Variables are a feature in Hivelight that allows you to have dynamic content in your task descriptions.
Variable | Converts to |
{{matter.id}} | Current Hivelight matter ID |
{{matter.[source].id}} | Matter ID for the practice management system you have integrated with Hivelight (such as Clio, ActionStep, Smokeball, Unity etc). E.g. {{matter.clio.id}} |
{{matter.name}} | Name of the current matter |
{{milestone.id}} | ID of the current milestone |
{{milestone.name}} | Name of the current milestone |
Note: we will expand the selection of variables as customers request them (support@hivelight.com).
This is useful because it allows description content to be personalized to the task and matter, add dynamic links to your workflows, and you can use it to pass data to other apps that you use.
A simple way that you can use this would be to add links to the task descriptions in your workflows that when applied to a matter will take you directly to the 'documents' or 'billing' page in the corresponding matter in your practice management system.
Using Hivelight variables to add dynamic links to your workflows
Using Hivelight variables to implement your own document generation solution to create email updates to clients
Another great application of the variables feature is to create links that can pass the matter ID and other information to another app that you are using. This, for example, can be used to pass matter information to a document generation app - or even enable you to make one yourself.
In the video above we add matter name and matter ID variables to a Google Forms link that is saved to a task in a Hivelight matter. When clicked on, it passes the name and ID of the current matter to the form. When the form is submitted it passes the matter ID to Zapier which is then able to use that ID to request the matter data from Hivelight's API, and then processes that data into a detailed email update to the client.
The primary use of the variables that provide the ID of the matter or milestone is to pass that data to another app that you want to use, so it can request data about that milestone or matter from Hivelight (API documentation, Hivelight API tutorials). E.g. https://api.hivelight.com/v1/matters/[matter id].
If you were using a Hivelight-Unity-SmarterDrafter stack for instance, you could include a link in the following format in a task: https://www.smarterdrafter.com/?doc_id={{matter.unity.id}}. When this link is clicked on it will pass the matter ID for the matter in unity (which Hivelight will also use if integrated with Unity) to SmarterDrafter so that it will know which matter the document relates to (so it can pull the matter data and save it to the right place without user assistance).