Configuring Steps on your Matter Type

Actionstep allows you to automate your day and a lot of how you can achieve this is by automating what will happen when a matter is moved to a new step. From creating a new task to asking the user to enter in the crucial piece of information, step changes can speed up your firm's productivity.  

In this article, we will run through how, as an Actionstep Administrator, you can access the screen where you can set what happens when a matter is moved to a particular step. We will run through each of the options available.

Some of the items that you set on a step such as matter data and related matters will need to be set on your matter type first before you can set them on a step. See the links below for other sections on setting up your Workflow:

• Workflow on your Matter Types
• Matter Data on your Matter Types
• Related Matters on your Matter Types

Navigating to the Steps screen

 

NOTE

To learn how to create a new step, see Workflow on your Matter Types.

 

Each matter type in Actionstep can have its own unique set of steps. Even steps that have the same name on different matter types can be configured differently. 

To navigate to the admin screen where you can edit what appears and is created on a step, go to the Admin screen, click on Matter Types, select the matter type that the step is on. Click on Workflow, then, from the list of steps to the right of the screen, select the step you want to edit. 

The resulting screen is called the 'Edit workflow step' screen.

Understanding the Edit workflow step screen

The Edit workflow step screen has a number of different sections available and for most of them, you can choose to toggle these sections on or off depending on what you want to include in your steps.

The 'Basic settings' and 'Matter data' sections (read more about each below) will give you options like what the step is called and some basics on how it works. Under the 'Step actions' section, you set what "actions" will happen on this step. 

If you don't see a section or option that you expect to see, make sure that section is turned on under the 'Step actions' section.

Below, we describe each section, what you can do in it and explain the fields in those sections. As there are a lot of possible sections, you might want to skip ahead to the section you are interested in using the links below:

• Basic settings
• Matter data
• Step actions
• Accounting functionality
• File Note
• Trust accounting
• Sales data
• Parties
• Linked document templates
• Related matters
• Emails
• Tasks

Basic settings

Under the basic settings section, you can set the basics of a step likes its name and description. 

Step name	This field sets the name for this step. A steps name is how it displays on the matter.
Description	Use the description to help explain to your users what the step is for. The description is optional, some steps users will understand from the name alone. The description will appear when a user hovers over the name of a step.
Auto step change	Typically as a matter is moved to a new step, the user is presented with a "Step Change" screen which lists off the items that will be created on the step (such as tasks or emails) and prompts the user to populate items on the matter such as parties to the matter or matter data. However, sometimes you want to move straight to that step without having to go through the Step Change screen. When you want to do so, switch this field to 'On'.  TIP You can set some items to be required for a step, such as requiring a 'Client' to be loaded before a matter can move to a step. If the 'Auto step change' is set to on and the required field is populated then the matter will move to the step without going through the 'Step change' screen first. However, if a required field is not populated, the 'Step change' screen will still be shown so that the user can populate the required fields.
Display order	When you are on the Workflow screen (the screen that you navigate to before the 'Edit workflow step' screen), the steps will be listed on the right hand side.  The 'Display order' will control the order of those steps. Enter a number that will be used to determine the order. Display order works by comparing the number given to the current step with the sort order of other steps. If a step has a lower number, it will appear before a step with a higher number.  TIP When you enter sort orders, use numbers with multiple of ten, i.e., '10' for the first record, '20' for the second, '30' for the third and so on.  The reason why you want to do this is if you want to create a new data collection at a later time that you want to be between two existing data collections, you have 9 available numbers to assign it to achieve this.

Matter data

In the Matter Data section, you can control what will happen to the matter as it is moved to the step. 

Reassign matter to	As you move a matter to this step, you can have it assigned to a party to the matter.  Select the party or participant type from the drop-down to have the matter assigned to contact against that participant type as you move the matter to this step. Each matter is "assigned to" an Actionstep user. This is typically the person who is in charge or responsible for that matter at that time. It is possible that you might want to automatically assign a matter to a different person once it reaches a certain stage. This field lets you achieve that. NOTE A matter can only be assigned to one person at a time. If there is more person assigned to the participant type as the matter is moved to this step, Actionstep will assign it to the first person. If there is not a system user assigned to the participant type then the person moving to that step will be required to enter one.
Force reassign	Related to the field above. The 'Force reassign' switch will control if a user moving to the step has the option to choose who to reassign the matter to or not. At the top of the 'Step change' screen, the assigned to person will be displayed. Even if you use the 'Reassign matter to' option above to reassign the matter, with this option turned off, the user will be able to change the value as the matter is moved to the new step.  Switching this to 'On' means that the user does not have the option to change the value though it will still display the person the matter will be assigned to.
Matter status	As you move a matter to a new step, you can change the status of the matter.  NOTE There are four statuses that a matter can be assigned: Active: The matter is open and being worked on Inactive: The matter is open but is not being worked on for the time being Template: This is a status used to create a matter template. See Matter Templates for more details. It is unlikely to ever be a reason to change a matter to a template status as part of a step-change. Closed: The matter is finished and will not be worked on anymore.   TIP This option is mostly useful if you are moving a matter to the step that will close it. You should set these steps to change the matter status to "Closed". This saves your users from having to do this manually.

Step actions

In the Step actions section, you can choose what will happen as a user moves a matter to this step. For each switch that is displayed, there will be a number of options to choose what is created, what the user is prompted to do or what is allowed to happen on this step. 

We explain the options under each of these sections below. 

Accounting functionality

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

In this section, you can choose what accounting transactions (if any) can be created for this matter while it is on this step. 

NOTE

The options in the screenshot above are taken from a system that is using Actionstep's built-in accounting. If you do not see all these options, please don't worry. 

 

While switched to 'On', the user can create an accounting item of that type. This can be a useful function if you have steps in your process where you do not want a user to be able to create a transaction at that stage. For example, you might not want a user to create an invoice while they are on a matter that is on the engagement step if tasks like "Complete conflict check" and "Confirm the letter of engagement returned" are not complete.

Billing Settings

Users are able to add invoice delivery settings on a step change. This provides a means of configuring the "Basics" section of the matter billing options screen for a matter on a specific step of the matter's workflow. Email template selection and invoice printing options can be displayed to make selections at the appropriate point in your workflow/process. This will give your firm the opportunity to lodge all relevant client data against the matter first and then use that contact data to configure invoice delivery settings. 

See Step Change: Billing Settings for more information.

File note

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

As you move a matter to this step and the 'Step change' screen is displayed, you will have the user prompted to enter a file note at the bottom of the 'Step change' screen. In the File note section, you can control if that file note prompt appears, if the user must record a file note to move to the step and if so, how much they should write. 

Moving to a new step is normally a milestone in a matter and it is worthwhile to encourage your users to enter a file note on the matter to ensure it is up to date with relevant information. 

Required	As the matter is moved to this step you can force a user to enter a file note to be able to move to this step. This can be useful to ensure that your users record details appropriate to that stage of the matter. Switch this on to ensure they enter a file note.
Minimum length	If you make a file note required on a step, you will see the minimum length field appear. In here you can set how many characters a user must enter into the file note to move the matter to the next step. By setting a higher number, you require more to be written.

Trust accounting

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

In this section, you can choose to have your matter automatically open a trust accounting record for this matter as the user moves to this step. 

For each matter in Actionstep, you must 'add an account' to it to be able to process trust funds through it. This is the process of selecting which trust bank account that you will store client funds in for this matter.

By using this section, you can open a trust current and/or a trust investment account for the matter to save your users having to do this manually later.

For the two options (Current account and Investment account)

• Leave as "(Not applicable)" if you want to not prompt the user to open a trust bank account on this step change.
• Choose "Optional" if you want the user to have to choose to open the trust account.
• Choose "Required" if you want the user to have to choose to not open the trust account.

If a trust account has already been added to the matter when the user moves to the step, the accounts and their status will be listed.  

NOTE

While we use the terms "Optional" and "Required" for this setting a user can still choose not to add a trust account while moving to a new step. "Required" will dictate if the tick box to add an account is ticked or not.

 

Sales data

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

Sales data is the information that you can gather around the likelihood of a matter becoming a 'sale'. This is especially useful for firms who focus on and have a given process for attracting and engaging new clients. 

This works best when you are engaging a potential customer and want to track how likely they will engage your services. Each matter has fields that capture how much the matter will be worth if the client engages (how much they will pay you), the likelihood of them engaging with you, if they engage when you expect it to be and various others. You can access these fields on a matter by going to the Matter Sales and Marketing screen.

In this section, you can set some of those values automatically or prompt the user to update those values. The idea behind this is that if you are moving a matter to a new step, you are at a certain milestone so it would be worthwhile to update the details as you move to the next step.

There are seven switches which control what is displayed on the Step change screen. Two of these will cause other fields to display.

Show sale amount	When this switch is triggered, the step change will display a field where the user can populate what the sale amount would be.  This is the expected amount that the firm would receive if the client engaged with them.
Default sale amount	This field only shows when you set the 'Show sale amount' (see above) to 'On'.  You can enter into this field what you expect the sale amount to be. By using this you can reduce the data entry requirements for your users. For example, if you always charge a fixed amount of $1,000 for an estate planning matter, you could pre-populate this field with $1,000. If you have matter types where the amount will vary depending on the services the client needs, you can leave this blank for the Actionstep user to populate.
Show probability	You are able to set the probability of the 'sale' on the Step change screen when you switch this to 'On'.  When you do so, you will also be prompted to enter a 'Minimum probability' and a 'Maximum probability' (see below).
Minimum probability	This field only displays when you have set 'Show probability" (see above) to 'On'.  This will set a lower limit on what probability the user can set as they move the matter to this step. You can use this to automatically increase the probability of a sale as you move to a step.
Maximum probability	This field only displays when you have set 'Show probability" (see above) to 'On'.  This will set an upper limit on what probability the user can set as they move the matter to this step. You can use this to automatically decrease the probability of a sale as you move to a step.  EXAMPLE OF USING MIN. AND MAX. PROBABILITY To help understand how to use these to the best effect, consider the following scenario. Mike has a Matter Type specifically for engaging with high-value clients. In the workflow of this Matter Type he has setup the following steps: Initial contact Scoping Quote Quote follow up Engaged Did not engage As the matter moves from step to step, the likelihood of the client engaging goes up. For the Initial contact step, Mike knows that he can get a broad range of contacts. Some are curious only some are very keen to engage but history has taught Mike that no matter how excited a prospect seems, they don't always work out. To reflect this, Mike sets the Minimum probability on this step to 0% and the Maximum probability to 60%. This means his users can select a probability of up to 60%. For scoping, Mike has qualified the client better and is willing to invest more time into seeing what would be involved in engaging with this client. He is still not sure they will engage but he is more sure. To reflect this, Mike sets the Minimum probability on this step to 20% and the maximum probability stays at 60%. This change reflects that if his users are not at least 20% sure of the chance of a sale, they shouldn't bother moving to this step. They can only select between 20% to 60%. For the Quote step, Mike normally has a pretty good idea of how things are going to shape up. He will be more confident that anyone who reaches this step will engage with him but only a little, However, he knows some of the prospects are much more likely to engage. To reflect this he makes the minimum probability 30% and 80%. The Quote follow up stage can change the probability. If he has to follow up with the prospect then for some he might be less sure, some he might be more confident. Either way, the min and max probabilities will remain the same. On the Engaged step, he has done it! the client is engaged, he sets the minimum to 100%. On the Did not engage step, then he knows the client did not go with him. He will close off the matter at this step and chooses not to show the probability at all. He would like the probability to remain recorded on the matter as it was because Mike reviews lost matters each month to see if there are ways that he can improve his conversion rate and keeping the probability helps him do this.
Sale date	This is the date that you would expect the sale to happen, that the client would agree to engage with the firm and undertakes to pay any fees for the services the firm provides.  By switching this on, an Actinstep user who moves to this step will be prompted to enter in a date that they expect the sale to happen. If already populated, the set date will be displayed and the user can change it.
Marketing medium	This is related to Actionstep marketing where you can create matter types the track marketing events and campaigns. This field lets a user link the particular matter to the to a marketing event so that you can track the success of individual events.
Payments	Payments allow you to create a schedule of billable fees for the matter. See the Fixed Fee section of the Matter Billing Options article for more details.  When you switch this on, a user is able to create a row for a scheduled fixed fee.  NOTE Payments will only show on a step change if the matter that is having its step changed has the following fields set on the matter billing options: Billing arrangement set to 'Fixed Fee'. Fixed fee bill frequency set to 'Custom schedule'
Linked Quote/Estimate	If you are using sales quotes in your system, a user will be prompted to choose a sales quote to link to this sale as part of the step change when this field is switched on. The sales quotes that will be displayed under this field will be limited to those entered into the inbuilt Actionstep accounting and linked to the matter in question. If there are no quotes in the system linked to the matter, none will display in the dropdown. NOTE The quotes that are used in this section are Sales Quotes are a type of accounting transaction. As an accounting transaction, Sales quotes are seldom used by law firms and because of this, this function only available on some Actionstep systems. Talk to Actionstep support if you would like to know if Sales quotes as accounting transactions will be useful for you. The Linked Quote/Estimate field will only show on a step change if the Sales status of the matter is set to "Sales Pipeline".
Linked Sales order	If you are using sales orders in your system, a user will be prompted to choose a sales order to link to this sale as part of the step change when this filed is switched on. The sales order that will be displayed under this field will be limited to those entered into the inbuilt Actionstep accounting and linked to the matter in question. If there are no sales orders in the system linked to the matter, none will display in the dropdown. NOTE Sales orders are a type of accounting transaction. As an accounting transaction, Sales orders are seldom used by law firms and because of this, this function only available on some Actionstep systems. Talk to Actionstep support if you would like to know if Sales quotes as accounting transactions will be useful for you. The Linked Sales order field will only show on a step change if the Sales status of the matter is set to "Sold".

Parties

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

In this section, you choose which parties to your matter (also called Participant types) you want to prompt your users to populate when they move to this step. 

You can choose which types are shown, if they are required and what order they will be shown in.

TIP

Sometimes your users will only know the identity of some parties at a certain stage. You can keep the Step change screen simpler for users to use by making sure you only prompt them to enter contacts who would be relevant for that step of the matter.

To add a new party to the step change, click the Add row button. From the Participant type drop-down, select the party you want to add, choose if they are required and what order they should appear in.

Participant type	When selecting the participant type from the drop-down the participant types will be displayed alphabetically. They will also be grouped. At the top will be all the participant types who are currently setup to be entered on the matter type. After that, will be displayed all participant types in your system. Selecting a participant type that is not currently added to your matter type will add it to your matter type.  Use the search box at the top of the dro-down to help you find the participant type quickly.
Required	A participant type that is Required means that the user will have to populate a contact against that party type to be able to move to the step in question.
Display order	The display order chooses the order that items will be displayed in. Each participant type is assigned its own display order number. A participant type with a lower display order number will appear before a participant type with a higher display order number. For example, if 'Client is given a display order value of '20' and 'Lawyer' is given a display order '10', the Lawyer will be displayed before the Client. TIP When you enter display orders, use numbers with multiple of ten, i.e., '10' for the first record, '20' for the second, '30' for the third and so on.  The reason why you want to do this is if you want to create a new data collection at a later time that you want to be between two existing data collections, you have 9 available numbers to assign it to achieve this.

Linked document templates

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

In this section, you can choose to have documents that are created automatically as you move to this step. This is handy when there are certain documents that you would require at this step, it saves your users from having to generate those documents themselves. 

To be able to use this you will have to have created the document template you want to be generated on the Matter Type. Only document templates saved to this Matter Type can be generated in this way.

You can use the blue Manage document templates button be redirected to the place on the matter type where you can create document templates.

To add a template to the step change, click the Add row button and choose the template from the drop-down. The templates will be displayed alphabetically. You can use the search box at the top of the drop-down to find your template faster. 

Related matters 

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

In this section, you are able to prompt the user to link the matter going through the step change to another matter in the system. That or to create another matter as a related matter from the matter.

To do this, click the Add row button and select the related matter type that you would like users to create. The list of matter types available will be limited to the types of matters that have been set as related matters for this matter type. If you have not configured your matter type to be related to another matter type, it will not appear in this dropdown.

If you want to force the user to ensure that this matter is related to another, tick the Required tick box.

 

WHAT ARE RELATED MATTER TYPES?

Related matters can be a powerful way to be able to organise the work that your users do. At a basic level, a related matter shows that the matter is related to another in some way. For example, you might engage a husband and wife to do a Will for each of them. This can be done in two separate matters that are related to each other.

You can, however, use related matters in other ways. You could have a separate process that you handle as one matter type and whenever it needs to be done, you can open a related matter to complete that process in isolation to the original matter. For example, you might have a matter type setup to handle the placing of an easement on a property. This is it's own separate process and can be created by itself. You could, however, be engaged to create an easement as part of the process of a client purchasing a house. You could open a conveyancing matter to handle the house purchase and then a related matter as an easement creation matter. 

Another benefit or related matters is that when you create a brand new matter as a related matter to an existing one, you can have the information from existing matter populate on the newly created related matter. This cuts down on the data entry your users have to do.

For more information on related matters in Actionstep see:

• Related Matters
• Related Matters on your Matter Types

This is why having related matters on your step change is useful. You can build your matter types so that you can trigger a related process from changing a matter to a new step.

Emails

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

In this section, you can have Actionstep send an email to a party on the matter automatically as the matter is moved to this step. 

Step email templates vs Matter email templates

These emails are different from Creating Email Templates - the ones that you can create on your matter type. The emails you create here are only able to be sent on the step change, however, you can use an existing matter email template as the basis for creating a step email template.

As the email is sent as the matter is moved to the step, the user cannot edit the email before it is sent.

Viewing existing step email templates

If you have any existing step emails templates setup, they will display in this section listing who the email is set to go from, to and the subject of the email. 

You can click on any of the above to be able to open an edit that email template.

 

Creating a new step email template

When you click the  button you will be prompted to create a new step email template.

On the resulting screen, you can enter the details of the email.

We explain the fields on this screen below.

From party	This is the party that the email will be sent from.  The dropdown will display the participant types that are set to your matter type and you select the one you want.  If there is more than one contact loaded to that role on a matter, then the first contact will be used. The 'From' email address, displayed on the email will be taken from the contact record of that user. Depending on your Email Setup the email might use that user's email address or it might be the internally configured email address. This is typically an internal contact like 'Lawyer' or 'Paralegal'.
To party	This is the party that the email will be sent to.  The dropdown will display the participant types that are set to your matter type and you select the one you want.  If there is more than one contact loaded to that role on a matter, then each contact will get their own separate email.
Required	By default, as a user goes to move to this step, the 'Step change' screen will display some details about the email and the user can untick a checkbox to ensure that the email is not sent as part of the step change. If you switch the 'Required' option to 'On', then the user does not have the option to not sent the email. It must be sent when the matter is moved to this step.
Use a template	If you have already created an email template on your matter type that you would like to use for this step email template, you can use this switch to do so. When switched to 'On', the Subject and Message body fields will be replaced with a drop-down where you can select the matter email template that you want to use. The subject and Message body will be populated from the template. Only email templates that are loaded against the matter type that your step is on will display in this drop down.
Subject	This is the subject of the email as it will appear when received.
Message body	This is the body of the email that will be sent. Above the body, text box will be a toolbar allowing you to apply different format options to the email.  TIP For both the Message body and the Subject, you can use merge fields to personalize the email. Merge fields allow you to insert in details from the matter such as the client's name, a custom data date or the name of the matter.  Any merge fields you enter here will have to be inserted within double square brackets, for example: [[File_Reference]] will show the matters file reference. To learn more about how merge fields work see Merge Fields.

How does the email appear on the step change?

After you have created a step email template a user will see the email on the 'Step change' screen under a section called "Messages". Each email will show the participant type that it will be sent from and to and the subject. 

The user can click on the  button to be able to see a copy of what the email will look like. Though it should be noted that if you have merge fields within your step email template, they will not display the results of the merge field.

Tasks

This section will only display if you have turned it on on the Step actions section.

In the tasks section, you can create and edit the tasks that will be created on the matter as it is moved to the step.