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Renewal Management

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Jean J. de Jong edited this page Jun 3, 2020 · 21 revisions

Introduction

This part of the application allows to manage calls to renew IP titles. It consists of two workflows, the first to manage calls, payment and receipts, the second to manage invoicing. Calls are done via email.

Usage

The access is from the menu Matters->Manage renewals.

Different steps are accessible. At each step, specific action buttons listed below the row of step buttons are proposed. At each step, a contextual list of renewal tasks is displayed. Actions act on selected rows.

First call

The available action is to send first calls. After sending, tasks are transferred to step Reminder. The cost values are issued from the fee and cost columns of the fees table, or from the fee_reduced and cost_reduced columns when the classifier "SME status" is present in in the matter.

Reminder

The available actions are:

  • Send reminder to send reminder calls. Only the subject of the message is changed, the content is still the same as the first call.
  • Send last reminder to send a reminder just before the due date. After sending, tasks are tagged with "grace period". The cost values are issued from the fee and cost columns of the fees table, or from the fee_reduced and cost_reduced columns when the classifier "SME status" is present in the matter, but the fees or fee_reduced value is changed with the fee_factor from the configuration.
  • Register order to mark that instructions have been received to pay. Tasks are then transferred to the Payment step.
  • Abandon to mark that instructions have been received to abandon the case. Tasks are then transferred to the Abandoned step and marked as done.
  • Lapsed to mark that the Office has declared the case as lapsed, without received instructions. Tasks are then transferred to the Closed step.

Payment

  • Generate order produces an XML file that can be uploaded to office portals;
  • Clear as paid is used when the payment or the order to pay is achieved with external means or with the previous XML file. This action is used also when an order has been generated. Tasks are added in both cases to the Invoicing step and the Receipts step.

Receipts

  • Receipt received tracks the receipts emitted by the Office. Tasks are transferred to Receipts received.

Receipts received

  • Send receipts tracks the receipts sent to the client. Tasks are transferred to Closed.

Abandoned

  • Lapse tracks lapse communications from the Office.

Lapsed

  • Send lapse communication tracks that the communication from the Office has been sent to the client. There are no more actions and the case is in the closed step.

Invoicing

  • Invoice generates invoices, tasks being grouped by client, using Dolibarr. Tasks are transferred to the Invoiced step. The cost values are taken from the fees and cost columns of the fees table, or from the fee_reduced and cost_reduced columns when the classifier "SME status" is present in the matter. When grace period is checked and the due date is not past, fee_factor is applied. When the due date is past the done date, the cost values are taken from the fees_sup and cost_sup columns of the fees table, or from the fee_sup_reduced and cost_sup_reduced columns when the classifier "SME status" is present in the matter.

Invoiced

This step displays the list of already invoiced tasks. There are no other actions.

Logs

Each action is registered. Logs can be viewed in logs/ page. Lines can be filtered by job, client, date, casenumber or user.

Settings

General

Some settings are included in the file config/renewal.php. The syntax is that of a PHP array. The array is subdivided in several sections

  • general:
  • paginate set the number of lines in the page listing renewals.
  • api: used to specify access to the Dolibarr API, allowing invoicing. If another tool is used for invoicing, the invoice method of RenewalController.php is to be changed.
  • validity: configure indications about the validity of the call.
  • instruct_before: in days, the delay before the earliest due date of the call;
  • fee_factor: factor applied to fees for late instructions;
  • before: in days before the due date, delay to consider instructions as late,
  • before_last: in days before the due date, delay to ask for last limit instruction.
  • xml: used to configure xml files for orders according to EPO-batch-payment.dtd https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/official-journal/2015/etc/se3/p75.html. The setting has header and footer, and fees will be inserted between them. It has also EP_Deposit and FR_Deposit tags to include the Office deposit account to debit. The following items will be replaced:
  • NAME: the user name
  • TRANSACTION: the date
  • DEPOSIT: the account according to the office/country
  • TOTAL: the total fee amount in the transaction
  • COUNT: the number of transactions Note that the payment portals of different offices will ignore some of these fields.

Email templates

Laravel's emailing backend is used for sending emails. Refer to Laravel configuration according to your infrastructure for settings.

The message bodies of the emails are blade templates stored in resources/views/email. firstcall.blade.php is used for first call and reminders. lastcall.blade.php is used for last reminder just before the grace period. warncall.blade.php is used for reminders during the grace period.

They use the variables:

  • $dest for greetings;
  • $instruction_date
  • $renewals to iterate for renewals;
  • $validity_date
  • total_ht: total without VAT;
  • total: total with VAT.
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