In the above test, we imported a Concordance delimited DAT file containing over 20 fields with various data types. The import consisted of just a little over 400,000 records at 145 MB. Running the import in the older version (ReadySuite v4.0) – took approximately 4 minutes and 15 seconds to complete. With the improvements we made in ReadySuite v4.1, the same import took just 1 minute and 14 seconds. Overall, that’s a 350% boost in performance and a 55% reduction in memory usage.

As a result, ReadySuite and ReadyConvert can now handle much larger imports, from bigger load files to bigger metadata and delimited text files. During our testing, we were able to successfully import just a little over 1.3 million records running the x86 version of ReadySuite v4.1. While running the application in 64-bit mode, we’re able to scale even more – and being able to address much more memory space – we can handle well over 5 million records.

With more data being imported into ReadySuite, certain areas of the application would hang or give little progress on actions going on behind the scenes. We’ve addressed this by 1) speeding up actions that took a long time to complete and 2) added progress dialogs to give you an indication that a task is still running. For example, the ‘Check Range’ process on the grid might have taken several minutes to complete in the older version with a lot of data imported. Now, that process takes just a few seconds to complete.

We hope you’ll like these improvements as much as we do. Our goal is to release ReadySuite v4.1 this week, so we’ll be highlighting some of the major improvements here as the week goes on.

Supporting the Ringtail load file is a bit trickier than the other formats already supported in ReadySuite, primarily because it relies on an Access database (MDB). But this won’t necessarily make things more complicated for you, as you’ll be able to import and export to this format without having Access installed.

Creating a Ringtail load file with ReadySuite is as easy as any other load file – just specify its output filename and you’re all set. Of course, if you need some more fine tined output options, we made sure to make those easily available as well.

Specifically, we added full control for setting the field values for all columns in Ringtail’s main ‘export’ table. Levels can be populated based on a file path of your choosing, or if you prefer – they can be set individually. We added full customization of the ‘parties’ table, allowing you to choose the values for Persons and/or Organisations from the available Correspondence Types.

When it comes to reading the Ringtail format, we support it all. And it’s really simple – just drag/drop the load file into ReadySuite, choose your validation options, and you’re ready to import.

We should be wrapping up our testing phase on 4.1 shortly – and then hope to get that release out to you as soon as we can. As always, if you have an idea for ReadySuite, feel free to e-mail Justin Blessing at justin@compiledservices.com.

In prior versions, during the import process, you would specify the field from your CSV/DAT file that would “link on” to the document identifier in the grid. We did not provide a method for you to change the field to link on in the data already imported. In the screenshot below, you can see we added an option to specify the “Link Field” – this is populated from all the fields available in the main grid display.

If you’re familiar with the old wizard interface, you’ll also notice we’ve cleaned up the display quite a bit. At the top, you can determine whether you want the wizard to add “new documents” or error if it is unable to link-to existing documents. You’ll also see the “Queue” – this is populated based on the number of documents already in the grid display. In case there is a filter applied, you can glance at the numbers listed there which indicate the available set of documents being updated.

Appending your import to data already in the grid is also a bit more streamlined – you can specify the separator field now. Further, if the value you’re appending is the same as the current value – that data won’t be added, preventing duplicate information.

Finally, one common request we’ve had is to allow duplicate entries to be processed from the delimited text file. In the past, if a document was listed two or more times in your import CSV/DAT file – only the first instance of that record was updated. This was a conscious decision, allowing the import process to read the data in and update the grid faster. We now allow you to decide if you want the duplicates to be processed. Benefit of doing so, combined with the append feature, allows you to keep multiple entries and different updates from your import file.

Using ReadySuite, you can now import a Trial Director load file (OLL) and export it to any of the supported formats. As with other supported formats, verification options like checking all referenced files exist can be ran against the OLL file. Adding support for the OLL format lets us provide a neat package for preparing your images and OLE records for trial. As described in an earlier post, ReadySuite supports numbering exhibits for trial and exporting multi-page images to single page (tiff/jpeg).

We’ve made some significant enhancements to the Import Delimited Text wizard, adding the ability to automatically detect the qualifier, delimiter and file encoding. If the detection fails, you can still manually specify the correct settings or choose from a list of common combination’s. Additionally, we’ve incorporated support for reading tab-separated files (tsv) with a bit more ease.

Additional options have been added to the endorse and stamping process. Originally, users were given the option to add white space to the top and bottom of pages only. We’ve now included the ability to add more white space to the left and right side of pages. This is an important option to have as endorsements can run vertically down and up a page.

Along with more control over added white space, you can now specify if you want to maintain the original page size or allow the page size to be extended. For example, if you’re adding 0.5” to a page that is already 8.5” x 11”, you can choose to keep it at the original size or allow it to extend to 8.5” x 11.5”. Other options now allow you to adjust the margins in each of the nine quadrants, allowing endorsements to be closer or further from the edge.

Lastly, we’ve updated the export process to allow images to be endorsed on the fly. Previously, the endorse process would override an existing image set.

Head over to the download page to check out these new features and let us know what you’d like to see added or changed in a future release using the comments box below.

First up, we’ll highlight how we’ve improved the import of delimited text files. One of most requested changes by our users was to allow new records to be created by this process. Previously, you had to link the delimited text import with an existing record (i.e. native and/or image based document). The benefit here was we could tell you which documents were “un-linked” or not found. Now you can add the record as a new document if it can’t be linked. If you don’t need to add these as new records, the option to generate a warning is still there.

We’ve also implemented an update-mode if the record already exists. You can choose to replace an existing field value or append the new value to the existing record. For example, if you had a field named PRODRANGES with the value “ABC001-ABC002” and a delimited text file with a PRODRANGES field having the value of “DEF001-DEF002”, the append mode would combine the values to be “ABC001-ABC002 DEF001-DEF002”.

Additionally, you can now choose to repeat the value of a field during the import delimited text process. If a field is marked to have its values repeated, any empty values will be replaced with the previous non-empty value. If you’re importing a FOLDER field whose value is only entered for the first document inside that folder, but you need it repeated for each document inside that folder, then mark the field to be repeated. The folder information will be re-used for each document until a new folder is encountered.

Moving on to exporting delimited text files, we’ve added the ability to export page records. When setting up the delimited text export, you can simply check a box to export all the pages or images in a document. Page level fields, such as filename, page number, folder and color status will be available. Document level fields will simply be repeated for each page in the document.

Group fields are now available to the delimited text export in addition to the EDRM and DII exports. This feature allows you to specify two or more fields to be “merged” on export in the event that one field does not have a value. This is useful if you have three fields called Author, From, and Creator but you only need one export field called Author. Based on the order you add the fields to the new group field, the first non-empty item will be used in the export field.

For those users who want to merge two or more fields together regardless of any existing data, we’ve added that ability to the Batch Update dialog. For example, if you want to merge BEGPROD1, BEGPROD2, and BEGPROD3 into a BEGPRODS field, you would use the following syntax:

${META:BEGPROD1}; ${META: BEGPROD2}; ${META: BEGPROD3}

Don’t worry if the above is confusing: we have an easy-to-use field picker to help in the process.

The changes highlighted in this post are also being provided to our ReadyConvert users, among other bug fixes, free of charge. ReadyConvert is our free load file verification and conversion tool used by many litigation professionals.

Our next blog post will focus on overall stability improvements and important changes to the document grid.