Enterprise evidence repository

Abstract

A controller is configured to generate and propagate instructions to an execution agent which, in turn, is configured to collect and deposit collected artifacts into a repository. Write access to a location in the repository for collected artifacts that are to be deposited into a specified location is granted to the execution agent. Once the execution agent deposits the collected artifacts in the specified location in the repository, a summary of collected artifacts is propagated to the controller. The controller manages appropriate levels of access to the collected artifacts, while the repository enforces the level of access. The controller can grant read only access to the collected artifacts or it can allow for controlled changes to be made to the metadata associated with the collected artifact. An agent processes the data and generates additional metadata that can be associated with the collected artifacts and then saved in the repository. A system can have more than one repository, where the controller allocates storage in an appropriate repository and issues instructions to the execution agent with the location in an appropriate repository. The summary of the actual collections is then propagated to the controller from the repositories.

1 . A computer implemented method for storing and accessing collected artifacts in an electronic discovery system (EDMS), comprising:
 managing, by an EDMS, electronic discovery workflow in an enterprise, including issuing and propagating instructions to a collection agent, and generating one or more collection plans that specify one or more custodians that are responsible for data in the enterprise;   managing, by one or more evidence repositories, collected artifacts along with contextual data and metadata, wherein the one or more evidence repositories include a transient storage area to which collected artifacts are deposited, wherein the transient storage area includes a directory structure created based on the one or more collection plans, and wherein the directory structure includes one or more automatically provisioned locations for depositing the collected artifacts for a given custodian in the one or more custodians; and   performing, by the collection agent, artifact collection based at least in part on the one or more collection plans, including depositing collected artifacts to locations in the directory structure of the transient storage area based at least in part on the one or more collection plans.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 controlling, by the EDMS, space allocation in the transient storage area for upcoming collections.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 providing, by the one or more evidence repositories, a content management module configured to provide advanced collaboration capabilities, extensible metadata, and access control.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein eDiscovery process metadata associated with the collected artifacts comprises one or more of collection target, reasons for collection, collected by, collected on, collection plan, and legal case. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the eDiscovery process metadata further comprises external properties. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising managing, by the EDMS, access control. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , further comprising:
 propagating access control rules from the EDMS to the one or more evidence repositories.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 granting a specific data processing tool read access to a selected subset of the collected artifacts in the one or more evidence repositories, as defined by said EDMS.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein the data processing tool comprises an early case assessment (ECA) tool. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising:
 writing, by the data processing tool, application specific metadata associated with the collected artifacts into the one or more evidence repositories.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 granting, to a data exporting tool, read access to the collected artifacts in the one or more evidence repositories to extract, by the data exporting tool, collected artifacts and metadata and to package, by the data exporting tool, the extracted collected artifacts and metadata for outside review.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising:
 extracting a summary of said extracted collected artifacts and metadata, the summary comprising one or more of date, purpose, description, volume in MB, estimated number of pages, number of documents overall and broken down by document type and by person or data source.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , further comprising the step of:
 propagating the export metadata from the one or more evidence repositories to the EDMS.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 propagating the export metadata from the one or more evidence repositories to a discovery cost forecasting system (DCF).   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 automatically issuing collection instructions for information technology (IT) and integrating the collection instructions with an overall discovery workflow.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the instructions comprise one or more of a unique location of a collection staging area for a given legal case, a collection plan, a collection log, a data source, and a custodian. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 issuing automated preservation and collection instructions and propagating the instructions to an automated or semi-automated collection tool.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the collection instructions comprise a secure token for identifying collection parameters, the method further comprising:
 automatically validating, by the secure token, integrity of a collection, including chain of custody.   
     
     
         19 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium for storing program instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processer to perform operations for storing and accessing collected artifacts in an electronic discovery system (EDMS), comprising:
 managing, by an EDMS, electronic discovery workflow in an enterprise, including issuing and propagating instructions to a collection agent, and generating one or more collection plans, wherein the one or more collection plans specify one or more custodians that are responsible for data in the enterprise;   managing, by one or more evidence repositories, collected artifacts along with contextual data and metadata, wherein the one or more evidence repositories include a transient storage area to which collected artifacts are deposited, wherein the transient storage area includes a directory structure created based on the one or more collection plans, and wherein the directory structure includes one or more automatically provisioned locations for depositing the collected artifacts for a given custodian in the one or more custodians;   perform, by the collection agent, artifact collection based on the one or more collection plans, including depositing collected artifacts to locations in the directory structure of the transient storage area based on the one or more collection plans.   
     
     
         20 . An apparatus for storing and accessing collected artifacts in an electronic discovery system (EDMS), comprising:
 at least one processor;   an EDMS operable by the at least one processor and configured to: manage electronic discovery workflow in an enterprise, issue and propagate instructions to a collection agent, and generate one or more collection plans, wherein the one or more collection plans specify one or more custodians that are responsible for data in the enterprise;   one or more evidence repositories configured to manage collected artifacts along with contextual data and metadata, wherein the one or more evidence repositories include a transient storage area to which collected artifacts are deposited, wherein the transient storage area includes a directory structure created based on the one or more collection plans, and wherein the directory structure includes one or more automatically provisioned locations for depositing the collected artifacts for a given custodian in the one or more custodians; and   the collection agent operable by the at least one processor and configured to: perform artifact collection based on the one or more collection plans and deposit collected artifacts to locations in the directory structure of the transient storage area based on the one or more collection plans.