The problem that we see with this is that the task is set up as an Extendable External Deadline. While it is extendable, it is only extendable upon filing a time extension. We would like to see this deadline type changed to something that is technically more accurate. When attorneys see the deadline type as extendable, they do not always pay enough attention to the actual task and this has caused missed deadlines. Has AppColl considered making a change to this deadline type?

Hi Whitney, this would be the same idea as your other question. We can certainly walk you through this. He's an in-depth link on creating reminder tasks automatically. I hope this helps.

p.s. send an email to support@appcoll.com to get something scheduled.

Hi Whitney - Since follow-up reminders can be very customized to a customer's needs, we do not have default tasks or reminders. You can easily create follow-up reminder tasks and emails. Would you like someone from Support to reach out and have a call to discuss in detail?

p.s. send an email to support@appcoll.com to get something scheduled.

@RichardS3059 I have a follow-up question about this topic. Is there a way for the ReferenceDate of the "Request non-pub rescission" task to be the filing date of the non-US application? The task I created uses the US application filing date instead of the non-US application filing date as the reference date.
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@amy_appcoll

Yes, there is. You can use triggers for multiple task types that are all the same. So task 1 would trigger when some other action occurs. Task 2 would trigger from the exact same action as task 1 did. Same with tasks 3, 4, etc.

@TPLA3794 I did create a few custom tasks. Because my practice is small (I'm semi-retired), I only created tasks that met my immediate needs rather than attempt to be fully general. But I'd be happy to share them with you, of course with the understanding that I take no responsibility for how you use them or for any errors that might be in them.

Drop me an email at richard@schafer-ip.com and I'll try to figure out a good way to share them.

@RichardS3059 thank you! I like your second suggestion a lot, because for me this is always a client-specific issue. I am going to try that. Thanks again!

@RichardS3059 Hi Richard,
I 100% agree with you but, as you said, AppColl is 100% customizable on that matter, so we have created all the EPO-related tasks ourselves.
We looked at how the native tasks were set up in AppColl (usually a event triggering a task, with notifications associated) and replicated the process.
It was a bit of work, especially since we wanted to do it in the most efficient way, but it's working well.
Our patent workload is not massive (we're inhouse) so we create a new type of task each time we receive new type of communication from the EPO.

@SeanW8986 The best approach here (for a single matter) is probably to generate the standard reminder dates and then edit them manually. If you have a subset of matters with this flow (e.g. a specific client) you could setup a new workflow.

Thanks,

AppColl Support

@JonahP1621 I've certainly worked with more than one docketing systems that allowed matters and docket entries to be assigned to multiple attorneys. That way, things would show up on each person's docket. Usually, the docketing system simply designated them as Attorney 1, Attorney 2, etc. and the firm could choose by policy the roles assigned to each of the Attorney n fields. At one big firm where I was a partner, at least one partner insisted that docket reports produced for him only show docket items for those few cases where he was the working attorney. The system we had there was so bad that I found to my horror that
one docketing clerk spent their entire day just producing daily docket reports for each attorney by running a giant docket for everyone, then manually extracting the docket for each attorney into a spreadsheet for just that person. I was able to cut that down to no more than an hour by writing some code to split the giant docket into individual files. It wasn't a great solution but was the best we could do with the limited capability of the system.

Thank you for the feedback.

@MelissaT3398 - thank you!

@MikeO5888 Thanks! Have a good day.

My guess is that fields (columns) associated with tasks are black and fields associated with the matters with which the tasks are associated are grey. Noticeably, Status is an exception because it is grey, even though it is a field related to the task.

While the distinction between fields related to tasks and fields related to the matters associated with tasks is surely meaningful to the AppColl developers, it is unimportant to me. I agree with @RichardS3059 that Task reports would be somewhat more readable if almost all text was black.

Date text is a reasonable exception since the difference of blue or red is a useful indicator of whether a task is due in the future or the past.

@jonah-soundhound-com A simpler way to do it would be to just generate a bunch of annual docket entries for the entire lifetime of the patent all at once, just like some systems generate a docket entry for each extension of time that's possible for a response when an office action arrives.

But I hate seeing all of those future entries and having to clear them if they're not needed, so I prefer a more complicated configuration that only generates each docket entry when it's needed. A little careful work up front pays off over time.

I think that I once saw somebody, elsewhere, suggest that it would be nice to have a bulk task closure feature available within the Matters view. Maybe I just imagined that, myself.

I like the idea, though I can picture the GUI starting to get crowded with quite a few buttons.

Perhaps one approach to providing that feature while minimizing clutter would be to have tick boxes in a narrow leftmost column in the list of tasks and have a section of buttons on the left related to manipulating tasks, but have those task manipulation buttons become visible only when one or more boxes is ticked and become invisible as soon as no box is ticked for any shown task.

Can I stop auto-generation of the review tasks, or are they needed to auto-generate other tasks?

Currently, there is not a way to import custom task types. They would have to be created one-by-one within AppColl.

However, we are implementing the ability to import and export tasks type in an XML format. Look for details on this process in the coming months.

Yes you can. When creating a task type, you can select a trigger where you would state "While CountryCode contains nnn". See below.

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