Document status and approvals

Every document carries a status. It is the portal’s way of saying whose turn it is.

The statuses

• Pending — uploaded, nobody has done anything with it yet.
• Processed — the firm has dealt with it.
• Completed — the work it belongs to is finished.
• Pending Approval — a client uploaded it and your firm’s rules require somebody to accept it first.
• Pending Signature — a signature request is out and not everybody has signed.
• Rejected — it was refused. The usual reasons are the wrong document or an unreadable scan.

Two of those — Pending Approval and Pending Signature — mean work has stopped and is waiting on a person. They are the ones worth filtering for daily.

Turning approval on

Under Settings → Organization → Documents an admin can require approval for client uploads. With it on, anything a client uploads arrives as Pending Approval and stays out of the working set until somebody at the firm accepts it.

It is a real trade-off. On, and nothing unexpected slips into a client’s file, but somebody has to clear a queue. Off, and client uploads land straight away with nobody checking that the right thing arrived. Firms handling a lot of scanned paper usually want it on.

Clearing the queue

Filter Documents by Pending Approval, open each document, and accept or reject it. Rejecting is not deleting — the client is told, and can upload the right thing without you having to explain the portal to them again.

Changing a status by hand

An attorney or admin can set a document’s status directly from its row. Use it to mark work Processed or Completed as you go; those two statuses are only as useful as they are current.