Tip #26 - Make use of Sub-Statuses in SmartAdvocate

Did you know that in SmartAdvocate you can set “additional statuses (Sub-Statuses”) for your cases?

Every case in SmartAdvocate must have a “main” status. Statuses are reflective of where the matter is, i.e., the SmartAdvocate Statuses are more than simply an indication that the matter is ‘open’ or ‘closed.’ Typical statuses in SmartAdvocate could be “Pre-Lit 04 - PI Demand to Be Prepared,” “LIT 6A - Depositions Complete - Discovery Ongoing” or “LIT 8 - Case on the Trial Calendar,” for example.

Additional status types (sometimes referred to Sub-Statuses) further allow you to designate additional information that details exactly what is happening with the case. For example, you may have an Auto Accident case in the main status “Deposition Complete – Discovery Ongoing” and a Sub-Status of “Client Still Treating” or a similar case may be in the same main status of “Deposition Complete – Discovery Ongoing,” but in the Sub-Status of “Treatment Completed.” Although you can only assign one main Status to a case, you can assign additional statuses of other types (one per type) to the same case. An additional Sub-Status can be added or deleted from the case at any time. Please bear in mind also that you can use Case Browse to search for cases in any particular Sub-Status. (We discussed the use of Case Browse in detail in Tips-Of-The-Week published on 2/4/2019 and 2/25/2019).

Sub-Statuses are set/created using the same Admin function available under Admin > Status Setup (available to users who have Admin rights).  From the ‘Status Setup’ page you can (1) create new Status Types by clicking the “Add/Update Status Type” button; or (2) add new statuses (status descriptions) or edit existing ones by selecting the respective item from the “Status Types” dropdown and then add or edit the description as appropriate.

SmartAdvocate comes installed with four special additional Statuses labeled ‘Sub Status,’‘M1,’ ‘M2’ and ‘M3’. You can configure the special ‘M Statuses’ to be used as you wish. They are considered ‘Special’ in that they are included as available columns in Case Browse and certain Dashboards. The screen shot below shows M1, M2 and M3 configured as Case Rank, Treatment and Negotiation, respectively and a sample Case Browse result with those columns displayed.

Below is a sample of the My Cases Report Dashboard with M1, M2 and M3 displayed