Action Status

When you create an action within Actionstep you may notice that it defaults the the status of Active. Active status implies that that work is and will likely continue to take place within this matter. There are a number of alternate statuses throughout Actionstep as well. Understanding the distinctions between these status can help you use Actionstep more effectively. This article covers 

1. Which status should I use?
2. Closing an action
3. Marking an action as inactive 
4. Deleting an action 
5. Creating a template
6. Searching an action by status 

Which status should I use?

There is no set protocol within Actionstep for when to close apply a status. Users and organizations can choose to close, delete, mark as inactive, or convert to template as they see fit.  Each status is unique and includes certain considerations like access to historic records and visibility in your Actionstep system. We recommend creating company-wide best practices for when to apply each method. Some examples of these may include 

• Only delete an action if it was created by mistake and will be replaced with a new action. 
• Mark an action as inactive if you haven't heard from a client for 30+ days
• Mark an action as inactive if there is no task or action which needs to be completed for this action in the next 60 days but future activity is expected
• Mark an action as closed if a customer has indicated they no longer wish to work with your company.
• Mark an action as closed if a conflict of interest has been found and your firm has chosen not to move forward with a customer.
• Actions associated with unresponsive sales prospects should be marked as inactive but not closed unless the customer asks not to be contacted again
• Create a template if the same team will be assuming the same roles in multiple cases

Company procedures for when to close an action can, and should, be built into a workflow. Inactive steps can be built into a workflow but are often more difficult to predict. Workflows cannot be preconfigured for deletion. For these reasons procedures for when to make an action as inactive and when to delete an action are great topics for Wiki articles. 

 Closing an action
The ability to close an action is set in the by step. To change a normal step to a close step you'll need to go to Admin>Workflow>Action Type>Select the relevant Action Type>Select the relevant step>Misc 

Here you'll choose between Active, Inactive, Closed, and Template for the Action Status field. This indicates the status an action will be in when you move to this step. Actions can only be closed by switching to a close step.

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How Can I tell if a step is a close step? 

For users with administrative access you can always check the status of a step using the navigation listed above for editing a step's properties. Alternatively, you can also check the step change form prior to finalizing the step change (see example below) to check the "Set the status to" field. This field will default to the status you've set for that step in your workflow. 

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What if I need to close  an action before the end of the workflow? 

Actionstep recommends building alternate close steps throughout your workflow. An alternate close step is a step that you make available as an alternative to another step of your workflow. For example, the step choices that follow an "Initial Meeting" step might be "Client Engagement" or "Closed." The more optional close steps you have throughout your workflow the easier it is to mark an action as closed. For more information on customizing your step tree please see our Workflow and Workflow Customization user guide articles.

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How can I tell if an action is closed? 

When a view is filtered to display closed actions the action name and primary participant will be struckthrough on the list view. 

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A stamp indicating an action is closed will also appear on the action overview screen.

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Where can I see closed actions throughout the program?

Marking an action as Inactive

Inactive actions are typically used to indicate actions that have no tasks to complete soon but which may in the future or actions that have otherwise temporarily stopped progressing.

There are three ways to move an action from active to inactive: 

1-Set a step to change an action to inactive from within the workflow
Go to  Admin>Workflow>Action Type>Select the relevant Action Type>Select the relevant step>Misc 

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2-Manually change a single action to inactive

Select the information icon next to the action name on your action overview screen

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then select "edit"

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Choose "Inactive" from the status dropdown and select save

3-Marking an action or multiple actions as inactive from an action list view

Check the boxes next to all actions you would like to mark as inactive. After selecting at least one action you will see a "Change" dropdown appear. Select the "Mark as Inactive" option.

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You will be brought to a screen displaying all the actions you have chosen to mark as inactive. Confirm your choices and select "Submit" 

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Deleting an action

A deleted action is removed from your system entirely. You will not find a deleted action in any list view or search function throughout the program. 
To delete an action select the information icon next to the action name on your action overview screen

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then select "edit."  

If the action is currently able to be deleted you will see the "Delete" button displayed in red. 

If there are actions which need to be preformed prior to closing an action the "Delete" button will be grayed out. 
 

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You can select the "?" icon to see why your action is not able to be deleted. 

Creating a template

The template status works a little differently than other action statuses within Actionstep. When you mark an action as a status you're indicating that the some of the data from that status should be used to create new actions. The fields that can be saved to a template are as follows

-Parties
-Custom Data  

This differs from the from the action type (or workflow) functionality in that the you would create a field in an action type that prompts you for information while you would create a template to populate some of those fields. 

Here we see an action created without a specified template. The program prompts you to add parties based on the settings in your action type. 

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Here we see an action of the same action type with a template applied. 

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How to create and apply a template

Step 1: Create a template

You can create a template by changing the status of an action from Active to Template. This can be done while creating the action or after the action has already been created. 

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Step 2: Apply the template

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Searching for actions by status

The status an action is set to will affect the it's visibility throughout the program. This should be taken into account especially when deciding whether the status of an action should be changed to Inactive, Closed, or Deleted. 

"Search Matters & Contacts" Window

Advanced Search

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Default action List Views (the list views preloaded into your Actionstep database)

 "Open Assigned Action/Matter" Panel on Contact Overview Screen 

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Action/Matter Tab Within the Contact 

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