Notes Screen

The Notes page contains all of the case's notes. There are three main areas in this page: a series of links to each of the note types matching at least one note in that case, a preview pane showing the content of the selected note (when activated), and most importantly, the table of notes itself.

Note Types Links

This area is intended to make filtering the table of notes by type simpler. Every note type with at least one corresponding note in the table is presented as a hypertext link, and the number of notes corresponding to that note type is listed in parentheses right after the name of the type. (The first item in this area is always All Notes.) Clicking the text of any note type will automatically change the filter on the table of notes to only include notes exactly matching that type.

Preview Pane

This area allows you to view the entire contents of a note, with full formatting. If your case notes tend to be relatively brief and free of formatting, the preview pane is not especially important. You can change the relative size of the preview pane and the table of notes by dragging the border between them to a point of your choosing, so if you do not need the preview pane, you can eliminate it. However, if your case notes tend to be longer and more detailed, with formatting like bullet-point lists (or if you have attached long emails to your case notes), you may find it useful to use the preview pane to view selected notes, rather than showing them in their entirety in the table of notes (which may lead to some rows being very vertically overstretched). See the Compact Note column, below, for a column that shows some of the text of a note without excessive row-stretching.

By default, the preview pane is turned off, thus providing a view of as much of the table as will fit on the screen. In order to activate the preview pane, click on one of the preview icons located at the top of the table.

Clicking on the left icon will open the preview pane below the table; clicking on the right icon will open the preview pane to the right of the table. To close the preview pane, click on the active preview icon (the one shaded in yellow).

The Table

The table of notes contains a few features not found in most SmartAdvocate tables. There is a Clear Filter button above the table, which clears any filters currently being applied to the table (the same function as the Clear hypertext in the Filter Builder bar). There is a pair of buttons that allow you to change the location of the preview pane relative to the table (either below the table or to the right of the table). There is also an additional export icon beyond the common three, allowing you to export the notes to a report. Unlike the other export options, exporting to a report ignores the filters and columns in place when you perform the export; it always exports every row, with the following columns:

Created: The date and time the note was created, and the staff member who created it.
Type - Subject: The note's type.
Notes: The full content of the note, including formatting.

The table of notes itself has the following default columns:

Date: The date and time the note was created.
Staff: The staff member who created the note. Equivalent to Created By.
Note: The full content of the note, including formatting.
Type: The note's assigned type.
!: The note's priority level.
Action: An action column containing a right-click icon. The right-click menu contains the options Edit, Email, Print, Copy, Delete, and Show History. For some notes that were automatically generated by the system, only Email and Print are functional.

Additional columns are available for the Emails table, which can be added or hidden from the table by selecting Show/Hide Columns in the Layout button. See Tables for general information about table structure and usage. The additional available columns are:

Actions: An action column containing icons allowing you to edit, email, print, copy, delete or view the history of a note, or (for some notes that were automatically generated by the system) only email and print icons.
Compact Note: A truncated version of the note, with formatting removed. If your case notes tend to be long, using this column in the table, in conjunction with the preview pane, can be more useful than using the Note column, which will lead to some rows being significantly taller than others. Because the length of the text in this column is limited, the amount that rows are stretched is limited too.
Created By: The staff member who created the note. Equivalent to Staff.
Created Date: The date that the note was actually created on, regardless of the date set in the date field at the top of the note.
Modified By: The staff member who last modified the note.
Modified Date: The date and time the note was last modified.
Plain Text Note: The full content of the note, with formatting removed.
Related Contacts: Any case contacts who were indicated as related to the note.
Shared in CP: Whether the note has been shared in the Client Portal.

The add/edit form for notes is the same as the panel that appears when you Add a Note from the Case Quick Action Bar. Emailing a note brings up the Case Email panel with a slightly modified subject and the content of the note in the body of the email. Printing a note brings up browser print options; the content of the printed note includes the case number, name, type, and status, the note type, priority, date of creation, creator, date of modification, modifier, and the contents of the note. Copying a note brings up a panel allowing you to choose the case file to copy the note to another case; there are radio buttons allowing you to choose to copy the note to the same case, a related case, or a different case (which provides you a list of all cases).

Incomplete Notes

Occasionally a user may begin to enter a note but may not be able to complete and save it (perhaps due to the browser crashing or computer losing power). Should this occur, simply open the same case, go to the Notes page, and press the Add New Note button. The Add New Note panel will open, with the incomplete note recovered.