Legal Matter Templates - How to Trigger
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
3 weeks ago
I created a Legal Matter Template and associated it with an Intake Form (Category) and Record Producer. However, when I submit the intake form, the phases and tasks are not being created as I expected.
I dug into the Digital Forensics intake form to see how it auto-creates phases and tasks, but I found no flow, script, or business rule prompting them to be created. It seems to be part of the Intake Form configuration itself. The only difference I can tell between the Digital Forensics Intake Form setup and mine is that the Type on Digital Forensics is "Request and Matter" and mine is only "Matter". Selecting "Request and Matter" means that the user submits a Legal Request, which then a legal fulfiller has to promote to a Legal Matter. In my case, the submission should automatically create a matter. I didn't want a multi-step process or multiple records created (request and matter), so I only selected Matter for Type.
Do I have to select Request and Matter for the template to automatically create the phases and tasks? Or is there a way to get the matter template specified on the intake form to be applied on submission and the phases/tasks to be created automatically without using Request and Matter? I imagine I can build a flow for it, but I was hoping to use the template.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
3 weeks ago
Hi @Amy V2 ,
You do not need to change the Intake Form Type to "Request and Matter" just to use a Legal Matter Template.
For your requirement, where submission should directly create a Legal Matter, keeping Type = Matter is the correct approach.
The important part is that associating a Matter Template with an Intake Form does not mean that any custom Record Producer will automatically execute the template logic.
Recommended checks:
1. Keep the Intake Form Type as Matter.
2. Verify that the Matter Record Producer is configured on the Intake Form.
3. Under the Matter Templates related list of the Intake Form, associate the required Matter Template.
4. Make sure the Matter Template is Active and Published.
5. Verify that the template contains the required Phase Templates and Matter Task Templates.
6. Test using the Matter Record Producer associated with that Intake Form rather than a separately created/custom Record Producer.
ServiceNow supports associating Matter Templates when the Intake Form Type is either:
Matter
Request and Matter
So "Request and Matter" is not mandatory.
The Digital Forensics implementation should also not be used as the baseline for this requirement. Digital Forensics is a packaged Legal workflow and may contain additional application-specific automation that is not part of the generic Matter Template functionality.
I would avoid creating a custom Flow or Business Rule until the OOB Matter intake configuration is verified.
If the Matter record is created successfully but the template phases/tasks are still not instantiated, compare the configuration with an OOB Matter-type Intake Form and verify that the associated Matter Record Producer is using the OOB Legal Matter creation mechanism. A custom Record Producer that only inserts the matter record can bypass the template application logic.
ServiceNow documentation confirms that Matter-type Intake Forms support a Matter Record Producer and Matter Template association, and that applying a Matter Template creates the predefined phases and tasks.
References:
Hope this helps!
If this response helped, please mark it as Helpful.
If it resolves your issue, please Accept it as Solution.
Kind Regards,
Abhishek Pal
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
3 weeks ago - last edited 2 weeks ago
Hi Abhishek - I appreciate the time you took to reply but your reply is giving me AI response vibes. Some of the terms and wording is just inaccurate enough that it makes me feel that you don't actually have the knowledge/experience to validate the response.
First, the only OOB intake forms for LSD which has a type of just "Matter" is Subpoena. This intake form does not have a Matter Template associated with it. This is why I looked at a different intake form, Digital Forensics, to see how it leveraged the Matter Template. But this intake form has a type of "Request and Matter" and I can see in the "Create Matter" UI Action that specific coding is what creates the matter, associates the request to it, and then creates the phases/templates.
Second, in the reference you linked for creating a legal matter template, the very first sentence says "Create a legal matter template that you can apply to a legal matter when promoting from a legal request." This again confirms that templates might only be used when promoting from a request to a matter.
Third, I'm not creating any "custom" record producers. Just using the good old-fashioned OOB functionality to create Record Producers in the LSD application.
So my question remains... I have an intake form where the Record Producer and Matter Template fields are both filled in, and the Matter Template contains phases and tasks. Is the only way for the system to automatically create phases/tasks for the Matter record is to create that matter record via request promotion? Or can I re-use some of the code in the UI Action that promotes a request to a matter and create an After Insert business rule to create the phases/tasks?
