Learn how to set a precedent to have multiple recipients by their role, e.g. a Solicitor and a Vendor's Agent, which would produce two letters, one addressed to each recipient.
- Select multiple Roles and Relationships when configuring the Addressee in precedent letters
- Select multiple parties in the precedent letter addressee prompt, to generate a series of documents
- Select multiple parties for a Blank Letter, to generate a series of documents
- Precedent Letters are saved with the name of the party added to the end of the document name
Configuring Precedent Letters
You can select multiple Roles and Relationships when configuring precedent letters. Any combination of Roles and Relationships can be selected, there are no restrictions.
Precedent Letter Addressee Prompt
If the current matter has more than one of the Roles and Relationships configured as Addressee, the user will see the following prompt when they generate the Precedent Letter. Separate documents are created for each selected party. If the user cancels the prompt, no document is opened.
Features of the Precedent Letter Addressee Prompt:
1. For easy relationship identification, when the user hovers over a party, the party and their relationships are highlighted in yellow.
2. If a party is shown in the list more than once, such as the same Solicitor/Attorney acting for two Purchasers, when one is selected, the duplicates are disabled and cannot be selected
3. User can quickly Select All or Select None
4. When selecting a party, ‘Create Document’ button shows how many documents will be created
Blank Letter Recipient Selection
Parties are shown the same as for Precedent Letters with the same functionality except for:
1. ‘Leave Blank’ option is achieved by making no party selection and clicking ‘Create Blank Document’
2. There is no capability to Select All as it does not make sense in this context
Document Generation
The generation of documents is the same for Precedent Letters and Blank Letters.
If only one Addressee was selected, the document is opened in Word as per the normal process.
If more than one Addressee was selected, the first document is opened and addressed to the first party, then:
- To save this document and generate the next letter for the second selected Addressee and so-on, the user will press the ‘Save & Next’.
- If the user wants to stop mid-way through and not generate any further letters in the series, they will press ‘Close & Cancel’. If the user has made changes, they will be prompted as normal if they want to save their changes.
- Once the document for the last Addressee is created, the buttons return to ‘Save & Close’ and ‘Close’ as per normal
- Precedent Letters are now saved with the addressee’s name added to the end of the file name.
Handling of Asks (pop up questions)
If the document contains Asks, the user will be prompted to answer them upon document opening as per normal. The only difference is, when the user is prompted with Asks for the first document in the series, they are given the option to Apply to all generated documents. The option is only available on the first document in the series.
Any Asks that the user chooses to apply the answer to all generated documents, will not be prompted on the second and subsequent documents to the other selected parties. However, if the user chooses to re-run questions for the document, the Ask will be prompted.
Rules and Behaviour
Precedent Letter Configuration
- Multiple Roles and Relationships can be configured as the Addressee
Precedent Letter Addressee Prompt
- Parties are now multi-select
- Parties have on-hover highlighting to show relationships
- If a party is shown in the list more than once, such as the same Solicitor/Attorney acting for two Purchasers, when one is selected, the duplicates are disabled and cannot be selected
- User can ‘Select All’ / ‘Select None’
- ‘Create Document’ button is disabled until at least one party is selected
- ‘Create Document’ button shows how many documents will be created
Blank Letter Recipient Selection
- UI has changed to better represent parties and their relationships
- Parties are now multi-select
- Parties have on-hover highlighting to show relationships
- If a party is shown in the list more than once, such as the same Solicitor/Attorney acting for two Purchasers, when one is selected, the duplicates are disabled and cannot be selected
- Can create a blank letter with no party selected by clicking the ‘Create Blank Document’ button
- ‘Create Document’ button shows how many documents will be created
Letter Generation
- A document is generated per party selected
- First document is generated, and the user moves to generate the next when they are ready
- The Smokeball Ribbon is changed to have ‘Save & Next’ and ‘Close & Cancel’ options
- Once user reaches the last letter, the Ribbon reverts to ‘Save & Close’ and ‘Close’
- Precedent Letters are saved with the party’s name at the end of the file name
- Asks are prompted as normal with the ability on the first letter to apply the answer to the rest