Tip #13 - This week’s tip, ‘How to Set SOL Reminders using WorkPlans,’ is a little bit off the beaten path, so to speak.

It is a little different from our usual Tip of The Week, because it is directed primarily towards the Admin person in your firm who generally creates WorkPlans and is a bit longer than our usual tip.

Here at SmartAdvocate, we are frequently asked ‘Does SmartAdvocate give automatic deadline reminders?’ or ‘How can I get a ‘pop-up’ reminder 30 days before the SOL expires?’ for example.

While they won’t create ‘pop-ups’ in the strictest sense, you can create simple WorkPlans that can automatically populate ‘reminders’ of upcoming SOLs. The following example shows how to create a WorkPlan for Auto Accident Cases that will automatically populate 90, 60, 30 and 7 day ‘SOL Reminders.’(Please note that in this example the reminders are populated based on a 3-year SOL. You will need to make the appropriate adjustments based on the actual SOL for your Case Type and/or jurisdiction)

From the Admin Tool Bar, select WorkPlans, then WorkPlan Management from the resulting drop-down menu
Click the ‘New WorkPlan’ button in the top left corner of the screen
Enter a name, optional description and optional Special Notes for the WorkPlan
Click the ‘Update’ button to save the new WorkPlan name
Now locate the WorkPlan name you just created from the list of WorkPlans displayed and click the open WorkPlan icon to the right of the pencil/edit icon

6. Right click on the WorkPlan name and select ‘Add Critical Deadline’ from the drop-down menu

7. Click the ‘Add Empty Item’ button from the dialog box

8. For the General Information, enter a Name (such as 90 Day SOL Reminder), select CriticalDeadline for the Type and enter an optional Description and optional Special Instructions if desired

9. Click the ‘Scheduling Setting’ Tab and click the drop-down for ‘Item Entered Date’ and select the ‘Incident Date (DOI)’ option. In the box to the right of ‘And then add additional’ enter the number of days less 90 days for the actual SOL. In the following example, I entered 1005 which represent 90 days less that the total number of days for a 3-year SOL (a three-year statute is 1095 days)

10. Click the ‘Contacts Information’ tab and then click the ‘New Contact’ button

11. Click the ‘Role from the Case’ check box and then select ‘Attorney’ from the drop-down. Check the box for ‘Is responsible for the WorkPlan item.’ Click the ‘Update’ button.

Repeat steps 10 and 11, selecting different roles, if desired. In our example, we selected Paralegal as the second role from the drop-down. (In the foregoing examples, the staff members assigned as Attorney and Paralegal in the case will have the 90-day SOL Reminder sent to them).

12. Click the ‘OK’ button to save the entered information

[Repeat steps 6 through 12 for a 60-day, 30-day and 7-day reminder if desired. For each subsequent reminder in step 9, make the appropriate calculation for 60 days, 30 days and 7 days less than the actual SOL as appropriate]

Here is the completed WorkPlan shown in both the traditional and graphical (drag-and-drop) views

Now, assign the WorkPlan to your cases based on the desired criteria. In this example, we will assign the WorkPlan to a specific Auto Accident Case Type.

13. To do so, go to Admin, WorkPlans, WorkPlan Assignments, then click the ‘New WorkPlan Assignment’ button in the top left corner of your screen

14. Create a name/role for the WorkPlan Assignment (In this example we called the assignment ’90, 60, 30, 7 Day SOL Reminder’)

15. Select the WorkPlan you just created from the drop-down list of WorkPlans (in our example, ‘90, 60, 30, 7 Day SOL Reminders’)

16. Select the Case Type(s) and State(s) from the drop-down lists that you want to assign the WorkPlan to (here we want to limit the assignment to specific Case Type(s) and State(s) since SOLs may be Case Type and State Specific)

17. Click the ‘Update’ button to save your selections and assignment (Tip: You may want to assign the WorkPlan to one specific case initially so that you can verify that the WorkPlan is functioning as expected prior to assigning it to all your cases. Go to Admin > WorkPlans > WorkPlan in Cases to do so)

In our example, once a new case of the type Auto-Not Mun-Not Death AND located in New York is entered into SmartAdvocate, the WorkPlan will be automatically assigned to it.

Once the SOL Reminder WorkPlan is assigned to a case, the WorkPlan page in the case will look similar to the following:

And the SOL Reminders may look like this on the Summary Screen of the case: