
  • childCount( )
  • conversationCount( )
  • fileLength( )
  • imageSize( )
  • pageCount( )
  • parentCount( )
  • similarCount( )
  • tagcount( )
  • textLength( )

Metadata redactions

Redaction fields can search for redactions on specific metadata, including:

  • Any metadata: hasRedaction("onmetadata")
  • File name: hasRedaction("filename")
  • Path: hasRedaction("path")
  • Custodian: hasRedaction("custodian")
  • Subject: hasRedaction("subject")
  • From: hasRedaction("from")
  • To: hasRedaction("to")
  • Cc: hasRedaction("cc")
  • Bcc: hasRedaction("bcc")
  • Send date: hasRedaction("senddate")
  • Received date: hasRedaction("receiveddate")
  • Author: hasRedaction("author")
  • Created date: hasRedaction("createddate")
  • Modified date: hasRedaction("lastmodifieddate")
  • Printed date: hasRedaction("lastprinteddate")
  • Accessed date: hasRedaction("lastaccesseddate")
  • Company: hasRedaction("company")
  • Title: hasRedaction("title")

Please see Finding Redacted Records for more metadata redaction search examples.

Custom fields

DISCO supports user defined fields created in the product, and custom fields ingested from a load file. The search syntax works similarly for both types of custom fields.

Example Description
Deposition(!) Documents with any contents in the Deposition field
Deposition(Important) Documents with the word Important in the Deposition field
"My notes"(!) Documents with any contents in the My notes field
"My notes"("Review again") Documents with Review again in the My notes field

There are two additional searches for user defined fields.

Example Description
hasFields(true) Documents with contents in any user defined field
field("Red Team") Documents with Red Team in any user defined field