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WorkPlans are a valuable tool in SmartAdvocate for ensuring that your firm's work processes are consistent, well-defined, and repeatable. WorkPlans are collections of tasks and other necessary events, organized in a hierarchical tree structure, so that you can nest items (i.e., you can trigger certain items to become active only after another specific item is completed). You can set the due dates of individual tasks relative to other dates in the WorkPlan, or to relevant case dates; alternatively, you can prompt the user to determine the due date when the task becomes active. Tasks activated by a WorkPlan appear in the case summary screen along with other tasks and can be marked completed either in the case summary screen or the WorkPlan screen. You can also set WorkPlan items to trigger certain actions, like changing the case status or generating documents. In this way, you can direct the entire workflow of a case by using a well-designed WorkPlan (according to the needs and practices of your particular firm).

The WorkPlan Management page allows you to view, edit, and record the descriptive details of WorkPlans in the SmartAdvocate system. This is also the only page where new WorkPlans can be created.

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1. New WorkPlan button. Used to add a new WorkPlan to the case file. See Adding a WorkPlan.
2. WorkPlan Administration table. Contains the details of WorkPlans and allows various actions to be performed on them. See WorkPlan Administration Table.

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WorkPlan WorkPlan

WorkPlan Administration Table

The WorkPlan Administration table is where the descriptive details of WorkPlans are stored. Each row of the table represents an individual WorkPlan. See Tables for general information about table structure and usage, including all buttons and other tools in this table that are not mentioned below.

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To edit the details (Name, Description and Special Notes only) of a WorkPlan:
Click the Edit icon in the Actions column of the row representing the WorkPlan you wish to edit. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for WorkPlans, with the existing information filled in.
Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Panel for details about the fields.
Click Save to save the changes and close the panel.
If you decide you do not wish to save the changes, click Cancel instead of clicking Save to undo the changes and close the panel. You can also click the white X at the upper right of the panel to do the same thing.

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1. Click the New WorkPlan button. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for WorkPlans, completely blank.
2. Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Panel for details about the fields.
3. Click Update to save the WorkPlan and close the panel. To edit the contents of the new WorkPlan, click the WorkPlan icon ( )in the Actions column of the row representing the new WorkPlan

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WorkPlan items are the building blocks of WorkPlans. They represent tasks that must be completed, appointments that must be scheduled, critical deadlines, or decision branches that allow you to determine which of multiple possible sections of a WorkPlan should be implemented given the particular situation of the case. In general, the best way of creating and managing items is through the Item Templates administrative page. Items created on that page can be quickly and easily added to WorkPlans on this page. However, it is also possible to edit an item directly on this page; once you have edited an item on this page, you can even save it as an item template if you wish.
Items that have been added to WorkPlans are arranged in a hierarchical system, like an organization chart or a computer file structure. Every item has at least one parent item, except for the top-level item, representing the WorkPlan itself and indicated by a WorkPlan icon ( ). Items with at least one child have a small plus/minus icon next to them; clicking this icon will switch between displaying the item's children and hiding them. When the WorkPlan is inserted in the case, the child items will remain inactive until the parent item has been completed. This means that the task will not be assigned, the appointment will not be scheduled, or the critical deadline will not be set, until the parent item is complete. (Decision items are a partial exception to this rule; see Decisions.) For this reason, the organization of the items in a WorkPlan is essential to properly managing the process the plan represents. It would be possible to put every item in a WorkPlan on the same level, with only the top-level item as a parent, but this would simply cause every item to activate as soon as the WorkPlan was inserted, which would likely be overwhelming to your staff and would eliminate the value of structuring your work process in advance.

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To add an item to a WorkPlan, right-click the item you wish to make the parent of the new item. Among the items in the right-click menu are Add Task, Add Appointment, Add Critical Deadline, and Add Decision. If you have already created a template for the item you want to add, click whichever of these items matches the item you want to add, which will bring up a panel containing a table of templates; deselect the Open element [...] checkbox by clicking it, then find the template you want to use, and click the check-mark icon in that row. The desired item will be added at the location in the plan you selected. If you have not already created the item template, click any of the four options and then click the Add Empty Item button in the lower right of the panel that appears. A blank item will be added at the location you selected, which will be named "New Element (Please rename)". Right click on the new element and click on Edit. A panel for editing the item will open. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Item Template Panel for a description of the panel and how to design the new item. When you are finished, you may click the OK button to save the changes to the item, or you may click the OK & Save as Template button to save the changes to the item and also save the item itself as a new item template. You may instead click the Cancel button or the white X at the upper right of the panel to cancel any changes; however, the blank item will still be present in the WorkPlan and will need to be deleted. Note that no warning will appear before the item is deleted and once an item is deleted, it is permanently removed and will need to be recreated if necessary.

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To edit an item once it has been added to a WorkPlan, right-click the item, then click Edit. This will bring up a panel for editing the item. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Item Template Panel for a description of the panel and how to edit the item. When you are finished, you may click the OK button to save the changes to the item, or you may click the OK & Save as Template button to save the changes to the item and also save the item itself as a new item template. You may instead click the Cancel button or the white X at the upper right of the panel to cancel any changes.
You can add an action to a WorkPlan item that will be automatically initiated or performed by the SmartAdvocate system either when the item becomes active or is completed. This can be done in the normal course of editing the item, but there is also a shortcut that will bring you directly to the Add/Edit panel for a new WorkPlan item action. To use the shortcut, right-click the item you wish to add the action to, then click the Add New Action option. You can then fill out the panel that appears as usual. Note that after adding the new action, you will be returned to The Add/Edit WorkPlan Item Template Panel, and will have to click OK to fully save the new action in the item.

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You can insert the entire contents of some other existing WorkPlan into the WorkPlan, at the location of a selected item. The selected item will take the place of the top-level item of the inserted WorkPlan; all the children of the inserted WorkPlan's top-level item will become the children of the selected item. To do so, right-click the item where you wish to insert the WorkPlan, then select Insert WorkPlan. A small panel will appear with a Dropdown allowing you to select the WorkPlan you want to insert. You can, in fact, insert the same WorkPlan you are currently editing, but this may yield inconsistent results and is generally not recommended.

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Decisions behave slightly differently from any other item in a WorkPlan. A decision contains various decision options, and a decision is completed by marking any one of the decision options as complete. This is used to create a branching structure for your WorkPlan, where different sets of items could be invoked depending on some circumstance of the case. For example, you might have a decision for whether any plaintiff in the case died in the case incident. If not, no additional items are activated, but if so, some sequence of items relating to Surrogate's Court becomes active. Decision groups can be as complicated or simple as you wish.
A decision in a WorkPlan has two parts. One is the decision question, which is an item like a task or appointment. The decision question can be edited like any appointment. However, you cannot add any other item directly to the decision question. If you right-click the decision question, the only thing you can add to it is a decision option, which is one of the possible answers to the decision question. You may add as many decision options as you wish, and as few as two (you could actually have fewer, but then the decision would be useless). Editing a decision option only offers one field: the text of the option. But you can add items to a decision option just as with any non-decision item.
When a decision becomes active in a case, so do all of the options of that decision. (This is the only exception to the general rule that children of incomplete items are not active.) The decision question appears in the Case Summary page as a task and trying to mark it completed will automatically bring you to the WorkPlans page for that case; it will not yet mark the decision completed. To mark the decision completed, you must mark one of the options of that decision completed from the WorkPlans page. Doing so will also mark the decision question completed and activate all of the children of the option that was marked completed. However, it will not activate any of the children of any of the other options; if that option is not relevant to the case, none of the subsequent items should need to be completed, so they should properly remain inactive for the entire duration of the case. (You may mark more than one option of the same decision completed, if multiple options all apply. This will activate the children of the completed options, and not the children of the options that have not been marked completed, as expected.)

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To edit an item template:

1. Click the Edit icon in the Action column of the row representing the template you wish to edit. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for item templates, with the existing information filled in.
2. Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Item Template Panel for details about the fields.
3. Click Update to save the changes and close the panel.

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1. Click the New WorkPlan Item Template button. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for item templates, blank except for defaults.
2. Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Item Template Panel for details about the fields.
3. Click Update to save the template and close the panel.

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The WorkPlan Item Actions tab is used to create actions that will automatically be initiated or performed by the SmartAdvocate system either when the item becomes active or is completed. The tab contains only a table listing the actions; use the New Action button to add new actions. The Add/Edit panel that appears when using the New Action button or editing a row of the table contains two tabs, General Information and a second tab whose title and content depends on the selected action type (until an action type is selected, the second tab is not visible at all).

The General Information tab contains the following fields:

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The WorkPlan Assignment Administration table is where the details of WorkPlan assignment rules are stored. Each row of the table represents an individual rule. See Tables for general information about table structure and usage, including all buttons and other tools in this table that are not mentioned below.

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1. Right-click anywhere in the row representing the rule you wish to edit. This will bring up a menu of options.
   • • Alternatively, you can click the Edit icon in the Actions column of the row representing the rule you wish to edit. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for WorkPlan assignment rules, with the existing information filled in. Skip to step C.
2. Click the Edit Rule option in the menu. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for WorkPlan assignment rules, with the existing information filled in.
3. Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Assignment Rule Panel for details about the fields.
4. Click Update to save the changes and close the panel.

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1. Click the New WorkPlan Assignment button. This will bring up an Add/Edit panel for WorkPlan assignment rules, completely blank.
2. Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add/Edit WorkPlan Assignment Rule Panel for details about the fields.
3. Click Update to save the rule and close the panel.
   • If you decide you do not wish to save the rule, click Cancel instead of clicking Update to undo the changes and close the panel. You can also click the white X at the upper right of the panel to do the same thing.

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1. Add WorkPlan Into Case button: Used to directly add a premade WorkPlan to a case file. See Adding a WorkPlan to a Case.
2. Current WorkPlans In Cases table: Contains the details of WorkPlans that have been included in cases and allows you to remove them from a case. See Current WorkPlans In Cases Table.

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The Current WorkPlans In Cases table lists every WorkPlan in a case in the SmartAdvocate system. Each row of the table represents an individual WorkPlan. See Tables for general information about table structure and usage, including all buttons and other tools in this table that are not mentioned below.

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1. Click the Add WorkPlan Into Case button. This will bring up a panel for adding WorkPlans directly to cases, completely blank.
2. Fill the fields in with your desired information. See The Add WorkPlan to Case Panel for details about the fields.
3. Click Update to add the WorkPlan and close the panel.

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