=============================================================================== D&D DOCKET - HOW TO USE IT Doulah & Doulah trademark docket =============================================================================== This replaced the MainDB.xlsx spreadsheet. It holds the same 3,062 trademark applications, and it also works out what is due and reminds somebody. Read this once before you start. It is short. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. GETTING IN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the computer that runs it: someone double-clicks START-DOCKET.cmd and leaves the black window open. Closing that window stops the system for everyone. From your own computer: open a browser and go to the address that window shows, something like http://192.168.0.100:8787 Nothing needs installing on your computer. Any browser will do. Sign in with the username and password you were given. If you were given a temporary password, the system will make you choose your own before you can do anything - that is deliberate, so nobody else knows the password you actually use. Forgotten it? A partner can reset it from the Users page. If nobody can get in at all, whoever looks after the computer can reset it there. ALSO AVAILABLE IN BANGLA / বাংলাতেও আছে A fuller guide - installing AND using, in English and Bangla - is in this folder as GUIDE.html. Double-click it. It opens in a browser, prints to PDF, and has a button at the top to switch language. ইনস্টল ও ব্যবহারের সম্পূর্ণ নির্দেশিকা বাংলায় পড়তে এই ফোল্ডারের GUIDE.html ফাইলে ডাবল-ক্লিক করুন, তারপর উপরের "বাংলা" বোতামে চাপ দিন। ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1b. OPENING IT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There should be a "D&D Docket" icon on your desktop. Double-click it and the docket opens in its own window, like any other program. If there is no icon, ask whoever set this up to run MAKE-DESKTOP-ICON.cmd on your computer. It takes a minute and installs nothing. The register itself lives on one computer in the office. Yours is a window onto it, so everyone sees the same thing at the same time. If that computer is switched off, the docket will not open - the same as any shared drive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. THE ONE RULE THAT MATTERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- YOU RECORD WHAT HAPPENED. THE SYSTEM WORKS OUT WHAT IT MEANS. You will not find a box to type a status into. Instead you record an event - "registration certificate received", "objection reply filed" - and the system decides the stage, the renewal date and what is due next. This is why the old spreadsheet had 691 different spellings of the status and this does not. The same idea runs through everything: * Deadlines are calculated, never typed. Every date shows the arithmetic behind it, so you can see why the system believes what it believes. * Nothing is ever deleted. A mistake is corrected by recording the right thing; the wrong one stays visible, struck through, with your reason. * Anything you close - a reminder, a review item, a deadline - needs a reason in your own words. There is no button that just makes it go away. That reason is the record if the matter is ever questioned. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. WHAT EACH PAGE IS FOR ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Six pages sit in the bar across the top. The rest are behind "More" - they are just as usable, they are only the ones you open less often. Your name in the top right corner holds the light/dark setting and sign out. DASHBOARD Where you start, in three columns: the portfolio on the left, what is urgent and what has just happened in the middle, what needs doing on the right. Every number is a link to the list behind it. "+ New trademark" adds an application. REMINDERS Your inbox. Things that need doing, most urgent first. Close one by recording the event that answers it, or by saying what you are doing about it. DEADLINES Every calculated date, with the reason for it. Filter by kind. "Move" changes a date when the notice says something different from the default - always with a reason. REGISTER All the matters. Search by mark, TMA number, associate, or our own reference. Click any row to open it. REVIEW QUEUE Left over from importing the spreadsheet. Things the import would not guess at. Work it down; it does not grow on its own. RENEWALS The 531 registered marks whose renewal we cannot prove. See section 5 - this is the big job. JOURNAL WATCH Marks published in the Trademark Journal. Yours (which starts the opposition clock) and other people's (screened against what clients asked us to watch). REPORTS Exports to Excel, and a one-page portfolio for an associate. SETTINGS Where documents are saved, where backups go, and the email settings. Partners only. Use "Browse..." to pick a folder - it lists the drives and folders on the computer that RUNS the docket, which is the one that has to be able to write there. You can create a new folder from the same window. Changing the document folder moves what is already there - the files are copied and checked before anything is removed from the old folder. RULES The legal periods the system calculates from. Partners only. USERS Accounts and invitations. Partners only. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. THE THINGS YOU WILL DO MOST ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RECORD SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED Open the matter -> "+ Record an event" -> pick what happened and its date. The stage, the renewal date and the deadlines all update themselves. A matter has three tabs. Application details puts the facts on the left and the clock on the right - what has happened, the buttons, and the renewal chain - so "where is this and what is due" is one glance across rather than two screens down. Timeline & history is everything that has ever happened to it; Documents is what it says. The tab you are on is kept in the address, so a link to a matter's timeline can be emailed as one. The panel on the right is the same on every tab. It leads with the single next thing that has to happen and the one button that answers it. ADD A NEW TRADEMARK Dashboard -> "+ New trademark". One mark in one class: Bangladesh has no multi-class filing, so an instruction covering four classes is four separate matters. SET YOUR OWN REMINDER Open the matter -> "+ Set a reminder". For anything no rule covers - chasing an associate, ringing a client before a filing. It arrives in the same inbox as everything else. ATTACH A DOCUMENT Open the matter -> Documents -> choose the kind and the file. The POA, the examination report, the certificate. The file is saved on the drive in a folder named after the trademark, and renamed to the trademark number and what it is: TMA 138682 - XZ & Device\138682 - POA.pdf \138682 - Examination report.pdf \138682 - Certificate.pdf So you can open the drive and find anything without the app. Attach a second examination report and it becomes "(2)" rather than replacing the first. A partner can change where that folder lives under Settings. BACK OUT OF A MATTER There is a "Back" button at the top left of every matter. It returns you to the list you came from, on the page and filter you had. ADD A COLLEAGUE Users -> "Invite someone". They get a one-time code, open the sign-up page and choose their own password. You never see it. BILLING IS NOT HERE The docket does not invoice anything. It records the trademark work - what was filed, what is due, what is attached - and the bills are raised in a separate system. Nothing on these pages will ask you for a fee, an amount or an invoice number, and no figure here is an accounting record. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. TWO THINGS THE SYSTEM WILL NOT DO, ON PURPOSE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IT WILL NOT REMIND YOU ABOUT A RENEWAL IT CANNOT PROVE. The spreadsheet recorded 84 renewals against 755 registered marks. Renewal work was plainly done and not written down, so for 531 marks the system cannot tell "renewed but never logged" from "genuinely lapsed". Rather than guess, it marks them UNVERIFIED and gives you a checking task instead of a reminder. A wrong reminder wastes an hour; a wrong silence loses a registration. Clearing those 531 means checking DPDT records and the certificates on file. Reports has a printable worklist with blank columns for the registry visit. It is weeks of work and it does not depend on the software. IT WILL NOT BILL ANYBODY - IT CANNOT. The docket holds no fees, no invoices and no payments. Billing is a separate system, kept apart on purpose: a docket is a record of deadlines, and the question "has this been paid" has nothing to do with the question "when is this due". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. IF SOMETHING LOOKS WRONG ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A DATE LOOKS WRONG Open the matter. Every date shows how it was calculated and which event it came from. If the event is wrong, correct it - the original stays visible. If the deadline is right but the notice says otherwise, use "Move" on the Deadlines page. A MATTER LOOKS WRONG Every matter shows its original spreadsheet row, exactly as it was. Nothing was lost in the conversion; you can always see what the old file said. SOMEBODY CHANGED SOMETHING Audit trail. Who did what, when, and what it was before. It is never edited and never deleted. THE SITE WILL NOT LOAD The computer running it is probably off, or the black window was closed. Someone needs to double-click START-DOCKET.cmd on that machine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. LOOKING AFTER IT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BACK IT UP. One runs automatically at 15:00 every day. To take one right now, there is a "Back up now" button on the Dashboard under the Trademark portfolio - you can press it while people are working. Copy a recent backup onto something that is not that computer at least weekly - a backup on the same disk does not survive the disk dying. Once a quarter, test one: copy a backup into an empty folder and start it. An untested backup is not a backup. Everything lives in the data folder: the register, the documents, the audit trail. Copy that folder and you have copied everything. NO INTERNET IS NEEDED. It runs on your office network. The only time a connection matters is installing it, and sending reminder emails if you switch that on. =============================================================================== For whoever installs or moves it, see docs\INSTALL.md For how it was built and why, see README.md ===============================================================================