Updates on timing of the Indiana E-Filing Transition. (Merry Christmas?!)

We'll preface this by saying that these are still tentative, but it's the best we can provide, as we're dependent on the folks at the State for this information. (Not casting blame... We believe the folks at the State are doing their best, and working hard to meet deadlines. We appreciate the efforts of the OCT development team, even as we groan about shifting timeframes. They are great to work with.)

So:

The optimistic schedule is that the transition will occur on Friday, December 19th with a brief filing hiatus in the morning to allow the clerks to clear out their pending envelopes, and go-live on the new system in the afternoon.

The worst-case (but becoming likely) schedule is that the transition will occur on Friday, December 26th with a brief filing hiatus in the morning to allow the clerks to clear out their pending envelopes, and go-live on the new system in the afternoon.

If your law firm won't be open on the 26th, that's not a problem. We'll be there for you on Monday, December 29th, through Wednesday, December 30th to help with the transition whenever you reopen after the Christmas holiday.

If your law firm will be open on December 26th, but you will be out, please get in touch with us so we can help out. If you've done all of the preparation in advance, we can work with someone else in the the firm to walk them through the process of firm setup.

We're all adjusting our own schedules here at Doxpop, and will let you know as soon as we have a real commitment on timing from the State.

Step one in preparing for the transition to Indiana's New EFM: Financial History

This is the first in a series of posts for Admins preparing for Indiana's transition to an EFM. All of these posts are long, but don't worry! They are long because we're going into extensive detail to make sure the instructions are easy to follow. The actual work is easy (This one will take most people about 10 minutes do the work, and a short wait for the report to be delivered via email.)

The second step can be found here:

https://blog.doxpop.com/2025/12/step-two-in-preparing-for-transition-to.html

We suggest doing downloading the last year's worth of financial information as soon as possible. Then, just before the transition occurs, download the rest. When you receive these files, you don't need to send them to us. These records are for you to have saved just in case you need them later.  And of course, if you run into any problems, we're here to help. Call us at 866-369-7671 or email support@doxpop.com.

The financial information takes a long time to retrieve and loads the server heavily, so we'll retrieve your information for the past year now, and then the day before the transition, run a final, small, report to retrieve the last couple of weeks. 

Some of you don't have to do this:

• If you already routinely retrieve and process your financial information every month, there's no need to duplicate that effort- We just want to make sure the people who don't regularly retrieve and keep these reports are retrieving at least a year's worth of transactions in case they are needed to identify an expense later.

• If you are with a government office that never does an initial filing, or an office that always uses a fee waiver, there's no need to do this. The financial information is only important to firms that pay initial court filing or civil process fees via credit card.

To retrieve the financial information, login and click on the "e-filing" tab. Then click on "Create a Financial Report":

In the "Date of Filing" line, choose "In the last 12 months" from the drop-down menu. Leave the "Location" and "Submitter" lines at the default values of "All". Then click on the green [Create Report] button.

You will receive a confirmation message that says "Your report is being created and will be emailed to you within the next hour."

When the report arrives, it will be attached to an email with the subject line "E-Filing financial report". The filename of the attachment will be "FinancialReport.csv". 

Files with the ".csv" filename extension can be loaded into spreadsheets like MS Excel or Google Sheets. Open this file in one of those programs to make sure all of your data was captured. (Usually, just double-clicking on the file will accomplish this.) After you've confirmed that all is well, make a backup of the file, and you're done with this step.

Note: Some larger firms may need to break this process up & retrieve smaller chunks of information to avoid having the server timeout. If you get an error message in your email indicating failure for this reason, please give us a call (866-369-7671) and we'll help!

Your basic preparation for financial information is now complete. The next step will be the day before the transition, when you'll run a second financial report to pick up the last couple of weeks.

Important update for E-Filers on the State Court's transition to a new EFM

We have recently started identifying the people we'll be working with to configure their E-Filing account when the State Court releases their new E-Filing Manager (EFM.) If you E-filed in the last year, we sent you an email asking who we should work with in your law firm. As with all projects, clear communication is crucial, so please respond to that email if you haven't already done so!

We expect the new EFM to be released on either the weekend of  12/6-12/7 or the weekend of 12/13-12/14. For you, that means on Monday of either the 8th or 15th of December, you or your firm administrator will have some work to do before anyone can E-File. 

When the old EFM goes offline, the user and firm information you currently access through the "E-filing Account Administration" page will be gone. We'll need to quickly re-establish that account so you and/or your firm's filers can keep working. We'll provide your designated administrator with instructions for how to capture that information before the transition, and then detailed instructions on how to set up your accounts on day one. (Both step-by-step text and video demonstrations.)

It's important to know that the parts of Doxpop's E-Filing system that you interact with most often won't have any significant changes. The filing submission pages and the "My Electronic Filings" pages will look and act like they always have, so there's no need to worry about re-training for your daily tasks.

There is a second task we'll work with you on in the two weeks preceding the transition:

When the old EFM is replaced, we'll lose access to the information on old filings that you typically look up in the "My Electronic Filings" page. Generally, that won't be a big deal because once a filing has been accepted, it is rarely necessary to go back and look at it. The two exceptions are to glean the fee information you need for your accounting processes and to resolve any issues related to E-Service (service per Trial Rule 5). We'll provide you with instructions on how to preserve this information.

Fortunately, both of the tasks outlined will only need to be done once, so we'll make sure you have good instructions and that we're available to help if anything is confusing. We plan to have one busy morning working together, and then get on with normal work.

Many folks have asked why we don't know the exact date yet. The answer is that the State Court has not yet committed to a date. The moment they do, we'll post it on this blog. 

***There's a subscription link over on the right side of this page. If you subscribe, that will ensure that you get an email whenever we post new information.***

Frustrated by the Service contact #|CODE|# message? Help is on the horizon!

In last week's blog post, we told you that the Indiana Courts are making some major changes to the system we submit your envelopes to when you E-File. Big changes are scary, but are also opportunities for improvement, so in the next few posts, we'll share some of the ways this change will make your work easier.

Currently, filers occasionally get a frustrating error message that prevents filing. If you've ever seen this message, you know the pain:

Service contact #|CODE|# is not eligible for electronic service.

The good news is that in December, this problem will go away! ...The bad news, of course, is that it won't happen until December.

Fortunately, we've got a workaround to deal with this problem until December. First, we'll explain the workaround so you know how to deal with it. Second, we'll explain why it's likely to be with us until December, and why we think the future is brighter.

The Workaround:

This problem is caused because one of the e-service contacts attached to the case you are filing on has a flag set that makes the EFM think it can only be used for postal service, not e-service. Here is the workaround:

1. Determine which Service Contact is the issue. You can do that by deleting the current draft that shows the error. You'll find the [Delete this Draft] button in the green "E-File & Serve on this Case" field.
2. Go back to the case e-filing screen, and prior to uploading any documents, scroll down to the "Contacts to E-Serve" section and click the green slider button to unselect all.
3. Select one contact and upload a document to see if the error appears. If not, add each Service Contact, oneat a time, until you see the error. Then you'll be able to delete that draft again to clear the error. 
4. Go back to the initial filing screen, and start by clicking the green slider button next to the contact that caused the error in the "Contacts to E-Serve". This will "turn off" that contact. 
5. Now, proceed with the filing normally.

Using this workaround, you'll be able to do everything except serve the errored contact, so you'll want to note the email address for them and send them service directly. It's a painfully long workaround, but for the moment, it's the best option.

Why This Error Won't Go Away Until December:

This error currently exists due to Indiana Courts using the “ECF4” system, while the vendor they are working with focuses on their “ECF5” system. Due to this focus, the error was fixed on ECF5, but we believe it is unlikely we'll see the same fix for the ECF4 system. But there is good news! Since the Indiana Courts are rolling out their own in-house E-Filing Manager in December, we know this problem will be resolved then. We also believe that in the future, the folks in Indianapolis will be more responsive to problems like this than their current vendor has been in the past.

Thank you for choosing us as your E-Filing Service Provider. We plan to continue providing a positive experience to everyone using our site. If you ever need support or have questions, please don't hesitate to contact us! Our great support team can be reached via any of the options listed on this page: https://www.doxpop.com/prod/in/help/HelpTopic

Doxpop submits 798-page request for access to public information from Indiana Courts

On Friday, January 9, 2009, Doxpop shipped off its 798-page 2009 AR-9(F) request (pdf) for access to non-confidential case information in Indiana. Doxpop works with county clerks and judges to publish information about court cases on the Internet as permitted by Trial Rule 77(K) (html). Bulk access to court case information is governed by Administrative Rule 9(F) (html) and certain administrative authority under the rule is granted to the Division of State Court Administration, Lilia Judson, Executive Director.

In addition to a cover letter and a few pages of information specific to our request, the Division requires that we attach: 1) orders of consent from judges in each county from which we receive information, 2) copies of contracts with each county from which we receive information, and 3) copies of contracts with anyone to whom we provide bulk data. With about 50 counties participating in the Doxpop network, and 5 other organizations that receive bulk data via Doxpop, the paperwork adds up quickly.

But wait, there's more. There's another 4000 pages to submit before January 31. Each county that utilizes Doxpop to publish information on the Internet under TR-77(K) must also submit its own paperwork to the Division. This includes: 1) orders of consent from the judges in the county, 2) a copy of the contract with the county, and 3) detailed information about the Doxpop service and its user agreements. This adds up to about 80 pages per county. To facilitate the process, Doxpop prepares this paperwork for submission by the clerk.

It's worth noting that the consent orders and contracts in each TR-77(K) request are identical to the ones submitted by Doxpop in its AR-9(F) request. And the information about the Doxpop services is identical in each TR-77(K) request. All of this needs to be completed between January 1 and January 31: new consent orders from the judges, new AR-9(F) request from Doxpop, approval by the Division of Doxpop's request, and new TR-77(K) requests by each clerk. All of this at a busy time of year, especially for judges and clerks who just took office.

As you can see from the cover letter, Doxpop has some concerns about how the Division has chosen to interpret the rules. I'll say more about that in upcoming blog entries. For now I'll suggest that the current process is poorly designed, at best, or designed to frustrate clerks, judges, and counties who have not switched to the state-provided case management system, at worst. In the letter sent to clerks last year (pdf), the second paragraph seems to imply the latter.

Of course we comply with the process prescribed by the Division, but surely there's a better way.

Ray