Setting List Numbers

Store List Numbers from the Selection

Store List Numbers from a Bundle

Store List Numbers by editing the Item Card

Introduction

A List Number is the number which an Item has in a Bundle or Selection e.g. the Bundle for the Disclosure List as served. It usually reflects the position which an Item has in the List. By its nature it cannot be known until the Selection or Bundle is complete e.g. when the Disclosure List is ready for service, when the Selection comprising the List is settled and the index order (usually Date) is fixed. After service, the List Number in the Disclosure List is this number by which opponents will know a document. It must therefore be stored if you are to find it again by reference to the List as served.

Once List Numbers have been set they can be searched for in the Query Wizard. If your opponent asks you to look at the document numbered 30 in your Disclosure List, it is the List Number, not the Item Number, which he is referring to.

See the section on Reports where you will see what options there are for displaying List Numbers, with or without other numbers, in the left margin of printed Reports.

See the sections called Add-Ons - Exporter and Export as a New Case to see how List Numbers become Item Numbers in exported Cases.

The purpose of List Numbers

It is important to understand the purpose of the different numbers which can be stored. The picture below shows the numbering information from the Main Tab of the Item Card.

The Item No is 17. That is a unique reference which means only that this was the 17th Item entered into the Case database. This number is vital in that it is this which is the common key which holds together the various components of the Item entry, including the image. It is, however, purely an administrative number.

The box to the right of it shows 1 of 17. This means that there are 17 Items in the current Selection and the user is on the first of them - it the one highest in whatever index order was chosen when the Selection was made.

The List No as shown here is 1. The default List No is zero - Items do not have List Numbers until a user elects to give them one. We might imagine that this Selection of 17 Items is the list for service, in the order in which it is to be served and that the user has stored the number 1 to reflect the fact that this Item is the first on the list. However important the Item Number is as the common link between components, it is the List Number which matters for external reference purposes.

You can have multiple List Numbers - different sets of List Numbers can be stored in Bundles as Bundle Numbers and recalled into the Item Cards.

Duplicate and Zero List Numbers

There is no requirement within Openlaw that List Numbers be unique, and no reason why they should not be zero. The norm is that they are zero until a number is put into them by one of the ways described below, and that such numbers are usually in complete sequences starting from 1 without duplication. Although List Numbers and Bundle Numbers are not necessarily the same, List Numbers can be passed into Bundles as Bundle Numbers and Bundle Numbers can be recalled as List Numbers, so there is a relationship between them.

The only place where this matters is when you want to export a Bundle as a new Case.

The Item Numbers of the new Case are derived from the Bundle Numbers of the Bundle used for the export. Since Item Numbers cannot be either duplicated or zero, it follows that Bundle Numbers intended to be used for export must meet the same criteria.

The places in Openlaw where you can set List Numbers or Bundle Numbers include warnings about duplicate and zero numbers. They are advisory only and do not bar you from inserting duplicates or leaving zero numbers.

How List Numbers are stored

This section explains the three ways in which these numbers are stored. It also explains how you can have multiple List Numbers, reflecting the fact that an Item may appear (and be stored) in different lists and in different places in those lists, depending on the number of Items in a Selection and the order in which they are retrieved.

List Numbers can arrive in Item Cards:

1	from a menu option which pokes them directly into the current Selection
2	by being loaded from the Bundle Numbers stored with a Bundle
3	by directly editing the Item Card

1 Store List Numbers from the Selection

The picture shows the screen for doing this. It is accessed from the Allocate sub-menu of the Control Panel Data Menu - take <Allocate / Numbers> and then <List Numbers> from the sub-menu. The current Selection should be all the Items which you want to number (e.g. for a Disclosure List or other index), in the order in which you intend to show them.

Usually, you will simply press the button <Write the List Numbers .... now>. Two obvious variants on this are:

	when you are serving a Supplemental List, when the starting number will not be 1 but the next number after the last number in the previous List
	when you are changing a previous allocation of List Numbers when you will usually want to reset all the existing numbers first. There is a check box to allow you to do this.

There is also a test for duplicate List Numbers - it may be helpful, for the reasons given above, to know that the numbers which you are about to insert overlap with List Numbers which already exist outside your Selection..

You must have Exclusive Use and Administrator rights (see Setup Users) to make changes to List Numbers since they potentially affect large numbers of Item Cards.

2 Store List Numbers from a Bundle

A Bundle is a stored list of Item Numbers in a particular index order, usually containing the results of a previous search. The Manual section Set Bundle Numbers explains how you can store a sequence of numbers with a Bundle which reflects that Selection and index order.

If your current Selection was loaded from a Bundle, an additional option is available to you on the Allocate sub-menu of the Control Panel Data Menu - take <Allocate / Numbers>. As well as <List Numbers> (the option described above) there is the option <List Numbers (from a Bundle)>. This allows you to copy the Bundle Numbers into the List No field in the Item Cards.

You need Exclusive Use and Administrator Rights to do this. The system first checks that the loaded Bundle has Bundle Numbers. If it does not, you are not able to proceed. If it does, the screen shown below appears.

This gives you a summary of the information about the Bundle (i.e. the Bundle currently loaded as your Selection) including the first and last Bundle Numbers. Pressing <Allocate Numbers> will store the Bundle Numbers into the List No field of each Item Card. You see this warning message:

There is an option to Find Duplicate Bundle Numbers. Duplicate List Numbers and Bundle Numbers are permitted but may not be want you want. If you wish to Export the Case, the Bundle used for the Export will use the Bundle Numbers as the Item Numbers in the exported Case, and cannot do this if any number is duplicated. The function to check for duplicates is a convenience which may prevent problems later.

3 Store List Numbers by editing the Item Card

In addition to the two processes described above (both of which add entire sequences of numbers to a Selection) you can edit List Numbers directly on the Item Card. You might need to do this if, for example, your List Numbers are following an existing non-sequential numbering system.

If the existing List Numbers came from a set of Bundle Numbers, editing them in this way does not affect the Bundle Numbers stored with the Bundle. If you want to keep the List Numbers as edited for re-use, and to be able to retrieve them (bearing in mind that the numbers in the Item Cards may be over-written by another set of numbers in due course), you must save the edited Selection as a new Bundle.

The Manual section Setting Bundle Numbers explains how you can copy List Numbers from the Items Cards into the Bundle as Bundle Numbers.