The Chronology tab allows users to build a fact log or case timeline, enabling the efficient management of different arguments, facts or themes in a single place. Create entries to corresponding to specific events in the case; link these entries to documents or characters within the workspace. Add metadata or issue tags to further organize your facts.
Opus 2 allows for the bulk creation of Chronology entries through the IMPORT ENTRIES option, which allows the import of a CSV file containing the columns corresponding to the entries.
This feature can be used to ADD NEW ENTRIES to a new or empty Chronology, or to bring in ADDITIONAL ENTRIES to an existing Chronology. At this time, however, it cannot be used to update, change or merge field values in existing entries.
BEST PRACTICES FOR IMPORT CSV SETUP
The key to correctly importing entries is the careful preparation of your CSV import file.
If you have a CSV import file ready, either prepared manually by your case team or exported out of another application, please follow the below best practices to ensure a smooth import into Opus 2:
1. Column names in the CSV import file should exactly match the Chronology field names set up in Opus 2. Use the Manage Chronologies dialog > Fields to edit or add fields. IF there is already an existing Chronology, we strongly recommend first running an EXPORT out of Opus 2 so that all fields that get exported out are also included in the Chronology import file.
If there is NO existing Chronology, create 4 test entries manually in a chronology, one using each of the date variations: ‘On’ ; ‘Before’ ; ‘ After’ ; ‘Range’. Create any custom fields you want to have in the chronology entries. Then export these test entries to a CSV to populate as your import file.
The Date Modifier field (contains "On", "Range", "Before", "After", etc.) is of utmost importance here as it will determine date sorting and whether Opus 2 will be able to accommodate a specific date format (for instance, if the dates are in a range mm/dd/yyyy - mm/dd/yyyy, Opus will need a date modifier value of "Range"). Please ensure that your import file has a date modifier field.
2. Tag names (if any) should match what is in the system. Any inconsistent Tag names - for instance, if it exists in Opus 2 as "Confidential" but exists as "CONFIDENTIAL" (all caps) in your import file, the import will create a NEW tag with the alternate spelling of the tag name. However, you are also free to use this Import feature to ADD NEW TAGS - just bear in mind that these tags are added to the entire workspace, and not just to the Chronology, so it's best to ensure you are not creating duplicates.
3. Date format should be consistent. It is recommended that all dates be in mm/dd/yy OR mm/dd/yyyy format to avoid confusing the system.
4. Special text formatting. At this time, Opus 2 is able to accommodate some text formatting, i.e., paragraph spacing, bold font, but is unable to automatically apply highlighting, differently colored fonts and different bullet styles. If certain formatting is important to your Chronology, AFTER Import, you can go into the different entries and apply formatting through the right-click > Edit Entry option.
5. Multivalue delimiters should be consistent. For all fields that contain multiple values, ensure that the same delimiter is used, i.e., comma or semi-colon.
6. Source names should exactly match document names as they are uploaded to Opus 2. If you are planning to link sources to your entries, the Link Sources function will only detect the correct documents if the names in the Source field are an exact match to the document names in the workspace.
IMPORT ENTRIES
Once your import file is ready, go to the Tools button and select Import Entries:
In the resulting Import Entries dialog, select your file from the local drive and wait for the fields to populate. Also confirm that you are selecting the correct Chronology to import to (if you have multiple Chronologies).
Ensure that the column names in your import file match what is in Opus 2.
You can also make other selection here, such as your Source Delimiter (semi-colon) or Apply Tags (which allows you to select Tag(s) to apply to ALL the entries you are importing).
Once everything is set, hit Import.
A confirmation message will pop up informing you of how many entries are created, and if any, how many new tags:
Another message will confirm completion and the final number of entries added. At this point, your entries are now ready and import is complete.
You can now LINK ENTRIES TO SOURCES. Go to Tools and select Link Entries to Sources.
The tool will automatically pick up and display ANY AND ALL matches from your SOURCES field to existing documents in either the entire workspace or within a specific folder, depending on your selection.
A status message at the bottom of the dialog will give you the number of found documents. Once you have confirmed the matched documents are correct, hit Create Links.
The document will then be linked to their respective entry(ies) and can then be viewed within the Chronology.