GEDEX - User's Manual

Coding your Cases

GEDEX offers great flexibility numbering your cases, following the tradition of your firm.

GEDEX can be configured to use the numbering and classifying system used at your firm. A description of all the available posibilities follow.

Numbering cases: Reference code

The case's Home Page is where numbering takes place, using the Reference code field.

The Reference code consists of a sequential code and optionally a case opening year (if your firm happens to use it).

The number assigned to a case can be corrected or changed whenever you want. GEDEX will warn you if the same number is in use in other cases, but will allow you to use it in multiple cases. It is possible to use the same sequential code on multiple cases, if your firm works that way.

Sequential code or Order code

The cases numbering performed by GEDEX is based on an order number, named sequential code which is incremented automatically one by one for each new case. GEDEX does that increment automatically, but you can replace freely the suggested number for any other, at your will. Therefore, it is possible to leave gaps (not used numbers), start numbering from 3000, or repeat the same numbers on many cases.

If you are currently not using any matter numbering system (for instance you just print the client's name on the folder), you can leave GEDEX to generate numbers for you, which you can ignore. In the future, you can adopt any numbering system, and correct the numbers generated by GEDEX, or even use them as a basis for your new numbering.

Opening year

Many firms include the case's opening year as integral part of the numbering (for instance, matter number 4/2012). Following, all the case sorting posibilities are explained.

• If your firm numbers cases just using a number, without the matter opening year, select at the Configuration menu the option Main configuration → Matters → Show only sequential code, no years.
• If your firm uses the case's opening year, it is possible that you have decided to number the first matters of each year or period with the number 1 (for instance, your firm has matters numbered 1/2011, 1/2012 and 1/2013). If you desire to follow this possibility (having matters from different years that share the same sequential number), set at the Configuration menu the option Main configuration → Matters → Start numbering from 1 each year. Note: even that GEDEX will start with code 1 each year, you can add, for instance, three zeroes to start with the number 1000.
• If your firm uses the case's opening year and wants the numbering to be continuous year by year, that is, having always the new year bigger numbers than the previous ones, set at the Configuration menu the option Main configuration → Matters → Continue numbering from previous years. That way, GEDEX will sort your cases by its sequential code, and the opening year will be ignored.
• Another possibility is numbering each new year with a "round number". That is, if the last case from last year was 2345, the first case for this new year is to be 3000 (rounded to the thousands). To do so, just delete the code generated by GEDEX at the start of the new year (in the example it would be 2346) and type 3000. To ease this, we recommend you to check configuration and ensure that the following option is not set: at the Configuration menu the option Main configuration → Matters → Start numbering from 1 each year (uncheck this option).

How to change the way the numbering and the year is displayed

The Reference code can be represented just as your firm tradition states.

If you include the matter's opening year, select at the Configuration menu the option Main configuration → Matters, one of the following possibilites, to state the relative position of the year:

- Show year before sequential code

For your third case in the year 2012 it would be displayed like this:

- Show year after sequential code

For your third case in the year 2012 it would be displayed like this:

- Show only sequential code, no years

That way, the opening year will not be displayed. Select this possibility if you do not want to include the matter's opening year.

Years can be represented at your firm using 2 or 4 digits. If your firm was created after year 2000, we recommend you the 2 digits representation, or 4 digits in other case. Decide the appropriate or your prefered representation and select at the Configuration menu the option Main configuration → Matters, one of the following posibilities:

- Show year using two numbers only

Check this option and the years will be displayed as 98, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, ...

Uncheck this option to display years with 4 digits as 1998, ..., 2011, 2012, ...

Prefixes and suffixes

Check the option Allow Prefix and Suffix if you need to include in your numbering system even more data, for instance, location based codes, office codes, physical location, and any other codes. At the "Prefix, Suffix" field at the Home Page enter a free text and will be used as the Prefix. Enter a comma "," followed by text to enter the Suffix, if any.

This example includes the prefix or the suffix "NY" to represent New York (the meaning of your prefixes is totally free)

Anyway, if possible, we recomend you not to use Prefix nor Suffix. The same semantic expresivity can be achieved including a proper description at the appropriate field. For instance, location or state in the example could be expressed at the Title screen.

Tags

The field Tags is the place to enter multiple additional identifiers. Tags are a very powerful tool, that will enable to classify your cases in an easy way, to be able to perform searches or filter your matters.

We encourage you to use Tags instead of Prefix and Suffix.

Tags examples:

With cases like this example in your firm, we could search for "visa#" and a listing of all the cases with tags like visa#7722 will be presented.

"NY" could mean New York, "refered" could be applied to a set of cases refered by one member of your firm.

Please create tags for each attributes applied usually to your physical folders, like post-it color tags, stamps, signatures, status, or any other used at your firm.

Additional help

GEDEX Configuration

GEDEX Help Index

Technical Support