Opening and Closing Matters via the Workflow

A matter has two different status fields: Status and Active Status. 

Status indicates if a matter is Open or Closed and is simply a binary text field, used to indicate the category, without affecting anything else.

Active Status, on the other hand, is whether a matter is Active or Inactive. If a matter is inactive, it is hidden from most searches (except conflict checks) and can only be found through Advanced Searches looking for Inactive matters, as outlined in this article: Setting Records Inactive and Active – Centerbase.

If you want to link the statuses and have a matter move to Inactive status as well as Closed when closing a matter, and vice versa when reopening, that can be accomplished via a workflow. 

You might need to first attach the matter to the workflow. That is done by clicking on the Workflow button in the matter. Click on Workflow>Attach to workflow> and select Matter if there's more workflows showing: 

The following pop-up will show briefly to indicate it has started: 

Clicking on the Workflow button will now show that you can close the Matter: 

Clicking on Close Matter will now change the Status to Closed and the Active Status to Inactive, giving you an opportunity to add notes and set a Closed Date before making the change. Click on Save to commit: 

Bear in mind at this point, the matter is inactive and you will need to be search for it using the Advanced Search.

To reopen the matter, click on the Workflow button again and select Re Open Matter: 

Edit or append your notes and save.