The firm feed

The Firm feed is your firm's internal noticeboard. It sits on your dashboard Overview and holds short posts that everyone in the firm can read: a welcome for a new hire, a reminder that the office closes early on Friday, a photo from a court win, a note about a change to the way you file. Colleagues react with an emoji and reply in comments, and an @mention in a comment reaches the person by name.

The feed is internal. Only members of your firm see it. Clients never do, and nothing posted here appears on a matter, a lead, an invoice, or in anything a client can open.

Before you begin

• Where it lives. The feed is a card on the Overview page, below your work cards and above the firm lists. There is no separate Firm feed item in the sidebar. A single post also has its own page, which you reach by clicking a notification or a row in your Mentions card.
• Permissions. Access is controlled by a Firm feed row on your role, in the Communications group of the permission grid. See Who can post, edit, and delete.
• The feed belongs to the firm you are working in. If you belong to more than one firm, you see the feed of the firm shown at the top of the sidebar. Switch firms to see another firm's feed.
• Posts are plain text. Formatting, links, and attachments other than photos are not part of a post. Paste a link and it stays as text.

Who can post, edit, and delete

Your role's Firm feed row has the usual four levels, and each one means something specific here:

Out of the box:

• Firm owners can do everything.
• Administrators have all four levels, so they can post, edit, and delete anything.
• Attorneys and staff have View, so they can read, react, and comment, but not post.
• Any other role starts at View as well.

If you want your attorneys to post, ask a firm owner or administrator to tick Create on the Firm feed row of that role. See Roles and permissions.

Read the feed

The Firm feed card shows the newest posts first, five at a time.

1. Open Overview from the top of the sidebar.
2. Scroll to the Firm feed card.
3. Each post shows the author's photo and name, how long ago it was posted, the text, and any photos. A post that has been changed since it was published reads Edited after the time.
4. Click Load more at the bottom of the card to add the next five posts.
5. Click the refresh button at the top-right of the card to pull the latest posts.

When there is nothing to show, the card reads No posts yet.

A long post is shortened to a few lines with a Show more link under it. Click it to read the rest, and Show less to fold it back.

Write a post

You need Create access for Firm feed.

1. On the Firm feed card, click New post.
2. The New post dialog opens, with the note Everyone in your firm will see this post.
3. Type your message in the box, which is labelled Share an update with your firm. A post can be up to 5,000 characters. As you approach the limit a counter appears and turns red if you go over, and you cannot post until you are back under it.
4. To add photos, click Add photos and pick one or more images. See Add photos to a post.
5. Click Post. The button reads Posting... while it saves, then you see a Post published confirmation and your post appears at the top of the feed.

Post stays greyed out until the post has either some text or at least one finished photo, and while a photo is still uploading.

To abandon the post, click Cancel or close the dialog. Anything you typed is discarded, and so are any photos you uploaded while the dialog was open.

Add photos to a post

A post carries up to 10 photos. Each one must be a JPG, PNG, WebP, or GIF image of 10 MB or less.

1. In the New post or Edit post dialog, click Add photos.
2. Choose one or several images. Your picker only offers the four supported formats.
3. Each photo appears as a tile and starts uploading right away. The tile reads Waiting to upload, then Uploading with a progress bar, then Checking photo, and finally Ready.
4. To drop a photo, click the remove button on its tile.
5. Post or save when every tile reads Ready.

If a file is the wrong type or too large, it is not added and the dialog says Use a JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF image under 10 MB. Once you have ten photos on the post, adding more says You can add up to 10 photos to a post.

How photos are laid out in the feed depends on how many there are:

• One photo fills the width of the post.
• Two photos sit side by side.
• Three or more become a grid of square tiles. At most six are shown, and the sixth carries a +N badge counting the photos behind it.

Click any photo to open it full size. In that view, use the Previous photo and Next photo buttons or your left and right arrow keys to move through the post's photos, with a 2 of 5 style counter between them. Press Escape or click the close button to close it.

Edit a post

You need Update access for Firm feed. With it you can edit any post, not only your own.

1. Find the post in the feed, or open its own page.
2. Click the post's actions button (the three dots at the top-right of the post), then click Edit.
3. The Edit post dialog opens on the current text and photos, with the note Update the text and photos of this post.
4. Change the text, remove photos you no longer want, and add new ones the same way as when posting.
5. Click Save. The button reads Saving... while it works, then you see a Post updated confirmation.

The post now reads Edited after its time, so nobody is misled about what was originally said.

Delete a post

You need Delete access for Firm feed. With it you can delete any post, not only your own.

1. Click the post's actions button, then click Delete.
2. The Delete post? confirmation warns that This post will be removed from the firm feed for everyone. This can't be undone.
3. Click Delete post to confirm, or Cancel to keep it.
4. You see a Post deleted confirmation and the post, its photos, its reactions, and its comments all disappear from the feed.

Deleting from the post's own page takes you back to Overview.

React to a post

Reactions are the quick way to acknowledge a post without writing a comment. Anyone with View access can react.

1. Click the smiling-face button under a post.
2. Pick an emoji from the six on offer: thumbs up, heart, laughing, surprised, sad, and thank you.
3. Your reaction appears as a chip under the post, with a count of how many people chose that emoji.
4. Click a chip to add your own reaction to it, or click it again to take yours back. Picking the same emoji from the picker twice does the same thing.

Comment on a post

Comments turn a post into a conversation. Anyone with View access can comment.

1. Click Comment under the post (it reads 3 comments once there are some).
2. The conversation opens under the post. Write in the box, which reads Write a comment... use @ to mention, and click the send button.
3. Hover a comment for its controls: react with an emoji, reply to quote it, and edit or delete it if it is yours.
4. Click Hide comments to fold the conversation away again.

A post with no comments yet reads No comments yet. Start the discussion.

While the conversation is open, comments other people add appear on their own, without a refresh.

Mention someone in a comment

Type @ in a comment and start typing a name to pick a colleague from the list. Their name is inserted into your comment, and when you send it they are notified by name.

The list only offers colleagues whose role can see the firm feed, so a mention never sends somebody to a post they cannot open. If you cannot find a name, that person's role is missing View on the Firm feed row.

How people are told

Two things happen when a comment is posted, and both respect the recipient's own notification settings:

• Everyone you @mentioned gets Mentioned in a firm feed comment.
• The post's author, and anyone who has already commented on the post, get Comment on my firm feed post. People you mentioned get the mention instead, never both.
• You are never notified about your own comment.

Clicking either notification opens the post's own page with the conversation open and scrolled to that comment. To change how these reach you, open Settings > Notifications and use the Comment on my firm feed post and Mentioned in a firm feed comment rows. See Notifications.

Open a single post

A post has its own page, headed Firm feed with an Overview link above it to get back. You land there when you:

• click a firm feed notification from your bell, your email, or a desktop alert,
• click a firm feed row in the Mentions card on your Overview.

The page shows that one post with its comments already open, and highlights the comment you were sent to. Everything you can do in the card you can do here: react, comment, edit, and delete.

If the post has been deleted, or your role cannot view the firm feed, the page reads "not found" instead.

Common questions

Can clients see the firm feed? No. The feed is internal to your firm's members. Clients have no access to it, from the portal or anywhere else.

Can I post to one matter's team only? No. A post goes to the whole firm. For something tied to a case, use a comment on the matter or a message instead.

Can I attach a document or a PDF? No. A post carries photos only: JPG, PNG, WebP, and GIF. Share a file through Documents or Messages.

Why can I not edit my own post? Editing is controlled by Update on the Firm feed row, and that level is off for attorneys and staff by default. Ask a firm owner or administrator to turn it on.

Someone posted something that should not be there. Anyone with Delete on Firm feed (owners and administrators by default) can remove it.

Troubleshooting

I do not see the Firm feed card on my Overview. Your role does not have View on the Firm feed row. Ask a firm owner or administrator to turn it on. See Roles and permissions.

I do not see the New post button. The button needs Create on the Firm feed row. Without it you can read, react, and comment.

A photo will not upload. Check the file type and size: it must be a JPG, PNG, WebP, or GIF of 10 MB or less. Remove the tile and try the file again, or post without it.

A colleague's new post is not showing. Click the refresh button at the top-right of the card, or reload the page. The feed does not update itself in the background; only an open comment conversation does.

Related

• Your dashboard home (Overview)
• Messages (chat)
• Notes
• Notifications
• Roles and permissions
• Managing firm members