Workflow
Workflow in Legal Notes covers the following areas
- The creation, review, completion and publication of documents
- The distribution of incoming documents
- The creation and tracking and completion of tasks, appointments, file recall and outside work (or jobslips)
- The closing, re-opening, and archiving of matters.
Workflow is primarily controlled by reference to two criteria, namely: a document's status and the individual who has in control of a document or task.
The life of a Matter follows a fairly predictable path as reflected in the available options for its status, namely:
- Current
- To be closed
- Closed
- Administration (reserved for matters that are really internal files to deal with office administration).
The status of a matter is more relevant to the management of a legal practice than it is to workflow.
Other documents move through status levels that are also reasonably well explained by their names. For example:
- In Progress
- Under Review
- Reviewed
- Finalised
The individual is classified by reference to his relevant function. For example, author, reviewer, assignor or assignee of a task or jobslip, a responsible solicitor or paralegal. For workflow purposes, documents are categorised by reference to the individual who is responsible for, or is somehow involved with, the document.
The In Progress view in the Matter db categories documents by the people that are working on them or, in the case of incoming documents, by the solicitor or solicitors that have responsibility for the matter (ie the solicitors are named in the Matter details document for the matter).
Incoming documents are emailed to, and included in the relevant solicitor's WIP view, and upon creation to ensure that they come to the attention of solicitor.
Tasks
Tasks are a species of workflow but are distinguished here to explain their function. Tasks can be broken down into the following categories as they appear in Legal Notes:
- Task Something to be done or a matter to be recalled. Agents automatically send mail to the person responsible for the Task when the deadline or recall date for the tasks is reached. The messages continue until the task is finalised or the deadline or recall date is changed.
- Appointments A species of a Task. Upon allocating a matter number to a calendar appointment or invitation, it will, in addition to being stored in your calendar, be filed as a Task in under the that matter.
- Jobslips This form covers all forms of work not directly related to a professional task. EG - filing of court documents, searches, service etc
The Tasks view in the Matter db categories Tasks by the people that are working on them and the date for performance. .
Mail
Mail forms an integral part of workflow
All users noted in the Matter document will be notified by email of all incoming and outgoing documents created for a matter. Reminders of upcoming appointments are sent by email.
If a user is involved in a task or jobslip, notification of any deadline or the status of a jobslip, is communicated by email.
In your inbox, new matter based documents are coloured yellow. Tasks are green and jobslips red.