New User Guide
- Jonathan Hess
As a valued Docketly customer, we want to ensure everyone at your law firm working within the Docketly platform feels empowered and well-informed. This guide serves as an overview of the platform to help familiarize your team with the various buttons, widgets, and tabs available.
The remainder of your Docketly Handbook will go into greater fidelity about various elements and actions of using the platform — Please feel free to explore more related articles after reviewing this New User Guide.
- 1 Left-Hand Menu
- 2 Tabs & Widgets
- 2.1 Overview Tab
- 2.2 Calendar Tab
- 2.3 Coverage Tab
- 2.4 Results Tab
- 2.5 Performance Tab
- 3 Manually Posting a Hearing
- 4 Getting Help
- 4.1 Help Button
- 4.2 Tickets
- 4.3 Beacon
- 4.4 Managing Notifications
- 5 Next Steps
Left-Hand Menu
Beginning with the left-hand menu of your Docketly dashboard provides access to the essential pages you need within the platform. These sections are color-coded, with each color representing a specific set of functions for easy navigation.
These Orange buttons are used to manage and interact with your hearings.
These Blue buttons are used to manage your tickets, users, and supporting files
These Green (Financial) buttons are used to manage your payment methods, view invoices, and pay invoices.
The Grey buttons are used to manage your back-end settings, instructions document libraries, and settings.
Tabs & Widgets
Overview Tab
The Overview tab provides a snapshot of your firm's current, open, and urgent matters requiring attention. It offers a centralized view of key activities and performance metrics to keep you informed.
This tab includes the following widgets:
Time-Sensitive Notifications – Alerts for items needing immediate action.
Open Tickets – A list of currently open support tickets.
Recent Hearing Volume Chart – A visual summary of recent hearing activity.
Recent Hearing Activity Log – A detailed log of the latest hearing-related actions.
Firm-Wide Statistics – Key metrics such as total hearings created and hearings awaiting coverage.
Calendar Tab
The Calendar tab provides a streamlined view of your hearings, helping reduce platform fatigue and improve cross-team collaboration. Hearings are color-coded by status for easy identification. A sample calendar view and status key are shown below for reference.
Coverage Tab
The Coverage tab is where many Docketly users spend the most time, as it provides tools for monitoring hearing statuses leading up to their scheduled dates. It includes key widgets that may require action to ensure your hearings are properly managed and connected within the platform.
Below is a chart detailing the available widgets, their descriptions, and the actions you may need to take.
Widget Name | Description | Actions to Take |
|---|---|---|
Uncovered Hearings | A list of your hearings that have not yet been assigned to an attorney. | Docketly’s will work to secure coverage. You may ticket Docketly with concerns. |
Unscheduled Hearings Awaiting Authorization | A hearing that was covered by an attorney in court, but had not been posted on Docketly. | Review the attorney’s unscheduled request and approve or decline. |
Hearings Without Instructions | A list of your hearings that do not yet include instructions. | Upload/add hearing instructions ahead of the hearing date. |
Hearings Without Attachments | A list of your hearings that do not yet include attachments. | Upload/add related attachments ahead of the hearing date. |
New Hearings | Recently created hearings. | No action needed |
Filings Without Hearing | A list of hearings that have been filed by ABC Legal, but not yet posted on Docketly | Discuss with Docketly’s Success Team automation options. |
Hearing Without Follow-Up Scheduled | A next hearing date was reported, but the new hearing has not been posted on Docketly. | Discuss with Docketly’s Success Team automation options. |
Pool Requests | A list of attorneys who are awaiting pool approvals. | Review the attorney’s pool request and approve or decline. |
Results Tab
The Results tab provides access to hearing reports after an attorney has appeared in court and submitted their results. Each report contains important details, including instructions for accessing essential documents and a free-text section where attorneys can provide insights and additional context.
To ensure the highest quality representation, our dedicated team monitors attorney performance. Occasionally, a report may be flagged as Urgent by the attorney or a Docketly team member, indicating a need for specific follow-up after the court appearance.
Hearing reports are categorized for easy navigation:
Recently Published Reports
Unread Reports
Urgent Reports
To view a hearing report, click on any locator within the Results tab.
Performance Tab
The Performance tab, located on the far right, displays your firm's internal metrics when using Docketly. It provides a 30-day snapshot of performance data, including your firm’s overall score compared to Docketly's goal.
While your firm’s specific metrics may vary, the Docketly goal and relevant context are included below for reference.
Metric | Docketly’s Goal | Description |
|---|---|---|
Average Price per Hearing | < $65.00 | Across all of Docketly’s service types, states, and counties, this is the ideal goal at which we aim to keep your firm’s average price-per-hearing |
Hearings Without Attachments | < 3% of volume | Attachments help set the covering attorney up for success. By reducing the percent of hearings without attachments, you increase the change of a positive outcome |
Mean-Time-To-Post (MTTP) | ~ 7 days | The average time between when a hearing is posted on Docketly to the exact time of the hearing. Ideally, with a minimum 7 day lead time. |
Mean-Time-To-Cover (MTTC) | < 1 day | The average time between when a hearing is posted to when an attorney agrees to cover. |
Mean-Time-To-Report (MTTR) | < 1 day | The average time between the hearing time and when the attorney submits their hearing report. Anything greater than 24 hours is considered late. |
Garnishments Obtained | Customer-specific | Count of hearings |
Judgments Granted | Customer-specific | Count of hearings |
Settlements Obtained | Customer-specific | Count of hearings |
Manually Posting a Hearing
While your firm is currently automating the creation of your hearings inside Docketly, there may come an occasion when you need to manually post a hearing (or Bundle) of hearings to the platform.
Found on the top-left corner of every user’s dashboard, the Add Hearing and Add Bundle buttons are the primary (and more specifically, the manual) way of posting hearings to Docketly. Alternatively, you may click on the Tasks button to view all of the available options to post hearings.
The hearing information is broken into the following sections and is typically available in your firm’s case management system.
Section | Description |
|---|---|
Summary | Where to indicate your file number and the primary contact who created the hearing. |
Where is the hearing? | A space to indicate the state, county, court, department, judge, and appearance method (i.e.: in-person or remote) |
Who is involved? | Where to add your client, the case name, attorney of record, etc. |
When is the hearing? | Date and time selector |
Details | A space to select the hearing type. This will match as close as possible to what’s listed in your Case Management System |
Instructions | Free text fields you can enter detail about the upcoming hearing. Sensitive information should be entered in the Private Instructions |
Compliance | Specific pool requirements and/or criminal background check requirements. |
Once a hearing has been saved and published, it’s sent over to Docketly’s Coverage Team to find the best attorney for your needs! You will then be able to track the hearing via the tabs mentioned above using the alphanumeric string assigned, called a Locator.
Getting Help
There are multiple ways to get help within Docketly—some automated, some self-help, and others directly with the Docketly team.
Help Button
The Help button on the top menu links to Docketly’s support documentation, also known as the Handbook.
Tickets
You may communicate directly with the Docketly team or the covering attorney using the ticketing system To create and view tickets, click the Tickets button from the left-hand menu.
Alternatively, when looking at a specific locator, you can view all related tickets from the left-hand hearing menu.
To create a new ticket specific to an individual hearing, you may click the Actions button on the top-right corner. Inside the Actions menu, you create a ticket to the covering attorney or the Docketly team (among a long list of items).
Beacon
The final option for getting help is by using Docketly’s automated beacon, pre-filled with helpful tips, guidance, and actions.
This beacon is located in the bottom-left corner of your dashboard and provides step-by-step instructions to getting started with Docketly.
Special instructions will appear if there is an item or task worth calling attention to — such as an onboarding guide to walk you through your account setup.
Managing Notifications
Automated email notifications from Docketly are called "Subscriptions." By default, all Subscriptions are enabled for every new user.
Should you find you’re receiving too many emails OR not receiving important ones, you can manage your Subscriptions settings by clicking on your user settings menu in the top-right corner and clicking “Subscriptions.”A
Depending on your account permissions, you can enable notifications for other, assistant users underneath the firm’s account.
Next Steps
This guide is merely the beginning of familiarizing yourself with the Docketly platform. To learn more detailed or specific information, please explore any relevant articles on the left-hand menu of this window.