Best posts made by SadiqA2304

When hitting Back or closing a browser window, Appcoll will keep a page locked for editing. Currently there is an option for an administrator to go into a user's contact page and "clear all locks and filters." I'd like to request an easier and quicker solution: a "clear own locks" button that any user can press in the event that they accidentally navigate away from a page. This would also decouple "locks" and "filters," since this issue doesn't actually have anything to do with filters, and clearing filters is undesirable in these situations.

I'd like to request a new field in Appcoll, that returns a comma separated list of inventor first names.

Currently, the way we have to do it is like this:

Step 1 - template definition:
Hello {Matter.Inventor1.First}, {Matter.Inventor2.First}, {Matter.Inventor3.First}, {Matter.Inventor4.First}, {Matter.Inventor5.First},

Step 2 - form generation based on template (assume this matter has 3 inventors)
Hello John, Tim, Mike, , ,

Step 3 - manual editing
Hello John, Tim, and Mike,
[["and" inserted and extra commas removed]]

My proposal would eliminate step 3.

Proposed step 1 - template definition:
Hello {Matter.InventorFirstNames},

Proposed Step 2 - form generation based on template:
Hello John, Tim, and Mike,
[["and" inserted and extra fields removed by AppColl backend logic]]

A similar proposal is possible for other lists of variable length, such as inventor full names and email addresses. This would eliminate a lot of manual editing on our end and further reduce likelihood of errors.

@jonah-soundhound-com bump, +1 for this request please

This will help greatly with form letters such as interview agendas, in which we address the examiner by their name. For example, assume that we have an Examiner named Joe Smith. The Examiner's information is imported from PAIR as "Joe SMITH." If I write a form letter in which I address the examiner, I would write it as:

Hello Examiner {Matter.Examiner},

which would populate as:

Hello Examiner Joe SMITH,

I would then need to manually remove the Examiner's first name, and re-type or otherwise reformat the last name to get what I really want, which is:

Hello Examiner Smith,

Appcoll already has some level of intelligence when importing contacts, such as when importing an Excel file with plain names. Appcoll does create/identify contact records, and populates first/middle/last names accordingly. Appcoll should do this with Examiner names as well.

The ideal user experience would be:

Hello Examiner {Matter.Examiner.Last},

which would give the desired result.

This also provides the benefit of allowing us to maintain examiner contact information, such as emails and phone numbers, which makes our lives easier and reduces time spent finding this information from other sources.

Appcoll allows for some field formatting options, as shown here: https://support.appcoll.com/form-emails-and-letters/formatting-text-fields-in-form-letters-and-emails

I'd like to suggest an additional formatting code, such as (AddPeriodToInitials), which adds a period to any letter that appears alone.

Example:
{Matter.Examiner} = John A Smith
{Matter.Examiner(AddPeriodToInitials)} = John A. Smith

This would solve one of the manual corrections we need to perform.

Columns in the UI are formatted such that there is a maximum quantity of characters in a column and, regardless of window size or column width, no additional characters are displayed. The following shows the same columns, with different window sizes:

^ Here, no ellipses are shown even though the column is cut off by the window.

^ Here, the column width happens to line up correctly with the ellipses, and it looks as it should.

^ Here, the window size is larger and the column is therefore wider. However, the ellipses don't change, and column now simply has blank whitespace where there could be letters.

^ There is no good reason for this to happen - dynamic columns are a problem that has been completely solved for many years in web page design.

It would be nice if we could more quickly/readily access the form letters we most commonly use, while removing or de-emphasizing form letters we use less or not at all.

Appcoll allows for some field formatting options, as shown here: https://support.appcoll.com/form-emails-and-letters/formatting-text-fields-in-form-letters-and-emails

I'd like to suggest an additional formatting code, such as (LastWord), which returns the last word in a field.

Example:
Hello Examiner {Matter.Examiner}, = Hello Examiner John A Smith,
Hello Examiner {Matter.Examiner(LastWord)}, = Hello Examiner Smith,

This would solve one of the manual corrections we need to perform.

@ChristianS9906 I agree. For example, just got this today:

"review e-office action" and "review uspto communication" for the same item. No need for this.

bump, +1 for this request

@mike_appcoll Any idea of when the next feature set/QoL rollout will be?

I'd like to request a new field for the Contact object:

Contact.FirstOrNickname

• Returns Nickname if Nickname field has one character or more
• Returns First Name if Nickname field is empty

Example 1:
Contact First Name: Jonathan
Contact Last Name: Smith
Contact Nickname: [blank]
Contact.FirstOrNickname = Jonathan

Example 2:
Contact First Name: Jonathan
Contact Last Name: Smith
Contact Nickname: Johnny
Contact.FirstOrNickname = Johnny

Without something like this, I'm not sure what the utility of the "Nickname" field is.

I made this same suggestion in September: https://forum.appcoll.com/topic/128/new-field-request-contact-firstornickname/5?_=1675177027325

Further to this, I'd like form letters to be able to be automatically added to a task when the task is generated.

Appcoll's form generation has been making great strides. It would be helpful to be able to quickly see all documents for a given matter. I'd like to recommend a tab in the Matters page:

(I know my masterful photoshop skills make it hard to see my edits, but I tried to highlight the suggested change in red)

When clicking the "Documents" tab, it would show all documents that have been generated for the matter, which would be similar or identical to navigating to the folder for that matter in the Files module (Top -> Client -> Matter folder).

@JasonP2345 You can. Click "Attach any documents linked to task" in the email template editing UI

@JasonP2345 In the email template

I've used "duplicate matter" and "multi-country duplicate" for adding a Continuation of a matter, and found that "multi-country duplicate" works a little better. Ideally, this would require fewer clicks than it already does in order to add a Continuation. One suggestion I had is, when "Utility: Continuation" (or similar) is selected, the same country as the parent should be auto-selected. Unless I'm missing something, "Continuation" of a parent application in the US for example would necessarily refer to a child application in the US.

@gregg_appcoll Any update on this one? It's been requested a few times by a few members. One additional request, allow for nicknames as well (similar to the newly added Contact.NicknameOrFirstName field). So the request is the following two fields, both which return a formatted list with commas for 3 or more inventors and an "and" preceding the last inventor:

{Matter.InventorFirstNames}
{Matter.InventorNicknamesOrFirstNames}

@BrandonK6644 I have made this request before as well. This is better than having Appcoll's internal matter codes (sequential matter number for your account) as a client-facing email address. The simplest way to implement it would probably be to add a mapping between what they already have, and the email address we desire. This could be done on a per-matter basis, and would need a code/differentiator between different accounts. Example implementation:

Friendly intake email address prefix for BrandonK's account: BK
Friendly intake email address prefix for SadiqA's account: SA
*Each account administrator may specify their own prefix via admin dashboard, so long as it is unique from all other account prefixes.

BrandonK's matter:
Attorney Ref: FOO123
Appcoll Matter ID: BrandonK001
Appcoll default intake email address (current implementation): BrandonK001@intake.appcoll.com
Friendly intake email address (default): BKFOO123@intake.appcoll.com
Friendly intake email address (customizable via Matters module UI; prefix is not changeable): BKpatent123@intake.appcoll.com

SadiqA's matter:
Attorney Ref: FOO123
Appcoll Matter ID: SadiqA001
Appcoll default intake email address: SadiqA001@intake.appcoll.com
Friendly intake email address (default): SAFOO123@intake.appcoll.com
Friendly intake email address (example customized address): SAmatter456@intake.appcoll.com

Emails to BKFOO123@intake.appcoll.com and BrandonK001@intake.appcoll.com are routed to BrandonK's "FOO123" matter

Emails to SAFOO123@intake.appcoll.com and SadiqA001@intake.appcoll.com are routed to SadiqA's "FOO123" matter

^ The client doesn't need to see the arbitrary Appcoll matter ID in the email fields; firm/account code is used to route emails to the correct account and matter, even if attorney docket number itself is ambiguous

@scott_appcoll Thanks for adding this so quickly. As @GeorgeJ4336 said, can you provide an example of the new format? It may be helpful to provide (1) an email address following the old format and (2) an email address, for the same matter, following the new format

@GeorgeJ4336 For what it's worth, I have only ever used Appcoll email intake as a CC, and I would imagine this is the intended use

Automatically generated forms, which are triggered by USPTO eOffice Actions, may use out-of-date information in certain circumstances, such as first Office Actions.

In the initial stages after an application's initial filing, the USPTO has placeholder information is in the USPTO system such as "Docket Central" as the examiner and "OPAP" as the art unit. This information gets updated by the USPTO prior to the first Office Action being sent out.

As one (basic) example, I have an Office Action Response template that is generated when an Office Action is received. This template populates basic bibliographic information, such as title, inventor, examiner, art unit, etc. In the current implementation, Appcoll does not update the information in the Appcoll system before automatically generating documents; it uses whatever was in the system before. Appcoll updates its internal information after generating documents based on an eOfficeAction. On second and subsequent actions (with no examiner or AU change), this works fine. However, on first actions, it results in situations like Appcoll-generated form fields getting populated with the placeholder information such as "Docket Central" and "OPAP."

Any movement on this suggestion? This would remove a recurring source of frustration if implemented.

@joe_appcoll Nice, thanks