The basics
Ayora generates alerts about bills and budgets on matters - the system helps you avoid pitfalls such as budget overruns and missed billing windows.
You can read more about budget alerts here, and about billing alerts - here.
Alerts are visible in the Flagged tab of the application, and summarised in the Flag column in the Dashboard tab.
Alerts are also emailed to the Matter Partner twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays.
Draft client updates
To make it easier for you to act on the alerts, ayora can generate draft client updates, saving you time and headspace. Click on the “Create draft email to client” button in the Flagged tab to get started.
Ayora will create a draft email to the client about the budget being approached or an upcoming bill, and pre-fill the relevant monetary values and dates. You can edit the draft in ayora (the system will over time learn your writing style); when ready, you can copy the draft to your email client and send it on.
Ayora cannot send emails outside your firm’s domain, so the system will never contact your clients directly. The drafting feature is purely a time-saver for you.
Redirect alerts to a colleague
You can redirect alerts from the Matter Partner to another timekeeper - this is handy if a matter is led by e.g. a senior associate who is responsible for the commercial aspects as well.
To redirect alerts, click on the ‘Delegate matter’ button in the Flagged tab, or right click on the matter’s name in the Dashboard tab. The pop-up will list all the timekeepers on the matter; if you’d rather redirect the alerts to someone outside the matter, you can find their name using the search box.
Delegating a matter only affects ayora’s behaviours - your systems of record remain unaffected, and the Matter Partner remains unchanged.
Matter partner will no longer see alerts about a matter that was delegated away from them in the Flagged tab. However, they will continue to see Flags in the Dashboard tab, and can easily access flags on the matters they delegated in the Monitoring tab.
Snooze alerts
You can snooze the alert by clicking on the ‘Remind me later’ button in the Flagged tab (you can also find this button in the Dashboard tab by clicking on a Flag). Choose how far forward you want to push out the alert. Ayora asks you to provide a brief reason, which helps to improve the system over time. That reason will also appear in the Comments sidebar. This is a good way to keep all your colleagues up-to-date on your commercial decisions.