Various dialog boxes in this world have a Cancel button. In 99.9% of them, I can hit the Escape key to activate the Cancel function without having to move a hand from keyboard to mouse and back.
The AppColl user interface has various dialog boxes with a Cancel button. None of them respond to the Escape key. I would love it if the Escape key would cancel dialog boxes in AppColl.
USPTO outputs its patent correspondence as images in PDF files, encoded without searchable text.
As my standard procedure, I run OCR on all patent correspondence from the USPTO. It has the two benefits of allowing me to search the documents while working and allowing my computer's file system to index the documents so that I can quickly search for relevant documents in the future.
I usually multitask while OCR is running, but it still takes about 15 seconds out of my day for each document and probably a bit more for some other users. It would increase productivity a bit if AppColl would automatically run OCR on all patent correspondence that it retrieves from the USPTO.
Sometimes I enter a value in a field for a matter, contact, task, etc., and I forget that I made a change or which filed(s) I changed. If I attempt to close the browser tab, I get a warning that there are unsaved changes. I am not quite sure which field(s) changed and whether the change was intentional or an error. Whenever that warning comes up, I am nervous about whether I should have saved my changes or not.
I would not have that problem if, whenever I change the value of a field in my browser, there was an indication that the field was changed. This could be indicated, for example, by the background color of the field changing from white to a slight yellow. Whenever the values are written to the cloud database, such as by clicking Apply, the field would return to being all white.
For views with multiple tabs such as the Matter view having Bibliography, Applicant, Abstract, and Conversations, it would be ideal if the tab included an indication of whether any field within the tab has an unsaved change.
It might be ideal if, whenever there was any unsaved change, an indications such as a '*' character was prepended to the name of the browser tab, and the * character was cleared whenever the user clicks Apply.
When looking at a matter Prior Art page, it would be nice to know what IDS form(s) have been generated for the matter in the past. Perhaps they could be shown as links at the bottom of the left-hand button bar. (The position of links to family members from a Matter page). Clicking a link to an IDS form could bring up the Information Disclosure Statement view showing the list of date, name, and list of references.
AppColl nicely lets me enter Asian characters for things such as contact names and matter titles. AppColl CSV exports are encoded with plain ASCII text, which cannot represent Asian characters. AppColl replaces all Asian characters with question mark '?' characters. Asian characters can be represented if characters are encoded in UTF-8 format.
Microsoft Excel is probably the most widely used tool to view CSV files. Unfortunately, Microsoft is stupid. Excel cannot simply read CSV files with UTF-8 character encoding. It can with a hack, but it would probably be inconvenient for most AppColl users.
Microsoft Excel can read XLSX files with UTF-8 encoded characters.
Therefore, please provide XLSX format report downloads also or instead of CSV format report downloads.
XLSX format would let AppColl do other nifty things like adjust column widths correspondingly with AppColl reports in the browser, add row coloring for tasks correspondingly with Task reports in the browser, and even conveniently export all saved report views at once as separate sheets in a combined XLSX file.
It would be nice to have TextBox, DropDown, MultiSelect, and Date custom user fields for tasks like there are for matters.
In a Contact view for an Inventor I see a button in the left panel called Inventor Matters (X) where X is the number of matters for which the contact is named as an inventor. Clicking the button brings up a Matters report filtered for all of those X matters.
I would love it if there was an Attorney Matters (X) button in the Contact view for an Attorney.
Similarly, a Paralegal Matters (X) button, a Law Firm Matters (X) button, and basically a <Role> Matters (X) button for each kind of Role that can be assigned to a contact.
The ability to define Task Background Colors is helpful for giving users information about tasks at a quick glance that helps direct their intention to the information that is most important. There is also information about Matters that would sometimes be helpful to see at a quick glance. In particular, if Administrators could define Settings for a table of Matter Background Colors based on a grid of Status and Type, it could help to improve user efficiency.
It is very helpful that AppColl provides all the details when the values of fields change. Changes are sometimes described in task comments and always in the History window pane. AppColl usually shows the change described as as a field changed "from 'X' to 'Y'".
When the value is a long string, sometimes the description is too long for the display and gets truncated. When that happens, I can't see all of the value that the field was changed to.
Usually I am more interested to know what the value was changed TO than to know what the value was changed FROM. Therefore, I would be more likely to get the information I want without it being truncated if changes were described as "to 'Y' from 'X'" instead of "from 'X' to 'Y'".
The Background Operations list, which can be viewed by hoovering the pointer over an icon in the upper right, is a helpful feature. Some kinds of background operations, such as PAIR updates, are associated with matters. Those operations are shown in the list with the matter's AttorneyRef in parentheses.
I often highlight and copy the AttorneyRef value from within the parentheses and paste it into the search bar to open the matter. It would be convenient if the AttorneyRef values shown in the Background Operations lists were URL links that could be clicked to open the page for the matter.
China annuities are due each year on the anniversary of the filing date beginning after the patent is granted. I have a task for paying the grant fee and I enter the IssueDate when known. What Trigger Events and combination of Response Dates would cause the task to be generated around when the patent issues and regenerated each year thereafter?
An example of my attorney ref format would be T567AU1 for a trademark (T) application filing in matter family 567 (567) in country AU (AU) being the first application (1) filed in that country in that family. Using that system, search results are ordered by family then by country. As long as all members of the family have the same title, and the search query matches that title, the results will be ordered alphabetically by country, and I can tell which country because the search box results show the attorney ref on the left of all other information.
My concern would be that it gives the external email sender the ability to mess up my docketing by using the wrong reference number.
A common example might be when there is a notice of allowance in a matter ending in "US1" and the client asks for a continuation that will be docketed as "US2", but the email thread continues with "US1" in the subject line then any attached documents that get stored or tasks that get created will be associated with the wrong matter. Even worse is if the reference number is "123_US1" and the email sender accidentally makes it "13_US1" and that causes tasks to get created in the wrong patent family in a way that might be confusing for some users to back out and correct.
I would use type "Other". Most non-"Other" types can have an effect of triggering generation of one task or another from AppColl-provided built-in Task Types.
With Type "Other", you might be able to create custom Task Types for an EP opposition workflow.
I use Other for trademark enforcement matters.
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.
When I want to, for example, add an inventor to a matter, I click Add and then in the "Search inventors" text field I start typing a first name or last name or even an email address or even just a sequence of letters from the middle of a name. The drop-down list automatically becomes filtered to just names or email addresses that match the string of characters that I have typed. After just a few key presses, I have narrowed the list to just one or a few possible matches.
I don't know, but I'm going to take a guess.
"While an expression using the value in a field in the matter is true" makes me think that the trigger only occurs if the selected Field is in the expression. The Field PriorityDate is not in the expression "<DateTime.Now.AddDays(-500)".
I see an AppColl Support page here.
https://support.appcoll.com/tasks/create-task-types-that-are-date-dependent
In their example TaskTypes, they use a letter x in a place where I would expect the selected Field value to appear.
So, perhaps your expression would work if you add an x before your '<' such as this.
"x<DateTime.Now.AddDays(-500)".
It is really nice that AppColl grabs the PDFs of rejections from PAIR.
However, when the USPTO files an office action in PAIR, such as a CTFR rejection, there is often also a 892 List of references cited by the examiner, SRFW Searching information, FWCLM Index of claims, SRNT Examiner's search strategy, NPL Non patent literature, FOR Foreign references, and other documents. I use some of those when preparing to reply to an office action. Since AppColl only grabs the PDFs of rejections, and not those other files, I need to log in to PAIR for every office action and download the useful peripheral files.
It would be awesome if I could easily access every document in the PAIR file wrapper for a matter through AppColl so that I would never have to log in to PAIR to get the files I want.
I believe that an underlying tenet of AppColl tasks, and most docketing system tasks in general, is that one and only one person is responsible for a task. Surely, within the processes of a multi-person firm or company, the person doing the task will rely on the involvement of others. However, that one person is responsible for ensuring that the task is complete and then closing it in AppColl.
It would be possible to have two separate tasks, such as one for the working attorney and another for the supervising attorney. You might even have one generated as an effect of the other becoming closed.
But, just as tasks have one and only one respond-by date and one and only one final due date, they also have one and only one owner. That's the person who receives a holiday card when something goes right and where the fingers point when something goes wrong.
I think that the original post is a request for Task Types that create tasks with deadlines set by the laws of various countries other than the US.
@TarC6989 I don't understand how custom fields would help. Are you thinking of matter custom fields or task custom fields? Can you explain more detail?
Or, feel free to delete the post if it was posted to the wrong thread.
I've had the same thought. However, I worry that the bar on the left is already a bit crowded with buttons that I have to read through when I want to perform a matter action.
Perhaps your idea would work well if the task-related buttons appeared near the bottom, below the Related Matters list. That way there would be visual separation between the buttons for matter actions and buttons for task actions.
If I generate an AIA14 ADS form for a US application that claims foreign priority to an application in AppColl, it automatically populates the Application Number, Country, and Filing Date fields. However, AppColl does not automatically populate the Access Code field.
The Access Code is the Conf # of the foreign application.
If the Conf # field has a value of a foreign priority application matter, it would be nice if AppColl would automatically populate that in the Access Code field of the AIA14 form.
@AppColl
I just exported a CSV file with Asian characters and they showed up in MS Excel and a text editor. That is very helpful for me. Whatever you did to make that work, thank you.
I would still love to have an XLSX option with nifty things like adjusted column widths, row coloring, and multiple reports as tabs. But, you have resolved 90% of what I was hoping for.
Thank you.
~Jonah
Dear AppColl,
Please implement this request with high priority. While this is not a big deal for professional prosecutors, it is a big deal for users who use AppColl to manage portfolios.
Thank you.
~Jonah
@MikeO5888 I do not think that what you describe is what @KimG5166 is requesting. She would like to do a multi-level sort without filtering. Unless there is a way to filter on a column in a way that always matches all values, using levels of filters would hide information that @KimG5166 wants to see.
If I've misunderstood, please let me know.
An example dialog box is rendered with this HTML.
<td class="TaskDialogData" colspan="2" id="SingleTaskCompleteFooter">
<input type="submit" name="ctl00$ModalPopupContent$SingleTaskCompleteOk" value="Set Status" onclick="isPostBack=true;SaveHidden(NoChangePostBackHiddenID, '1'); if (Page_ClientValidate('SingleTaskCompleteValidators')) $find('SingleTaskCompletePopup').hide();WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions("ctl00$ModalPopupContent$SingleTaskCompleteOk", "", true, "SingleTaskCompleteValidators", "", false, false))" id="ctl00_ModalPopupContent_SingleTaskCompleteOk" style="width:8em;" />
<input type="submit" name="ctl00$ModalPopupContent$SingleTaskCompleteCancel" value="Cancel" onclick="ResetValidators();ClearTaskStatusBox();$find('SingleTaskCompletePopup').hide(); return false;WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions("ctl00$ModalPopupContent$SingleTaskCompleteCancel", "", true, "", "", false, false))" id="ctl00_ModalPopupContent_SingleTaskCompleteCancel" style="width:8em;" />
</td>
I think that if you added to the value="Cancel" line an onkeyup (not onkeypress, which ignores ESC) parameter with essentially the same code as you have for the onclick but put within if ( event.keyCode == 27 ) {...} then it might just work.
Some of us griping users would feel more gratified seeing new features rolled out feature by feature rather than in batches every 3 or 4 months. However, please make gratification of us griping users secondary to a high quality and efficient engineering process.
