Use annotations to mark and analyze important document content
Annotations are designed to identify important document content, and to capture notes and coding that make it easier to review your materials as the case progresses.
You may use annotations to:
- Highlight important parts of a page, just as you would use a highlighter on a paper page
- Highlight important parts of a page and add your analysis, or assign an Issue
- Summarize handwritten text that cannot be OCR’ed
- Redact sensitive content (See Redactions)
Annotations incorporate coding tools, including Annotation Event Date, Favorability, as well as Color labels and Issue labels that can be set up by your firm to enable standardized coding for consistent review as a case progresses.
Annotations are designed to stay confidential to the firm, as solicitor’s work product. By default, they are not emailed and they can never be included in a Published CD. However, you can choose whether or not to include them when exporting to certain formats, including PDF and printing.
Simple and Expanded Annotation Form
The Annotation form appears when you create a new annotation, or click on an existing annotation (within the document area) to edit. This form allows you to record information for future recall and analysis.
Primafact 6 Annotation Forms support uniform visual coding, along with dedicated fields to support quick assembly of Chronologies, Discovery Outlines and other reports. The annotation form can be expanded to capture more information. Clicking the Show More / Show Less button at the bottom-right corner of the Annotation form will expand or limit the display.
Annotation Forms also offer automation options for more efficient coding.
Annotation Form Fields
Labelled Color Coding
Primafact now includes up to 18 colors, which can be labelled by the firm for more
uniform coding and more visual identification when viewing documents and binders.
Why Use this Field?
Color-coding annotations with standardized colors & labels makes it easier to recognize the broader category of an annotation for more efficient Case preparation. Annotation Coding tools help to break down annotation content into manageable and relevant groupings for downstream Case preparation and analysis.
Event Date & Time
The Event Date field is displayed at the top-right area of the Annotation Form. It is designed to
support event chronologies. This dedicated field is designed to preserve the date (and optionally, time) of the annotated content as it would appear in a chronological record of Case events.
Why Use this Field? Completing the Event Date (and optionally, the time) on an annotation form enables swift assembly of Case Chronologies.
Issue Coding
Using Issues allows you to add nuance to your Annotations for more granular filtering and
reporting. You can apply multiple issues to a single annotation, making it easy to cross-reference annotations, or use for multiple reports. For example, you could create Issues for multiple witnesses, to pull together examination preparation lists for each witness – even where a production is applicable to more than one witness. This lets you create a simple annotation for everyone. Embedding Annotation Issues in Case Templates to more efficiently leverage document standards across Caseloads.
Why use this field? Issue coding allows more subtle categorization of Case Issues for refined analysis and reporting.
Favorability Coding
Dedicated favorability buttons (thumbs-up and thumbs-down ) make coding for adversarial value
efficient and highly-recognizable. You can filter annotations by adversarial value to quickly assemble materials marked as notably helpful or adverse to your case.
Why use this field? Thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons are instantly recognizable when viewing documents and binders – document views display the thumbs-up and thumbs-down codes right on the document, for instant identification when reviewing materials. You can filter annotations by adversarial value to quickly assemble materials marked as notably helpful or adverse to your case, making preparation for negotiations particularly efficient.
"Show More" (Expanded Form)
Clicking the “Show More” button at the bottom right of the simple Annotation Form expands the
form to reveal additional fields.
Text Excerpt
The Text Excerpt Field, found on the Expanded Annotation Form, is a dedicated location to
house the verbatim excerpt subject of the annotation. You can auto-populate any OCR’d text in this field by clicking the T button below the bottom right-corner of the Text Excerpt field.
Why use this field? Designed for building reports, the Text Excerpt field provides a distinct area to house text citations, distinct from reviewer comments in the Annotation Notes field.
Annotation Author This field records the team member who has created the Annotation. This
field should auto-populate based on your Windows ID, but you can also enter author information manually at your discretion.
Annotation Date
This field records the date the Annotation was created. (This is distinct from the Annotation
Event Date, which tracks the event date of the subject litigation.)
Annotation Type
Optional Field – Defaults to Analysis. Drop-down options include Fact, Handwriting, Highlight,
and Question.
Report Author
Tracks the originator of the document content. For example, the doctor who writes a medical
opinion.
Page Image
This area shows the annotated page in Primafact, and you can scroll to view convenient
annotation context.