8 Tips for Working with Concatenated Databases in Concordance Desktop

What is Concatenation? Concatenation is the joining together of two or more Concordance Desktop databases, allowing users to view multiple databases as if they were one database in Concordance Desktop.

Benefits of concatenated databases

  • Large record collections can be broken into smaller databases that can then be concatenated for review.
  • You can organize a record collection for review by creating databases based on document type, custodian, etc.
  • Users can share tags across all the databases in the concatenated set.
  • Users can search across all the databases in the concatenated set.

Concatenation Tips:

  • Save indexing time when new records need to be imported into Concordance Desktop, by having a secondary database created and joined with the primary database
  • You can join databases with differing structures and they can be edited, sorted, and printed. However, the structures must be identical to use certain options such as Overlay and Export.
  • Concatenated databases do not have to have any fields in common, unless you need to create a production from the set. For productions, the field names must be common across all the concatenated databases.
  • The .cat file is saved in the same folder as the primary database’s .dcb file. When the primary database is launched, all other databases in the concatenated set are opened.
  • Packing, database modifications, indexing and reindexing are done in the primary database only, all others are automatically updated.
  • All tags from all databases in a concatenated set display in the Tag toolbox window and can be applied to any documents in the concatenated set.
  • Each users’ user name and password must be the same for all databases in the concatenated set.
  • Each users’ field rights and menu access settings need to be the same for every database in the concatenated file set.

For more information about Concatenation, refer to the Concordance Desktop Answer Center. Interested in learning more about Concordance Desktop? Visit our website at http://www.lexisnexis.com/litigation/products/ediscovery/concordance-desktop or call us at 855-529-0559 for a demonstration.