Prepare a New Document
- Select the ‘Prepare’ button on the Action bar.
- A list of all document and email templates you can access displays. The list can be filtered by document description by using the search box at the top right.
- Once you select a template, the ShareDo Prepare Document blade displays.
This has the following properties:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | The default document description. |
| Template | This is the document template used to generate the output document. |
| DMS Folder | This is the Document Management System (DMS) sub-folder where the generated document will be saved. The default sub-folder will be inherited from the Document Template. |
| About | The item of work that this document relates to, e.g. the current matter. |
| To |
This section displays if the document requires a Recipient – e.g. it’s a letter. The Recipient may be pre-populated by the Document Template – e.g. Letter to Client. Or, if you need to select the Recipient, the following displays: (red items are mandatory)
Participant List Click the icon to open a blade to view the list of Participants and their address details. To edit information about the Participant that is relevant to this matter. For example, for their matter reference, click on the icon to the right of a participant’s name to view the Edit Participant blade. Save and close the blade when finished. Locations To select a Participant as the Recipient of this correspondence, click to the right of the appropriate address. This closes the blade and displays the selected party / address in the To: section. If you select the wrong Participant / address, click on the icon to right of a Participant to de-select them and select another. If a Participant is listed and unable to be selected, this is a Parent participant copied down. Ignore this. |
| Open Document | Tick for the document to be opened upon creation. |
Navigation Bars
Click on the appropriate navigation bar to open the following functions:
Time
Time spent creating, approving the delivering the document can be automatically captured. 
Comments
Notes can be stored against a document. These are presented in the Comments menu option in the left hand panel. 
Action Plan & Related Tasks
Any check list items that need to be completed will appear in this blade. 
Related Documents
Other documents can be related to this document to form a “pack”. By default the document being created Displays.
There may also be other files listed which the administrator, who created the original document template, determined should form part of the pack.
- To add more, click the Attach icon to open a further blade containing all the documents linked to this case. Select any of these documents you wish to relate and click Confirm.
- To remove any Related Documents from the document pack, tick the checkbox to the left of their title and click Unlink.
- Related Documents can be attached at any stage leading up to and including delivery of the document pack.
Phases / Milestone Buttons
The Phases of document production, from initial creation through to the delivery of the documents, are managed via a Task that is automatically created and added to the matter worklist. Typically, the user stays in the same Prepare Document blade and works through the Phases without ever seeing the Task itself. Once the final Phase “Issued” has been reached, the Task is removed from the worklist.
If the user created a document and then decided to pause work on it and return to it at a later date, clicking on the Save & Close button on the Ribbon Bar displays the new Task for this document in its current Phase in the matter worklist.
This Task can be opened from the worklist at any time and any number of actions undertaken. For example: the Owner changed, the document edited, related documents uploaded, as well as the process of moving the Task from one Phase to another.
Buttons on the Ribbon Bar control the Phase of the Task (alongside several other options).
The phases for a prepare document task encompass all the various scenarios that can occur around preparing a document. These are not all required for all documents; your administrator configures the process to be as simple as possible for the required template.
Typical Phases
The following table outlines the typical phases that are present
| Phase | Description |
|---|---|
| New | The task has been created, the document itself has not yet been generated. Additional information such as ‘to’ may need to be added. |
|
Generate Document Moves the phase of the document to in progress |
The Generate Document button does a lot of processes. It gets the document template(s) and enters data from the work item into the template. It stores a copy of the new document into your document repository (e.g ShareDo / iManage). You can open the document and make changes. Once you have finished editing you can set it to complete. This indicates you are finished with it. |
| Complete |
Using the complete button indicates that you are finished with the document. If there is an approval process associated with the document, it is triggered now. If there is no approval process, you can issue it. |
| Document Delivery |
When your administrator set up the document template, they define how it can go out. For example, it may be this document could be sent by email or post. Select the delivery option from the ‘delivery options’ menu. |
| Issued |
Once you have sent out your document you can set it to issued. This lets everyone know that the document has been sent. If the document is sent via email, when the email is sent the prepare document task is set to issued. |
| Awaiting Approval |
This indicates there is an approval process associated with the document. If your document is approved, it is set to a status of Ready / Ready to Send. If it is rejected, it goes back to drafting for you to continue editing. |
Generate a Document
Click the Generate Document button to generate the document and automatically save it into the matter Documents area, using the description you entered earlier. If the Open Document checkbox had been ticked, the document opens.
To open the document manually, hover over the new aspect at the top of the Prepare Document blade:
The following three options display:
From left to right:
- Preview - Displays the document (read-only) in a new blade.
- Preview in New Window - Displays the document (read-only) in a new browser window.
- Open - (highlighted in red, above) opens the document in Word so that it can be edited.
Refresh a Document
Once a document has been created, a Refrech Content button displays on the Ribbon Bar
This allows the contents of the document to be updated with the latest information on the matter. For example, if a Participant’s name had changed, or a Hearing Date rescheduled.
Complete a Document
Click on the Complete button to confirm the document is complete and can now be sent out.
The document can be printed direct from Word and sent by Post, DX, Courier, etc.
Alternatively, use the Email delivery channel, using the Email icon on the ribbon bar. The Prepare Email blade opens. The newly generated document is automatically attached to. See Preparing an email for full details.
Mark a Document as Issued
Click the Issued button to confirm the process is finished and the document(s) delivered to the appropriate recipients.
Manage the Preparation of a Document as a Task
Creating a document in ShareDo is treated as a task. Hence just like any other task
- They can be reassigned for someone else to complete
- They can be delegated
- They can be created or managed via workflows