PBI Web Portal 16 Staff Interaction

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Log In and Registration

New Attorney

When an attorney who is not in the lawyers system registers to be on panel, staff receives an email. That email looks something like Figure 42.

Figure 42 - Brand New Registration Email Notification

Within Prime, navigate to Search-->PBI-->Lawyers Web Registration. This opens the Lawyers Web Registration search screen, shown in Figure 43.

Figure 43 - Lawyers Website Registration Search Page

When the Website Registration Search Page opens, it defaults to showing pending registrations. You may use the search features, like other search pages in Prime, to find particular registrations. Use the “Pending” button to return to showing pending web registrations. Double-click on an entry (or single click and choose the “Open Form” button, to open the web registration data page, shown in Figure 44.

Figure 44 - Lawyers Website Registration Page

You can use search screens, queries or reports to determine if the attorney is already if the system. If so, choose the Ignore button. If the attorney is not in the Lawyers table, choose the “Add to Lawyers” button to copy this information to a lawyer form, shown in Figure 45. Please note that clicking the ignore or add button on the website registration page will remove that entry from the pending status in the search screen.

Figure 45 - Data Transferred From Lawyers Website Registration to New Lawyers Form

Enter any additional information required by the organization. Make sure you enter an attorney number (Atnum) for this attorney. This attorney is now in your Lawyers table.

Website Registration

To register to use the website, an attorney must be in your Lawyers table. There are two options available to create a new website registration: (1) the organization creates the username and password and provides it to the attorney or (2) the organization provides the attorney number, and first and last name as entered in the system. The attorney uses that to create their own user name and password in the website. To manually create the website registration for the attorney, open that lawyer’s record. Navigate to the “PBI Portal Registration” tab, shown in Figure 46.

Figure 46 - PBI Portal Registration Tab

In the PBI Portal Registration tab, fill out the information. The username and password must be provided to the attorney. He can then use that information to log on to the system. Ensure there is a password question and answer entered as well. Enter the current date and time into the “Last Activity Date” and “Last Password Changed Date” fields. To approve the attorney to log on to the Portal, check the box next to “Is Approved”. If you want to lock the attorney out of the website, remove the checkmark. If you want the attorney to create his own website registration (including selecting his own username, password, password question, and password answer), you merely need to provide the attorney with his attorney number from the lawyer record, together with the exact spelling of his first and last name in the system. He will use these to verify his identity in the system and create his own website registration.

Forgot Password

An attorney can use the password retrieval system in the website to retrieve a forgotten password. The attorney may also call the organization for that information. The lawyer’s form does not display the password in a clear text format; however, staff can reset that password by deleting the information in the password box and typing in a new password for the attorney. Log In Other than providing the username and password, or giving the attorney sufficient information to create his own website registration, there isn’t much to be done by the organization regarding log in.  

Case Management

List a Case as Waiting

To place a case on the waiting case list in the Portal, change the case type to “W” for Waiting, as shown in Figure 47. Ensure there is no closure date in the case as well. Closed cases, regardless of their case type, are not shown in the waiting case list.

Figure 47 - Case Type

Several things happen when an attorney accepts the case on the Portal. First, the case type of the case is changed from “W” to “P” for “PBI”. Second, a PBI record entry is created if one doesn’t already exist. Third, a PBI Lawyer entry is created for the attorney. This is equivalent to your assigning an attorney to a case as shown in Figure 48.

Figure 48 - Assign a Lawyer - PBI Tab

Finally, an email is sent to the organization notifying staff of the fact that the attorney took the case, as shown in Figure 49.

Figure 49 - Email Regarding Case Assignment

View Open Cases

If you want to see what cases are shown as waiting on the Portal, open the Client Search Screen (Menu: Search->Client->Clients). In the “Search Field” dropdown box, select “Case Type”. In the “Word or #” box, type in “W” (obviously without the quotes). Review the list. For any item in the list that does not have a date closed, the case should be shown on the Portal. An example of such a list is shown in Figure 50.

Figure 50 - Search Screen Showing Waiting Cases

Case Information

The case information that is displayed to the attorney (client name, contact information, conflict information) comes from the Client record. Changes to the client record, when saved, would be immediately reflected in the Portal the next time the case information is displayed. Case information cannot be updated or changed by the attorney using the portal.

Case Documents

If you wish to place a document in document tracking in a case and also have it displayed in the Portal for that case, simply right-click on the document in Document Tracking (page 2 of the Client record) and choose Properties, as shown in Figure 51.

Figure 51 - Right-click a Document in Document Tracking

In the Document Information box, shown in Figure 52, check the box next to “Available to PBI Attorneys on the PBI Website”. The document would now be available to the attorney on the website. Please note, the document must be saved in the SQL Server to be available to the attorney. Documents that only have their link stored in Prime are not capable of being downloaded from the Portal.

Figure 52 - Document Information Page

If the attorney uploads a document to the case, an email is sent to staff notifying them of the new document, as shown in Figure 53.

Figure 53 - Email Notification of a New Document

Time

When an attorney adds either Compensated or PBI Time to a case, staff will receive an email much like that shown in Figure 54 (for Compensated Time) and Figure 55 (for PBI Time).

Figure 54 - Email Notification of Compensated Time Entry

Figure 55 - Email Notification of PBI Time Entry

You may use normal procedures in Prime to review those time entries, including reviewing them in the case, or searching for the entry.

Case Notes

When an attorney enters a case note in a case, staff will receive an email notice of that, as shown in Figure 56. In newer versions of the PBI Portal, the email includes the case note that has been entered. The case notes for the client file will also display the newly entered case note. These notes will typically have the special "Web" staff number (default is 9999) and a type of "PBI Website Note".

Figure 56 - Email Notification of a New Case Note

If you want a case note to be available to the PBI Attorney, add a new case note with a casenote type set to “PBI Website Note” as shown in Figure 57. The PBI Attorney will be able to view these case notes by going into the Client's case and selecting "View Case Notes".

Figure 57 - PBI Website Note Type

Close A Case

When an attorney closes a case using the Portal, staff will receive an email, as shown in Figure 58.

Figure 58 - Email Notification of Case Closure

The closing information noted by the attorney is entered into the case record, and the case’s date closed is entered with the day the attorney closed it.  

Non-Case Documents

If the organization desires to make non-case specific documents available to their PBI attorneys, those documents may be added to the non-case document system. To access that system, in the menu, navigate to Add-->Other-->Document Noncase. The non-case document system screen will look like that shown in Figure 59.

Figure 59 - Non-case Document System Screen

Add a document to this system as you normally would. To make the document available on the Portal, right-click on the document and choose properties. Check the box next to “Available to PBI Attorneys on the PBI Website”. Attorneys cannot add non-case documents to the system.  

Account/Profile

Edit Profile

When an attorney edits his profile on the Portal, those changes are immediately made to his lawyer record in Prime. Notification of the change to the profile is sent by email to staff. Of course, staff may also edit an attorney’s profile by editing the information in the lawyer record.

Counties

Changes by an attorney to counties result in an immediate change to the lawyer record in Prime, in addition to an email being sent to staff notifying them of the change to the attorney’s counties. Of course, staff may also edit this information in the lawyer record.

Subjects

Changes by an attorney to subjects result in an immediate change to the lawyer record in Prime, in addition to an email being sent to staff notifying them of the change to the attorney’s subjects. Of course, staff may also edit this information in the lawyer record.

Change Password

Staff may change the password for the attorney by opening the lawyer record, going to PBI Website Information tab and changing the password entered into the password field. The field does not show up in plain text, so staff cannot read existing passwords from within the lawyer record.

Change Security Question and Answer

Staff may change the Security Question and Answer for the attorney by opening the lawyer record, going to the PBI Website Information tab and changing the Security Question and Answers entered into the corresponding fields.  

Work Summary

You may produce a list of the attorney time entered by running the appropriate reports corresponding to the type of time entered. Many of these reports may be found by going to the menu and navigating to ReportsReport Selector. For compensated time entries, in the Report Selector, in the lower left corner under “Other Tables, Lawyers, Oservice, etc.”, use the dropdown to choose “Compens” for compensated time. Choose one of the reports in the Choose Report dropdown. Enter the criteria and run the report. For PBI time entries, in the Report Selector, in the left column, in the middle of the page, use the PBI Time dropdown to choose a report. Enter the criteria and run the report.