Critical notices, taking them and escalation

A notice that waits to be taken

Most notices only need reading. A critical notice about the work, such as a bank details change to approve, a hearing listed or a court order breached, needs an owner. It shows I've got this in the notification centre until somebody takes it.

Taking a notice is not the same as reading it. When you choose I've got this:

1. Every copy of the notice is marked with your name and the time, for everybody who received it: you, whoever covers you on leave, and anybody it has been escalated to.
2. The others are told in the app that you took it, so nobody works on it twice.
3. The notice is escalated no further.

Taking it again, or after a colleague has, changes nothing. The firm's audit trail keeps who took it and when.

Personal critical notices, such as a password changed or a new sign-in, are yours alone and never wait to be taken.

When nobody takes it

A critical notice nobody has taken is escalated:

• To your supervisor after two hours.
• To the head of your primary department after four hours.

Each step is sent once and recorded. A step is passed over, and the reason recorded, when nobody holds that place, when you are that person, when they already have the notice, or when an ethical wall or a permission keeps the record from them. Open a notice's Trail to see who it reached, why, whether they read it, who took it and each step of its Escalation. A notice escalated to you is marked Escalated to you as supervisor or as department head, with whom it came from.

Deadlines, tasks, enquiries and the client account's suspense and statement queries already escalate by their own rules (Reminders and escalation). Their notices can still be taken here, which stops the chain for everybody, but they are not escalated a second time.

While you are on leave

While approved leave names your cover, your notices about the work also reach them, marked Covering with your name. Your cover's copy is on the same chain: either of you taking it stops it for both.

A delegate acting for you

A partner may let a secretary see and take their notices. Under Approvals, Delegations, lend authority to the colleague and tick Notices, with the days it runs. You may lend notices alone, approvals alone, or both.

While it runs, your notices appear in the delegate's notification centre marked For your name. The delegate can take a critical one for you; the record keeps both names, theirs as who took it and yours as whom they took it for. A delegate never marks your notices read, and never sees what an ethical wall keeps from them.