We have always maintained that letter / email templates are an important key to improving case management efficiency. However having templates available is only the starting point – ensuring that they are up-to-date so that they continue to be effective is just as important. Over the past couple of months we’ve been developing a system which maintains the XML structure of the templates for speed, efficiency and providing the ability to pull case information in via fieldcodes. We’re thrilled to unveil it to you today! The tool now incorporates a window containing all the available fieldcodes which can be copied and pasted into the templates. Our beta testing feedback from mediators has received great feedback: “I’ve tested it and it works – in fact I think it is brilliant. I tried adding a field code into a template and it worked a treat.” We believe that this is going to help take templates in Progress Mediation to bring greater efficiencies to case management.

We’ve now introduced new warning images for client / partner notification when emails are selected from the dropdown boxes during email creation. Also if both client & partner are selected from the dropdown a warning message is displayed. This helps ensure that emails are only sent to the correct addressee.

From 1st Sept 18, case are required to report postal applications for each client. To support this, we’ve added a new field for both client and partner on the intake screen. Simply select Yes / No for each client. The new functionality is required for reporting cases from 1st Sept. At the present time it is unclear the purpose for the additional functionality.

Each time an email is automatically imported for a case, an acknowledgement message is sent to the users. These can fill up the users’ internal message box if not manually deleted. We’ve now added a feature for messages older than 5 days old to be automatically deleted.

Following a request from one of our new mediation services, we’ve added a new administrator view. This shows the appointments for all the mediators across a week, including the mediation type, case ref, and part of the appointment description. By moving the mouse pointer over the appointment, more information is displayed to the user. This helps to reduce the amount of information and provide more information to the administrator as needed.

The LAA released a new form online at the beginning of June to coincide with GDPR, without circulating the revised form to software vendors and mediation services. We have now released two versions (v4) in Progress Mediation for all mediation services. One containing client, the other for partner information.

We recently heard that the LAA released a new form online at the beginning of June to coincide with GDPR, without circulating the revised form to software vendors and mediation services. When reviewing the revised form (v9) we spotted that there was an error on page 3 with the tick boxes for Main home and other property. We attempted several different ways to contact the LAA to notify them of the error, including Twitter, without any success. Due to the complexities of coding the form, this has taken us some time to implement the updates. The integrated form is now available, however we have opted to stick with the previous correct format of page 3.

We’ve now added the mediation service sent email address in the dropdown selection for integrated email addresses when sending emails from Progress Mediation.

We’ve updated the MoJ Form A and A1 templates in progress to comply with the latest versions. These enable the mediation service details to be completed on the form along with the case reference added at the bottom to prevent cloned copies.

Progress Mediation provides the facility for creating case invoices which can then be printed or emailed directly to clients. We use a number of invoice presets which make invoice creation easy to administer. In addition we provide a reconciliation facility to track payments. However some services use other external accountancy packages. To prevent duplication, we now provide an export facility for case invoices which can then be imported into other packages.