Deleting documents and folders

Deleting is permanent

Read this part twice, because the product does not have a second chance built into it.

When a document is deleted, it is gone: the record, every stored version of it, and the file itself are all removed. There is no trash, no archive, no recycle bin, no thirty-day window, and no restore. Support cannot undo it for you either — there is nothing left to undo it from.

Most portals soften this with a bin you can fish things out of. This one does not. Treat the delete control the way you would treat a shredder rather than a filing drawer.

Before you delete

A short habit that costs ten seconds and has saved plenty of afternoons:

1. Download a copy first if there is any chance it matters. See Download and export options.
2. Assume nobody else has a copy. Downloads are not recorded, so there is no way to check whether the client ever collected it — see What is recorded about a document. If it matters, ask them before you delete, not after.
3. Ask whether you actually want to delete it. A document that is finished with is better marked Completed than destroyed; it stops appearing in your working queues either way, and one of the two can be reversed.

Deleting a document

From Documents, open the … menu on the document’s row and choose Delete. You are asked to confirm. The same control is on the document rows in Folders.

Deleting a folder

From Folders, use the delete control on the folder’s row and confirm.

Look inside first. A folder is the one place where a single press can remove more than you were picturing, because what you are looking at is a name rather than the twenty documents behind it.

Clients do not see folder controls at all.

Who is allowed to

• Attorney and admin can delete their firm’s documents.
• A client can delete only documents they uploaded themselves, and only if an admin has turned that on. It is off by default, which is the right default — leave it off unless you have a reason.

The client setting lives under Settings → Organization → Documents.

The safer alternatives

Before reaching for delete, most cases are better served by:

• Marking it Completed — it leaves your queues, and it still exists.
• Reassigning it — it leaves a client’s account without leaving the firm’s records. See Who can see a document.
• Moving it to an archive folder of your own making — the product has no archive feature, but a folder named for the year does the same job and is reversible.

Deleting a client’s account

Deactivating a user from Users stops them signing in. It does not delete what they uploaded — those documents belong to the firm and stay. That is what you want when somebody leaves; see User profile management.