In the Timelines section of the Client Portal Manager, you can create client-facing steps and map existing phases for each project type onto a client-facing timeline. The timeline must be set up and published for a project type before clients can be invited to the portal.
Timelines are a way for you to create a client-friendly version of your project’s status. Timeline steps give clients a way to understand what’s happening with their case without requesting updates.
Tip
The timelines section can be disabled for a project type in the Overview section. When the timelines section is disabled, clients using that project type still see their current timeline step on the Home page, but they will not see the other steps in the timeline. This option is typically used when the client will not necessarily go through every step in the timeline, and the full timeline view may be misleading or confusing.
Project Types and Timelines
Timelines are set up at the project type level—each project type must have its own timeline.
Project types can, however, be split into multiple timelines. Splitting a single project type into multiple timelines is useful if you use a single project type for multiple case types, and have many phases that are only used for a subset of the projects of that template. Read more about creating multiple timelines for a single project type in the Split section.
Set Up Timeline
To begin a timeline, click Setup next to a project type. You can save a timeline you’re working on as a draft. When you’re finished creating the timeline or timelines for a project type, click Publish to enable the portal for all projects of that project type.
Import a Timeline
You can choose to base your timeline on either a template you've made for another project type ("Copy from Existing"), or on one of the pre-loaded templates. If you’d prefer, you can also start the timeline from scratch. Import options appear when you first start timeline setup, but you can also click Import Timeline at the top right to select from these options if you already started a timeline.
If you choose to copy or import, the names and descriptions for the existing timeline will be imported. Then, you can map your project phases and edit the names and descriptions as desired.
Split Timelines
Project types can have multiple timelines, which are split up by the option selected in a chosen custom dropdown field.
To create multiple timelines for a single project type, click Split Timeline. Select the custom field you’d like to split by. (You can select any custom field from that project type that is placed in a static section and is a dropdown type field. Typically, this field would be “case type.”)
Click New Timeline and enter a name. For example, if you are splitting by a “case type” dropdown field, you might name a timeline “Motor Vehicle Accident” and then choose the dropdown option “MVA.” Any project that has “MVA” selected as its case type would then use the “Motor Vehicle Accident” timeline.
Multiple dropdown options can be added to a single timeline. For example, if you are using a case type field, “MVA” and “Slip and Fall” could both be added to one timeline. If a dropdown option is not mapped to any of the timelines, then projects with that option selected will not be able to use the portal.
Once you’ve added timelines, you can click on a timeline in the right side panel to view the step setup for that timeline in the main screen. Click Save Draft and Publish at the bottom of the screen to save or publish all of the project type’s timelines at once.
Create Steps
Create up to 12 steps in each timeline. Each timeline step has a name and description, and is meant to give the client a sense of where their case is in the timeline.
Use the buttons at the top of the description field to create formatting or embed links in the description. You can click Preview to view how the description will look to a client.
To reorder the steps, click the up or down arrows on a step to move it up one or down one in the order. Click the trashcan icon to delete a step.
Phases to Steps Mapping
Each client-facing step must have one or more internal project phases mapped to it. For example, you might want to map both your internal project phases of “Investigation” and “File Setup” to a single client-facing step called “Intake” on the timeline. In that case, when your project is in either the “Investigation” or the “File Setup” phase, the timeline will display “Intake” and its description to the client. Once you move the project into the next mapped internal project phase, the timeline will move to whichever step that phase is mapped to.
A phase can only be added to one step per timeline. For split timelines, a phase can be added to one step per split.
If any phase is not mapped to a timeline, moving a project into that phase does not affect the client-facing step. The client-facing timeline remains in the same state until you move the project into a phase mapped to a different step.
Choose the phases you want mapped to a step by clicking in the Project Type Phases field and selecting the phase or phases from the dropdown.
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