Pipeline Overview
The pipeline is a great tool to keep track of the progress of your matters in Lawmatics. You can have a pipeline for any of your firm’s processes, including intake, case management, or a flow specific to a certain practice area. The pipeline gives you an at-a-glance view of the steps in this process, and where your matters fall on those steps.
To create a pipeline you’ll go to the settings gear in the top right of any Lawmatics page, and then select Pipelines on the left. This is where you can build and edit any of your pipelines.
When you create a new pipeline, you will give the pipeline a name, and you have the option to enter a description.
You will also need to select which matter status(es) you want to be shown on the pipeline. This will decide what status of matters will automatically be displayed when you view the pipeline. If you are building one to be used for intake, you will want to use PNC as the status. If you are building a pipeline for case management, use hired. You could also make one catch-all pipeline and set it to show multiple statuses.
Next, you will also see the toggle for “Intake Pipeline?”. Toggling this on will show the total value of matters in each pipeline stage as well an expected value prediction.
Lastly, you will add stages to your pipeline. If you are looking for a jumping off place with your stages, feel free to click the Presets button to browse pre-made pipeline stages our firms have had luck with in the past.
Alternatively, you can add custom stages for your pipeline. Keep in mind when creating your stages that you can trigger automations when a matter enters a certain stage, or you can also move a matter to a given stage via automation. You can also move matters between pipelines via automation.
To give an example of when you would assign a pipeline stage automatically, you may have a stage for “Consult Scheduled”. You can use an automation to move a matter into this stage immediately when a consultation is booked.
You’ll want to be precise with your stage names to avoid any confusion that could be caused by ambiguous stage names. If your stage is called “Initial Consultation”, you will be left wondering “has this matter scheduled their consultation?” or “has the consultation already happened?”. Therefore, we suggest using names like "Consult Scheduled" and "Consult Complete".
When creating your pipeline stages you will also see the option to Track Time in Stage. Toggling this option on will allow you to keep automatic stats on how long any matter spends in that particular stage.
After you have finished adding in your stages, you can view your pipeline by going to CRM -> Pipeline.
In the top left, you will see the name of the pipeline. Once you have created more than one pipeline, you can switch between pipelines by clicking the small arrow next to the word Intake above.
On the right, you’ll notice that you have the option to show the “No Stage” column. This column will contain matters that don’t have any stage assigned yet.
You also have the option to “Show All Matters”. Selecting this button will override the Status(es) that you have chosen for this pipeline and show all matters at their respective stages, regardless of status.
If you want to manually move a matter from one pipeline to another, you can do so from that matter’s profile page. Under the matter’s name, you will see a box showing what stage they are currently in. When you click on this drop down you’ll see all of your pipelines and stages, and you can select whichever stage you want to move the matter to.
FAQ's
What field do I use in an automation to move a matter on the pipeline?
To move a matter through the pipeline automatically you will use the Change Attributes action in automations, and the field you select will be Stage. "Stage" refers to your different column titles on each of your pipelines. You can use this automation action to move the matter from stage to stage on one pipeline, or to move them to a stage on a different pipeline.
What is the difference between the pipeline stage and the sub-status?
The pipeline is generally used to manage a linear process, since it follows a step-by-step format. Once a matter moves out of one pipeline stage and into another, they are no longer associated with that first stage. The Sub-Status (can be customized in settings > matter settings) can be a great way to give a matter an overarching label that will remain even as the matter moves through the pipeline stages. For example, you may have a sub-status under Hired called "open case". Perhaps a hired matter will stay in this "open case" sub status as they travel through your whole case management pipeline. Even as they are moving from stage to stage on that pipeline, they will still be labeled as an open case overall.
Why can't I see a certain matter on my pipeline? I have put them in a certain stage from their profile, but when I view the pipeline they are not there.
Check to make sure that they are in the correct status that is visible on that pipeline. When creating/editing your pipelines (settings > pipelines), you can click the edit pencil icon on each pipeline to view what statuses have been selected for that pipeline. If you have only PNC selected for that pipeline, and the matter in question is in the Hired or Lost status, then you will not see them when you view that pipeline, even though they appear to be in one of the stages from their profile. If this is the case, simply edit the statuses for that pipeline to include the status of this matter, and then you will see it on the pipeline.