Holiday Doxpop Closings. We're wishing all of you a great holiday season!

Doxpop offices will be closed for the following upcoming holidays:

Thursday, December 24th

Friday, December 25th

Friday, January 1st

That said, our support doesn't stop just because of the holidays. We understand that sometimes our users may have an emergency situation during a holiday so here's how to get help over the holiday:

We will not be monitoring phone lines, so you must use email. One of our managers will be checking email periodically throughout the Christmas break. If you have a real emergency, please send an email to support@doxpop.com that contains a brief description of the problem and a phone number we can call to reach you.

Please be respectful when using this option. It's for real emergencies that can't wait until we're back to the office.

Brown and Martin County Courts Convert to Odyssey- Your Doxpop Access is Unaffected!

 

Over the weekend of December 5th, the Courts in Brown and Martin Counties will convert to the Odyssey case management system, this means their Case Management System is now administered by Indiana Trial Court Technology.

This move does not affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system from the Division of State Court Administration. Your access to Brown and Martin County court information through Doxpop will not be interrupted during this transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition because there will be a four-six week period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature to keep track of hearings connected to your Bar ID, you will see two colors for Brown or Martin County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page", you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these every hour, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and January 8th. After then, we'll be back to normal.

Tax warrants will not be affected at all by this transition.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that TCT add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that TCT not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell TCT differently so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

Indiana Public Service Contacts are not currently available

We noticed today that the state managed public service contact list has essentially disappeared from the e-file system. This list is managed by the state e-file manager and state court administration so we don't have any direct ability to resolve the issue. We've notified the state court administration of this issue.

If you rely on or use public service contacts you will notice they are no longer listed and no results are found when searching the public list. 

For attaching your own attorneys to filings you can still use private service contacts and if you don't have any listed please contact us and we help you get those set-up and explain why that is the ideal service contact to use. 

Not familiar with the difference between public and private service contacts see our past blog post here:
E-filing: E-service 101- Learn the basics of how e-service in Indiana works.

We'll update this post when we learn more or we see the issue has been resolved. 

Doxpop offices will close 5pm EST Wednesday, November 25th in observance of Thanksgiving.

We hope you all have some time this holiday to celebrate thanks, but we also know that emergencies happen. If you need assistance over the holidays, Doxpop Support will be periodically checking email at support@doxpop.com Thursday, November 26th through Sunday, November 29th. Our regular phone and instant messaging support will resume on Monday, November 30th.

Indiana Supreme Court issues new order related to Covid-19 and court operations

Court-related users of Doxpop should be aware of increased efforts by the Indiana Supreme Court to minimize risk to case participants and court employees across the state during the coronavirus pandemic. For the Court's most recent order, see this Order on Continued Emergency Actions. Visit this page for a list of Other Orders related to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Delivery by Doxpop: Fun fact, you can send mail on holidays!

Delivery by Doxpop allows you to send mail even when the Post Office is closed!

Doxpop uses a mailing service provider that has the ability to skip the front counter of the local post office and go directly to the USPS Bulk Mail Entry Unit. What this means for you is that on select holidays when you file and choose Delivery by Doxpop your documents will still be printed and go into the USPS processing stream on that day. The USPS processes incoming mail on these holidays, so it's not just that your envelope will be waiting for them to deal with the next day- It actually gets immediately dispatched for delivery.

The holidays that the USPS will accept and process our mail include: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (MLK Day), President’s Day, Veteran’s Day, and Columbus Day. 

The only catch is that on those holidays the provider is only able to mail Certified Letters if a minimum quantity is reached. They have informed us that it is nearly always the case they meet that requirement, but it is something to keep in mind. 

Delivery by Doxpop: FAQ

 
We developed Delivery by Doxpop striving to make service as easy as it was before e-filing started but there are some circumstances we've learned of that as of right now we can't handle as smoothly as we'd like. 

So in this blog, we'll look at those situations and how to still utilize Deliver by Doxpop. Plus, we'll answer some frequent questions we've gotten as we've launched this new feature. 

What is actually sent when I select Delivery by Doxpop?

Initial filings: When filing a new case, the documents sent via the Delivery by Doxpop method you choose will be the file stamped version returned by the Clerk after the filing is accepted. The same version you receive back via the "filing accepted" email from the e-file manager. 

Subsequent filings: When filing in an existing case, the documents sent via the Delivery by Doxpop method you choose are the exact same document you uploaded. We immediately send those documents for processing. This is very similiar to the e-service that is send on subsequent filings.

Service Only Filings: Just like the e-service and subsequent filings, the documents sent via the Delivery by Doxpop method you choose are the exact same document you uploaded.

How can I use Delivery by Doxpop to serve documents that need a clerk, or judge signature, or when I need to wait for information from the court, such as a court date, to include in the service?

As mentioned in the details in the first question we can not automatically send version of documents that come for the clerk or court. Those documents are send outside the e-file system and therefore at this time we do not have access to them. That does not mean you can't use Delivery by Doxpop, it just means a small extra step once you have those documents or information from the clerk.

Sheriffs Service (new case): If you intend to use Delivery by Doxpop to send civil process service via the sheriff for your filing but need to wait on court documents/information there are just a few steps to follow.

• In your initial filing make sure to add the optional $28 sheriff service fee to one document so the clerk can collect that fee for the case.
• Do not select Delivery by Doxpop at this time for any parties that you will need additional information from the court. 
• Submit your new case filing
• Once the new case is accepted and you have received the signed documents or information to include in the served documents you will want to do a 'service only' filing on the case. 
• Pull up the case like you typically would to e-file into. 
• Above the Case Parties section use the button to "Switch to Service Only"
• 
• In the Envelope Contents section choose the files you want to send and complete the required fields and save. Note: that while filing type is required, it is not sent with the service information so you can just choose motion here.
• In the Contacts to E-Serve at least one service contact must be selected. This can be your own firm/attorney. 
• In the Delivery by Doxpop section, you can select the sheriff service for the parties you wish to service. 
• Then just complete the required payment account and checklist and submit your service only envelope. This will send the documents you uploaded for Delivery by Doxpop. 

Certified Mail or First Class (new or existing cases): If you intend to use Delivery by Doxpop to send service via Certified or First Class mail for your filing but need to wait on court documents/information there are just a few steps to follow.

• Do not select Delivery by Doxpop at the time of filing to the court for any parties that you will need additional information from the court. 
• Submit your filing as you normally would. 
• Once the filing is accepted and you have received the needed signed documents or information to include in the documents you wish to serve, you will want to do a 'service only' filing on the case. 
• Pull up the case like you typically would to e-file into. 
• Above the Case Parties section use the button to "Switch to Service Only"
• 
• In the Envelope Contents section choose the files you want to send and complete the required fields and save. Note: that while filing type is required, it is not sent with the service information so you can just choose motion here.
• In the Contacts to E-Serve at least one service contact must be selected. This can be your own firm/attorney. 
• In the Delivery by Doxpop section, you can select the service information for the parties you wish to send physical service to. 
• Then just complete the required payment account and checklist and submit your service only envelope. This will send the documents you uploaded for Delivery by Doxpop. 

Sheriff's Service (existing case): If you intend to use Delivery by Doxpop to send service via the sheriff for a case that already exists but need to wait on court documents/information just follow the steps for initial case. As long as the $28 sheriffs service court fee has been paid on the case through doxpop you can use a service only filing to send documents to the sheriff. 

What exactly does Doxpop send to the Sheriff?

Doxpop worked with several county civil process departments to built a packet that makes it easier on them to execute your service. We print and send the Sheriff's Department the following:

• Cover page for Sheriff including: the name and address for the Sheriff, the name and address of the filer, the clerk’s address, any delivery notes/instructions provided by user, and a brief description of the content, and proof of payment for the $28 sheriff's fee. 
•  An Affidavit of Service with as much filled as we know in advance for the Sheriff to complete and return to the Clerk.. 
• Three copies of the documents with separator sheets that denote what each copy is for. 

 Will my USPS service be mailed or postmarked the same day I filed?

The short answer: Yes, if you file before 5pm EST most mailings will be postmarked the same day but we can't guarantee that 100% of the time. 

The long answer: We can't guarantee the same day. Equipment can break down, Sudden demands can slow processing. All we can do is certify that we've put together a system that, if nothing goes wrong, will typically get your documents into the mail on the same day, and more importantly, that an irrevocable hand-off from you to that service has already occurred. 

We note the time of that hand-off in case there's ever any question about when that happened. Both you and Doxpop can tell the court that we are both making a good faith effort to get all postal envelopes into the hands of the USPS on the same day filing occurs. As it turns out, this isn't strictly required by the rules as the folks at the state interpret them. However, we feel more comfortable being able to tell you that it is unusual for a delay to occur.

Does this service meet the rules in regards to the mailing date I put on the Certificate of Issuance of Service?

Yes

We ran this service past several members of the State's E-Filing Business Steering Committee and we specifically asked about timing because we were concerned about whether it was safe for Doxpop filers to attach a Certificate of Issuance of Service to a document that certifies that you have mailed the document, when in fact, you've just handed off the document to the system that mails it for you.

Their answer was that it isn't a problem, because in practice, it is already implicitly understood that filers submit their documents to the court and then someone in the office puts them in the outbox to be mailed at the next opportunity. Therefore, they all interpreted the date on the Certificate of Issuance of Service to mean delivery was commenced "contemporaneously" with submission to the court. It means you started the process and certify that the "hand-off" to a third party agent for delivery happened. 

To make sure we're making a good-faith effort to follow both the spirit and the letter of the rule in this regard, we've written our program to hand off delivery to our printing/mailing service before submitting the filing to the court. It's a matter of milliseconds, but we really do that hand-off first.

So the answer from that perspective is that handing it off to Doxpop for processing is the equivalent of handing it to the person who runs envelopes down to the mailroom or nearest mailbox under your existing procedures.

 

 

A reminder that Doxpop offices will be closed Monday, September 7th in observance of Labor Day.

We understand that sometimes you have to deal with an emergency situation during a holiday so here's how to get help over the holiday:

We will not be monitoring phone lines, so you must use email. One of our managers will be checking email periodically throughout the day. If you have a real emergency, please send an email to support@doxpop.com which contains a brief description of the problem and phone number we can call to reach you.

Please be respectful when using this option. It's for real emergencies that can't wait until Tuesday morning.

 

Spencer and Jay County Courts Convert to Odyssey- Your Doxpop Access is Unaffected!

On August 23rd, the Courts in Spencer and Jay Counties converted to the Odyssey case management system, this means their Case Management System is now administered by Indiana Trial Court Technology.

This move does not affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system from the Division of State Court Administration. Your access to Spencer and Jay County court information through Doxpop will not be interrupted during this transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition because there will be a four-six week period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature to keep track of hearings connected to your Bar ID, you will see two colors for Spencer or Jay County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page", you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these every hour, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and September 13th. After then, we'll be back to normal.

Tax warrants will not be affected at all by this transition.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that TCT add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that TCT not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell TCT differently so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

Delivery by Doxpop makes service as easy as it used to be.

Update: The pilot was completed with resounding success in late August, and Delivery by Doxpop is now available statewide.

On Tuesday, July 28th, Doxpop will release a pilot of our Delivery by Doxpop service in Wayne, Madison, and Hamilton counties.

This means that when you are e-filing on a case in one of these counties, you will see a new section in both the initial and subsequent filing page labeled "Delivery by Doxpop". We think you will want to start using it immediately. Here is why:


If you are doing a subsequent filing and one of the parties can't be served via e-service, you can use Delivery by Doxpop to initiate service via first-class postal mail with as few as three mouse clicks- A huge savings in labor. Take a look at this short video (2:33)  to see how it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUl_hSlGtfA


If you are doing an initial filing and want to provide service via Sheriff's Service, Delivery by Doxpop lets you initiate that in less than a minute during the e-filing process. Doxpop will print three copies of the required documents, and deliver them to the Sheriff you specify along with a cover sheet providing personal and mail delivery addresses. Take a look at this short demonstration (3:29) of how this service works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sfto9p9U_c


If you are doing an initial filing and want to provide Certified Mail Service,  you can do that with a few mouse clicks during the e-filing process using Delivery by Doxpop. Doxpop will print the required documents, and send them via Certified Mail for you. When the recipient signs for the documents, you will receive an image of the signed receipt. we've made a brief video (2:40) that shows how this works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSN3Mzd_1qU


Finally, it is important to be able to track the progress of delivery and download your return receipt to prove delivery occurred. This video (3:00) shows you how to quickly get to USPS tracking and how to download your return:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGtxmVzdr3Q


There is more to this feature than you see in the videos! We have kept the videos short so you can see how simple the typical service process is. However, that doesn't mean you don't have full control over the process. Some of the additional features you may end up using are:

• Specifying a subset of documents in an envelope for service.
• Changing the order in which documents are printed.
• Changing any of the addresses used for service.
• providing service for any number of parties.
• Specifying more than one type of service for a single recipient: eg: Both first-class and certified.

Doxpop's goal is to eliminate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, so you can focus on great legal work. Delivery by Doxpop is a significant step along that path.

A brief explanation of how to get started filing Protection Order cases in Indiana.

This isn't really a new topic, but there's still some confusion about it, so here are the basics if this is your first time e-filing on a PO case:

On October 1, 2019, the Court began requiring that PO cases be filed electronically. The Court also requires that all filings on PO cases occur through a portal created just for this case type. You will find the portal at:

https://public.courts.in.gov/porefsp

There is an abundance of documentation on this website, but we still get a few regular questions about it:

1. This looks like a site for pro se filers and advocates... Do attorneys have to use it too?  Yes, without exception, both initial and subsequent filings on protection orders must occur through this site.
2. Will my regular e-filing username & password work for this site? No, the PO portal requires that you register separately. You will also use your existing e-filing username & password later on, so keep those handy, but step one is to register, using the "Create Account" link in the lower left corner of the home page.
3. How do I know if my filings went through? You will receive an email upon successful submission, and a second email for acceptance. These look a little different from the E-Filing emails you're used to. These emails have a return address in the courts.in.gov domain, so if you have set up email rules to sort out regular e-filing emails, they may not catch these. You can also log in and look in the lower right corner of the home screen to see your "Active Petitions/Cases".
4. Are there any special rules for e-filing PO cases? Yes, take a look at Trial Rule 86(E) In particular, notice that "service must be accomplished by the Clerk, a Sheriff, court official, or other person appointed by a Court to complete service of process."
5. When I click on the link, it doesn't load! What do I do? We've had reports of this happening periodically. If it happens to you, clear your browser cache, and then try the link again. Here's an article that has instructions for clearing the cache in every major browser: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-clear-your-browser-cache/

Other questions? The State Court has an extensive self-help area here: https://www.in.gov/judiciary/5538.htm. If you can't find the answers there, and you are a Doxpop customer, give us a call or email and we'll try to help. However, bear in mind that this is not our web site, so we can't be as helpful as usual and may end up referring you to the State Court's desk if you ask us a hard question!

Reminder that Doxpop offices will be closed July 3rd in observance of Independence day.

In observance of Independence Day our offices will be closed Friday, July 3rd.

Even though we are closed we understand that sometimes you have to deal with an emergency situation during a holiday so here's how to get help over the holiday:

We will not be monitoring phone lines, so you must use email. One of our managers will be checking email periodically throughout the day. If you have a real emergency, please send an email to support@doxpop.com which contains a brief description of the problem and phone number we can call to reach you.

Please be respectful when using this option. It's for real emergencies that can't wait until Monday morning.

How to respond if you just received an "Electronic Service Undeliverable" message.

If you filed a document and soon thereafter, get an email that has "Electronic Service Undeliverable" in the subject line, that means there is a problem with the recipient's e-service contact or mail system. You didn't cause the problem, but you will have to resolve it for this filing. Here's how to do it:

1. Start by contacting the intended recipient to see if they had a temporary problem with their email server. If that was the case, you can do a “Service Only” filing to retry e-service & avoid having to resort to paper.
2. If you are a Doxpop customer, and the first suggestion didn't help, contact us right away for help determining what the problem was.
3. The last resort is to print & mail or fax a copy… but that’s time consuming because, in addition to the time required to mail, you now have to file an amended certificate of service

SMTP Logs

When the recipient can't figure out what the problem is, you can help them by providing their IT support staff with a copy of your SMTP Log.

To access that log in Doxpop, do this:

1. Click on the E-Filing tab and select “My Electronic Filings”
2. Locate the affected filing, and click on the arrow to the left of the envelope number to expand details.
3. Click on the green “Service Info” button next to the document that was undeliverable.
4. A list of service contacts will appear. Next to the recipient that didn’t receive service, click on the green “View SMTP Log” Button.
5. Click anywhere within the log listing and press [CTRL]-[A] then [CTRL]-[C] to select all text and copy it to your clipboard.
6. Paste the copied text into your message to the intended recipient’s IT support staff.

Note: Should the question ever arise, this log is also proof that timely service was attempted, and was undeliverable due to a problem with the recipient’s email server.

How to respond if someone notifies you that they got an "Electronic Service Undeliverable" message when trying to e-serve you.

What to do if a filer tells you they tried to e-serve a document to you and got an "Electronic Service Undeliverable" message.

The problem is nearly always due to a problem on the recipient's system, so it is your responsibility to fix it. (When you signed up for an E-Filing account, you agreed to facilitate e-service.) There are three common problems to check. From simplest to most complex, they are:

1. The email address in your service contact is wrong.
2. Your email server or client is rejecting the message as spam or suspicious email.
3. Your email service is imposing a limit on the volume of incoming messages.

If you are a Doxpop customer, just call us when this happens, and we'll help you figure it out. Solving problems is our job.

If your are not a Doxpop customer, or you just like figuring things out on your own, here's how to diagnose the problem:

Ask the filer to provide a copy of the SMTP log for the failed delivery. Their EFSP can help them locate this.

• At first glance, an SMTP log will look like technical jargon, but it contains many clues that are easy to decipher. Scan the log looking for a phrase indicating failure or rejection of the message. Near that phrase, you'll find an error message:
• Error messages such as "User not found" "Address not found" "No such user" all indicate the email address in your e-service contact is wrong. 
• If your public service contact is attached to the case, click on this link to edit your email address in the Roll of Attorneys: https://secure.in.gov/Apps/courts/portal/
• If you have a private service contact attached to this case, your account administrator can edit the email address through Doxpop's firm administration page: https://www.doxpop.com/prod/in/isefs/FirmAdministration.
• Error messages containing words like as "Rejected" "Spam" "Filtered" indicate that your spam filter or firewall is filtering these messages. Click here to view our previous post on fixing spam filtering problems.
• Error messages containing words like 'Limit", "Volume", "Exceeded", "Too Many" indicate that your mail server rejected the email either because you have a total limit for the account, or there is a limit placed on the number of emails that can be received from a particular sender. You'll need to contact your IT department or email administrator to solve this problem. (Give her or him the SMTP log.)

If none of the ideas above help, just give us a call! We'll help you figure it out.

Reminder- Doxpop offices will be closed May 25th in observance of Memorial Day

A reminder that the Doxpop offices will be closed on Monday, May 25th in observance of Memorial Day.

We understand that sometimes you have to deal with an emergency situation during a holiday so here's how to get help between over the holiday weekend:

We will not be monitoring phone lines, so you must use email. One of our managers will be checking email periodically every day. If you have a real emergency, please send an email to support@doxpop.com that contains a brief description of the problem and phone number we can call to reach you.

Please be respectful when using this option. It's for real emergencies that can't wait until Tuesday morning.

A problem with dates for users located outside of the Eastern Time Zone

Update: A fix was released on the evening of April 28th. 

With the release of our detail viewing browser for court records this morning, we made a mistake on the rendering of dates. The Dates are fine for most users, but if your computer's time zone setting is not Eastern Time, dates will render incorrectly.

Our developers are scrambling to fix this and release an update tonight. Until then dates will render as one day early if your computer is set to Central Time. (eg: 4/29 will show as 4/28)

We're sorry and working to fix this right away!

Get ready for the Case Detail Browser!

On Tuesday, April 28th, we released several new tools for viewing and organizing the results of your court case searches. These changes bring the court case section of our web site up to par with the Tax Warrant and Recorded Document sections, which already use these tools.

Here's a quick look at the changes:

Nothing about searching will change. However, when you see the results, they will be displayed in this format:

The key tools are:

1. The ability to filter your results further and see only rows matching the text you enter.
2. One click to save a case.
3. One click to set an alert on a case.

When you click on one of the case numbers in your result list, you will see the results in our details browser, which reduces the number of clicks required to browse through results by letting you click through the details without returning to the result list:

The key tools are:

1. The ability to browse details without returning to the result list for each case.
2. A switch to toggle between our enhanced web view and the more traditional "CCS view".
3. Save cases or set alerts with a single click.
4. Print a "printer friendly" that doesn't include the navigation headers with one click.

Those of you who already use these tools in the Recorded Document and Tax Warrant section will feel at home right away. Everyone else will find that the new tools really help you do a better job with less effort.

Let us know how you like the new tools! ...Or if we messed something up in the transition, send us a "What were you thinking?" email to support@doxpop.com. If you're really excited, call us at 866-369-7671 to talk to our support staff. They've been socially distanced for weeks, so they are eager to talk to humans and adults.

New! Clinton County Recorder now available on Doxpop

We're delighted to announce that Clinton County land records are now available on Doxpop! We extend our thanks and welcome to Beth Keeney, the Clinton County Recorder, for working to extend this access to online searching during this critical time!

Clinton County is the 45th Recorder to join Doxpop!

Clinton County has validated records and document images beginning January 2003, and is working to validate older data beginning in 1995. Document index information is updated every 10 minutes, and new images are made available once a day.

Anyone wishing to look up recorded documents on-line may visit http://www.doxpop.com to use the service. A low-volume search plan is available for free, with higher-volume subscriptions available to commercial users for a fee. Access to document pages may be viewed and purchased through our system, and $1 per page will be remitted to the Recorder for each copy obtained.

Please vote now to avoid having to decide whether it is safe to vote later.

This is way outside of our usual purview, but important enough to take a moment for...

Indiana has rescheduled the primary election this year to June 2nd in an effort to get well past the peak of COVID-19 danger. There is still some uncertainty around what the procedures will be for in-person voting, and of course no way to know what the pandemic situation will be.

However, in the meantime, there is no reason you can't go ahead and cast an absentee ballot now so you know your vote will be counted even if the situation on June 2nd makes it difficult to safely vote in person.

To obtain an absentee ballot, you must fill out an application and mail it to your local Clerk's election office. The election office must receive this form on or before May 21, 2020, so don't wait. Do it now.

 This special form for the June 2020 election does not require that you state a reason for needing to vote absentee. Fill out the first page carefully, and then look on the second page to find the address of your county election office.

You can download the form at this link: ABS-MAIL PRIMARY 2020

Welcome to the Newton County Recorder!

Doxpop is happy to celebrate our newest partner, and announce that the Newton County Recorder's Office is now available online!

Newton County is the 44th Recorder to join Doxpop

Land records in Newton County begin with images in 1989, but are fully indexed beginning in 2003. Many name indexes are available and full document text search will help accessing older records as they are being indexed by the county.

Please extend your thanks to Janice Wilson, the Newton County Recorder, and to the county for their assistance to make this important public access available during these new and uncertain times.

Anyone wishing to look up recorded documents on-line may visit http://www.doxpop.com to use the service. A low-volume search plan is available for free, with higher-volume subscriptions available to commercial users for a fee. Access to document pages may be viewed and purchased through our system, and $1 per page will be remitted to the Recorder for each copy obtained.

New Tax Warrants Paused by the State

** Final UPDATE: In July 2020, the Indiana Department of Revenue released a plan for returning to normal operation using a phased approach that was completed in October 2020. As of November 2020, Tax Warrant processing is back to normal pre-pandemic operating procedures. 

The "Back on Track" document that outlined the phased approach to returning to normal is available here: DOR_Back_On_Track_Plan.pdf

**

**
UPDATE 4/13/2020: We notice that new tax warrants and satisfactions have not stopped completely, but have slowed to a trickle in most counties. The Indiana DOR has indicated that they are continuing to take action in situations facing statutes of limitation. Please check for new warrants and satisfactions if your business depends on it. Doxpop continues to make new information available as soon as we receive it from the state.

More details about what the Indiana Department of Revenue is doing to assist Hoosiers with COVID-19 relief can be found here: https://calendar.in.gov/site/dor/event/dor-announces-helping-hoosiers-covid-19-relief-services
**

Original Post 3/25/2020:

Doxpop was notified this morning that given the current situation with COVID-19, the Indiana Department of Revenue has temporarily paused the sending of new tax warrants to be processed by County Circuit Court Clerks. This means we'll all see a drop-off in new tax warrants almost immediately across all counties until further notice. Once the Indiana DOR decides to resume sending tax warrants, we'll be notified and Doxpop's system will begin receiving new tax warrants as soon as they are available.

Researchers: Note that until a warrant is sent to the Circuit Court Clerk for recording, it does not become a judgment/lien. [ See IC 6-8.1-8-2(e) ]

For more information from the DOR, please visit https://www.in.gov/dor/ and check back here for updates.

For warrant-related questions or payments where county offices are unavailable, the DOR can be reached by phone at 317-232-2240 or through payment options at https://dorpay.dor.in.gov. If you have questions or concerns about Doxpop's tax warrant services, please contact us at 866-369-7671 or support@doxpop.com.

New e-filing pages are here! All the training resources are linked in this post.

On Tuesday, March 24th we released our updated e-filing pages!

We know change can be challenging at first so we've prepared a whole group of various resources to help you navigate the new pages.

Videos:

• Introduction to Doxpop's New E-Filing Process
• Submitting an initial filing to the court using Doxpop
• Submitting a subsequent filing to the court using Doxpop

Updated Help Pages:

• Filing a New Case
• Filing into an Existing Case

Other Resources:

Rest assured that our support team is and will be here, ready to help you through the transition even with the other challenges facing the world.

• phone: 866-369-7671
• email: support@doxpop.com
• live chat: Click here

We're and also happy to offer remote or in-person training sessions free of charge. Just contact a member of our support team for more details. 

E-filing pages are about to get a whole new look and many improvements! Prepare now.

Doxpop’s focus has always been on making your work efficient and user-friendly, especially when it comes to e-filing. After over a year of hard work by our developers and testing teams, we are nearing the release of major updates that will incorporate a number of improvements you’ve suggested over the past three years of e-filing.

We know change can be challenging, so we wanted to give you some advance notice and a look at those changes before we released them. Also, rest assured that our support team is and will be here, ready to help you through the transition even with the other challenges facing the world.

This release is scheduled for Tuesday, March 24th. We strongly encourage you to check the video before that date to familiarize yourself with the new pages. We'll have more in-depth training videos posted soon.

Introduction to Doxpop's New E-Filing Process

Updated: Click here for a list of all our training resources. 

These updates will include new looks, new layout and added features in both initial filing and subsequent filing pages. Below is a list of some of the features we’ve added along with some screenshots of the new pages.

• Clearer listing of required roles in new cases
• Streamlined service contact attachment
• Document uploading is streamlined
• Document previews
• Add attachments at the same time as lead documents. 
• We added more logic to provide defaults for fields based on previous behavior
• Easier to read pages 

Providing default values for repetitive fields is one of the biggest improvements, however, we couldn't do this for every field. For instance, many users suggested that we default the document security to "public". After some thought, we decided that while speed is important so is your client's privacy. We know that inadvertently submitting a confidential document as public to the court can end up being more harmful than the small amount of time to confirm that each document is public or confidential. The result is that this is one field we did not create a default for.

Filing into an existing case

Filing a new case

Adding a document/filing

Pulaski & White Counties Convert to Odyssey- Your Doxpop Access is Unaffected!

On March 16th, the Courts in Pulaski & White Counties converted to the Odyssey case management system, this means their Case Management System is now administered by Indiana Trial Court Technology.

This move does not affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system from the Division of State Court Administration. Your access to Pulaski and White Counties court information through Doxpop will not be interrupted during this transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition because there will be a four-six week period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature to keep track of hearings connected to your Bar ID, you will see two colors for Decatur County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page", you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these every hour, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and April 25th. After then, we'll be back to normal.

Tax warrants will not be affected at all by this transition.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that TCT add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that TCT not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell TCT differently so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

Getting support from Doxpop as we all take steps to stay healthy.

Like all responsible businesses, Doxpop is planning for continuity of excellent service while taking appropriate measures to protect our employees and their families from COVID-19.

We are pleased to report that currently, we are all healthy and just joining the rest of the world by being cautious and planning ahead.

If we have a community outbreak of COVID-19 in our area, or become aware that any employees have been exposed, we will have our staff begin working from home until the outbreak has run its course.

In the event that we have to start working from home you will probably notice no difference in our support except for the occasional dog barking in the background. We are privileged to be in a business that allows us to work remotely when the need arises, so we'll do our best to make sure Doxpop is not a part of the problem.

If we do adjust anything about our support procedures, it will be noted in the yellow banner area at the top of our web site that we use for important announcements.

Update on 3/14/20:

As of today, we have taken preemptive measures to slow the spread in our community by encouraging most of our employees to work from home beginning on Monday, 3/16.

That means that beginning Monday most of our support staff will be answering phone calls, emails and chat requests from home. We tested this plan out on Friday and it seems to be working well, but please let us know via email if you are having any trouble reaching our phone support.

Don't hesitate to provide feedback if you have any thoughts on how this affects the quality of the support you receive. We are committed to our employee's health and supporting our public health officials, but as long as those two commitments aren't compromised, we're open to ideas about fine-tuning our support plan.

Here is what you need to know about the Odyssey downtime that affected e-filing on Thursday, Feb. 13th.

Update 4:20pm Feb 14th: The state has confirmed all connection issues between Odyssey and the E-file system have been fixed.
Original Post Below:

Beginning at roughly 10:45am on Thursday, February 13th, the Odyssey Case Management system began experiencing sporadic outages and issues, thus preventing the e-file system from being able to retrieve some cases. We have received confirmation of the issues from the Office of Judicial Administration that the issue extended through the end of the working day. At the time of this posting, it appears that the issue has been resolved overnight but we still await confirmation. 

If you are reading this and missed a deadline yesterday, please note that Trial Rule 86(N)(1), essentially provides for a one-day extension when a lengthy e-filing system outage prevents filers from meeting a deadline.

We expect that the Trial Courts will all be aware of the scope and timing of this outage via direct communication from Trial Court Technology. However, if the court you are working with requires a statement from Doxpop to attach as an exhibit to the motion described in TR 86(N)(1)(d), please let us know and we'll be happy to supply documentation in support of your motion. (Simply attaching a screen print of this blog post may be sufficient.)

On the appellate side, take a look at Rule 68(M)(1)(d), which appears to be nearly identical to the Trial Court rule on this topic.

Decatur County Converts to Odyssey- Your Doxpop Access is Unaffected!

On February 9th, the Courts in Decatur County converted to the Odyssey case management system, this means their Case Management System is now administered by Indiana Trial Court Technology.

This move does not affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system from the Division of State Court Administration. Your access to Decatur County court information through Doxpop will not be interrupted during this transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition because there will be a four-six week period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature to keep track of hearings connected to your Bar ID, you will see two colors for Decatur County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page", you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these every hour, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and March 9th. After then, we'll be back to normal.

Tax warrants will not be affected at all by this transition.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that TCT add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that TCT not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell TCT differently so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

Congratulations to the Whitewater Valley Pro Bono Commission!

Doxpop is proud to be a part of the local community that supports the Whitewater Valley Pro Bono Commission. In 2019, Doxpop provided a challenge to our friends: Through the Doxpop Charitable Giving Fund, we would match all donations made during the Pro Bono Commission's year-end fund drive up to $7,500.

The Whitewater Valley Pro Bono Commission met and significantly exceeded that challenge by bringing in $14,305. Doxpop will add $7,500 to that amount, bringing the total for this fund drive to  $21,805.

Congratulations to Shane Eddington, the Attorney Administrator of WWVPBC, and its distinguished board members. Writing a check is gratifying, but being actively involved in directing this organization is the greater contribution. Thanks to all of you for making WWVPBC an organization we can trust and support without hesitation.

If you know one of the board members, please take a moment to thank them for their service to our community. They are:

John Maley, President,  Barnes and Thornburg

A.J. Sickmann, Vice-President, Boston, Bever, Klinge, Cross and Chidester

Donald Hawk, Treasurer, US Bank Trust Department 

Beth Bell of DeFur Voran

Bill Engle retired from Palladium Item

Ann Holzer of Meridian Services

Amy Jarecki of Indiana University 

D.Bruce Kehoe of Wilson, Kehoe, and Winningham LLC

Mark Maddox of Maddox, Hargett and Caruso, P.C.

Doug Masson of Hoffman, Luhman and Masson, P.C.

Craig C. Parker of Parker Law Office

Phil Quinn of 101.7 FM

Kevin Schiferl of Frost, Brown and Todd

Judge P. Thomas Snow, Senior Judge

Jennifer Struck of Unity Healthcare

Becky Studebaker of Genesis

Brian Swiger of Williams and Keckler

Jim Thompson of Lynch Thompson LLP

Nancy Wissel of Wissel Law Office 

NEW! Improved Super Search now allows Wildcard Searching!

Many of you have enjoyed our Super Search feature, which allows the search terms you enter, along with any relevant similar terms, to appear anywhere in the name, case title, or party string. This has been a really helpful feature in searching court information where E-Filing has introduced more uncertainty in name indexes. The next step to improving our Super Search is to allow a wildcard to end any word.

If you customarily search using last name, first initial (or partial first name) then this feature is for you!

You may now use this approach with the super search. For example, if we're searching the name "Connie Smith-Jones" we can start with the search string: "Smith Jones, Con%"

Searching for "Smith Jones, Con%" brings back 4 results without the Super Search

You can see there are 4 case results, and we've accounted for the hyphenated name by adding some technology that ignores punctuation and other formatting characters. We also see that "Connie" has been spelled differently, and each case has a slightly different name. This has been a fruitful search! Previously, if your search requirements included the use of wildcards, this is as far as you might search. With this improvement, you may now run this same search through Doxpop's Super Search:

Super Search with Wildcards

Here, we have not changed the search string at all, but have added the Super Search by clicking the checkbox. You can see that there are now 6 case results. The super search is breaking our search down into words that be located anywhere in the case party field, as well as allowing any of those words to be open-ended. So not only are we able to see the various spellings of "Connie," we are also able to tackle situations where the names have been entered in a different order or combination.

Searching for "Smith Jones, Con%" brings back 6 results with the Super Search

Please give this improvement a try and let us know how it works. This feature is now available for searching Court Cases, and will be added to our Tax Warrant and Recorded Document search tools very soon. Super Search with Wildcards is a winning combination!

File size limits increased for E-Filers

The size limits for documents and envelopes submitted to trial courts has been increased to 75MB per envelope, with no single document withing the envelope exceeding 50MB.

This change means the size limits are now consistent for all Indiana Courts. (Trial Courts and Appellate Courts.)