What Clients Should Consider Before Migrating
Before any migration begins, clients should understand the key decisions that shape scope, timing, complexity, and overall success. A migration to RelativityOne is not just about moving data from one system to another. It is about preserving what matters, minimizing disruption, and making sure the new environment supports the client’s legal, operational, and business needs.
1. Define what is actually being migrated
The first step is to clearly define the scope of the migration. Clients should determine whether they are moving all data or only selected matters, workspaces, or data sets. That may include raw data to be reprocessed in RelativityOne, processed data with load files, images, natives, and text, existing productions, review work product such as coding or issue tags, or full workspaces versus selected matters only. Archived or inactive matters may also need separate consideration. Defining scope early helps avoid surprises and supports more accurate planning around cost, timing, and validation.
2. Decide what must be preserved
Not every migration requires every historical artifact to be carried forward. Clients should identify what information, structure, and work product are essential for business continuity, legal defensibility, and ongoing review needs. This often includes metadata fields, family relationships, extracted text, images, review coding, issue tags, privilege designations, productions, redactions, saved searches, or historical reporting. Separating what is critical from what is optional helps streamline the migration and reduce unnecessary complexity.
3. Understand the source environment
The current platform and export method can significantly affect migration strategy. Clients should evaluate what platform or platforms they are migrating from, such as Relativity Server, Reveal, Everlaw, Logikcull, iPro, or another system, and understand what export options are available. They should also determine whether the data is coming from a live environment, archive, backup, or flat-file export. If the source environment includes custom applications, legacy versions, or unique workflows, those factors may influence how the migration is planned and executed.
4. Review workflows, customizations, and integrations
A migration often involves more than data alone. Clients should assess whether the current environment includes workflows or features that need to be recreated, replaced, or retired in RelativityOne. This may include custom fields, layouts, views, reports, scripts, event handlers, third-party integrations, or automation built around the source platform. Security structures and permission models should also be reviewed. Understanding these dependencies early helps prevent workflow gaps after go-live.
5. Establish the timeline and migration sequence
The urgency of the migration affects staffing, sequencing, and cutover planning. Active matters often require more careful scheduling and additional validation. Clients should consider whether the migration will happen all at once or in waves, whether downtime must be limited, whether parallel review periods are needed, and whether test migrations should occur before full cutover. Start dates, completion targets, and litigation deadlines should also be considered. A realistic timeline helps set expectations and reduce operational disruption.
6. Confirm processing, deduplication, and search expectations
Clients should understand how the source platform handled processing, deduplication, and search behavior so the target environment can be planned appropriately. Questions may include whether the data should be reprocessed in RelativityOne or loaded as already processed data, what deduplication methodology was used previously, and whether search, analytics, or other review behavior must be preserved. These choices can affect cost, timing, consistency, and user expectations in the new environment.
7. Define the validation standard
Migration success should be defined before data is moved. Establishing acceptance criteria early gives both sides a clear way to test and approve the results. Validation may include document counts, family integrity, field mapping accuracy, text and image availability, searchability, production usability, carry-forward of review work product, and user acceptance testing. The clearer the validation standard, the easier it is to confirm readiness for go-live and avoid disagreements later.
8. Address security, compliance, and legal requirements
Security and legal requirements should be reviewed as part of migration planning, not after the fact. Clients should identify any special access restrictions, ethical walls, client-driven security expectations, retention obligations, legal holds, regulatory requirements, or confidentiality concerns that may affect the project. These considerations can impact hosting, permissions, timing, and workflow design, so they are best addressed early.
9. Identify stakeholders and responsibilities
Migration projects move more efficiently when roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. Clients should identify the business, legal, litigation support, IT, and project management stakeholders involved in planning, testing, approvals, and communication. They should also determine who is responsible for technical coordination, validation, final decisions, and signoff. Having the right people engaged early reduces delays and supports faster resolution of issues.
10. Consider cost, risk, and open issues
Migration cost is not just about labor. It also includes how data is exported, staged, loaded, stored, validated, and supported after migration. Data volume, workspace size, testing needs, accelerated timelines, and post-migration support can all affect cost. At the same time, clients should identify open issues and risks such as incomplete exports, legacy structures, unsupported features, unclear ownership, or limited testing windows. Surfacing these items early allows the project team to address them before they impact timing or quality.
A well-planned migration to RelativityOne starts with the right questions. By addressing scope, preservation needs, workflows, timeline, validation, security, stakeholders, cost, and risk up front, clients can move into the project with better visibility, stronger alignment, and a more controlled path to success.