Summary
- Automatic department dimension — the matter's department is now derived automatically from the responsible employee's own department (3686)
- Messaging between lawyer and controller — lawyers and the CMI controller can now exchange messages directly on the client/matter creation, and matters are automatically flagged by priority (3707)
New Features
The matter's department dimension is now set automatically based on the responsible employee's department (3686)+
In Abakion Legal Setup you can now choose which relation controls the matter's department. The Relation Type - Department field specifies which relation type (e.g. Responsible Lawyer) triggers the update, while Department Dimension specifies which dimension your office uses as the department code. The feature is disabled as long as either of these two fields is empty.
When the selected relation type is assigned, changed, or removed on a matter — both on the Matter Card and via Client/Matter Creation in CMI — the system automatically looks up the employee's department and updates the matter's department dimension. The lookup follows a hierarchy: it first checks the employee's department history for the most recent assignment on or before today's date. If no history exists, it instead uses the employee's own default dimension for the selected dimension code on the resource card. If neither exists, or the relation is removed from the matter, the matter's department dimension is cleared.
Note: if the department history contains multiple overlapping department assignments for the same period, the system automatically selects one of them (the most recently recorded start date) — no notice is given if multiple overlapping assignments exist.
The change only affects new assignments going forward. Existing matters are not migrated, and their department dimension remains unchanged until the relation is changed.
Messaging between lawyer and controller, priority flagging, and automatic "No Parties" (3707)+
It is now possible to send messages back and forth between the lawyer and the CMI Controller directly on a client/matter creation (both on New Client/Matter Creation and Client/Matter Creation). Messages appear in a new Messages box on the matter, with buttons to reply "To Lawyer" or "To Controller". The matter clearly shows whether a reply is pending, and from whom.
A new tile has been added to the lawyer's role center, "Awaiting My Reply", which immediately shows how many client/matter creations are awaiting a reply from that lawyer.
The client/matter creation list now shows directly whether a matter is marked as urgent, confidential, requires a conflict check, or requires an AML check — with color coding, so the most important matters stand out. The list is automatically sorted so these matters appear at the top.
A new setting has been added in CMI Setup, "Auto-fill No Parties". When enabled, the system automatically sets the "No Parties" field to Yes when creating a new client/matter creation. The parties list is still shown on the matter, so parties can always be added manually.