How To Edit Narratives

A quick explanation of automated Narratives and how to edit them easily. 

We created Time by Ping (TBP) to make the timekeeping process easier and more intuitive. As Narratives are such a vital part of how you bill for your time, our predictive technology automatically writes one for every Activity as soon as it’s assigned to a Client / Matter. And of course, as you’re always in complete control of your Timesheet, you can quickly and easily edit these Narratives at any time.

How do Narratives work?

Once TBP automatically – or you manually – assign an Activity to a Client / Matter, TBP will also write a Narrative for it based on the type of Activity it is: 

• Calls: Telephone conference with [name / number]
  • For internal calls with someone in your Active Directory, we add the name
  • For external calls, or where the name is not available, we add the number
• Documents: Analyze and prepare [document title]
• Emails: Correspondence with [email recipients] regarding [email subject line]
  • Email recipients listed in the narrative include names in the ‘To:’  box in Outlook. When the email is a reply thread, the narrative will also include the ‘CC’ Recipients.
  • Received email participants are those who sent the email
  • We will try to pull the name of each participant, but if that is not available to us we will default to their email address. 
• Meetings: Conference with [meeting attendees] regarding [meeting title]
  • Meeting attendees only include those ‘required’ to attend, not ‘optional’ attendees
  • We will try to pull the name of each attendee, but if that is not available to us we will default to their email address. 
• Research: Research regarding [website URL]
• Window tracking:[Application Name]
  • For those Activities we capture at a window level, we’ll show you the application you were working in, such as Microsoft OneNote

If your firm has customized its default Narratives, they may appear slightly differently to how you see them here.

Can I edit Narratives?

Absolutely. There are two types of Narrative:

• Automatically Generated Narrative (AGN) – those TBP writes
• Manually Generated Narrative (MGN) – those you write

No matter if it’s TBP or you who writes the Narrative, you can edit it whenever you want in either your Timeline or Timesheet. 

What happens when I edit a Narrative?

Before we look at how to edit a Narrative, it helps to understand the rules around Narratives, i.e. how they behave when you edit and group them. 

When you edit a Narrative, it will change from an AGN to a MGN. This is particularly important when grouping. If a group of Activities or Entries features a mix of AGNs and MGNs, TBP will automatically give precedence to the MGNs – the Narratives you’ve edited. 

Different combinations of AGNs and MGNs will affect how TBP displays Narrative information. Let’s look at that now with a few examples:

Group two or more AGNS

When grouping Activities and Entries that all have AGNs, TBP combines the Narratives and separates them with semicolons, like so:

• Analyze and prepare Motion to Compel; Research regarding www.Westlaw.com.

Group two or more MGNs

When grouping Activities and Entries that all have MGNs, TBP combines the Narratives and separates them with semicolons, like so:

• Review and analyze summons; Prepare motion to quash services of summons.

Group a mix of AGNs & MGNs

When grouping Entries or Activities that have a mix of AGNs and MGNs, TBP displays only the MGNs.

While the AGNs don’t display in the group Narrative, individual Activities and Entries will still have their original AGNs, visible on each when you expand the group.

How do I edit a Narrative?

There’s a variety of different ways you can edit a Narrative, be it individually or as a group. Here are your options:

Edit an individual Narrative in your Timeline or Timesheet

1. Click on the relevant Activity in your Timeline or Entry in your Timesheet and the Client / Matter box will display on the right-hand side of your TBP window 
2. Click on ‘Edit Details’ and the Client / Matter box will expand to show all the information for the Activity or Entry
3. Click in the Narrative box and make any edits you want. TBP automatically saves any changes you make
4. Click ‘Close’

When you edit an individual Narrative, it will change from automatically generated (an AGN) to manually generated (a MGN) and you won’t be able to recover the AGN. 

This is important because when you edit a group Narrative, you’ll still be able to ungroup an individual Activity and it will recover its AGN. We explain this in more detail below. 

Edit a group Narrative in your Timeline or Timesheet

1. Click on the grouped Activity in your Timeline or Entry in your Timesheet and the Client / Matter box displays on the right-hand side of your TBP window
2. Click on ‘Edit Details’ and the Client / Matter box will expand to show all the information for the grouped Activities or Entries
3. Click in the Narrative box and make any edits you want. TBP automatically saves any changes you make
4. Click ‘Close’ 

Did you know?

To help you create a compliant Narrative, in your Timeline you can choose to view just the Activities that make up any one group:

1. Click on any Activity in the group and the Client / Matter box will display on the right-hand side of your TBP window
2. Click ‘Edit Details’ and the Client / Matter box will expand
3. Check the ‘Show entire group in Timeline’ box and your Timeline will display only the Activities in that group

Or, in your Timesheet, you can see all the Activities that make up a group Entry by clicking on the dropdown arrow, like so:

What happens to a Narrative if I Ungroup an Activity or Entry?

Great question. When you edit an individual Narrative, it will change from an AGN to a MGN and you won’t be able to revert back to the AGN.

This isn’t the same for a grouped Activity. If you ungroup an Activity or Entry with a manually edited group Narrative, the Activity or Entry will revert back to its original Narrative before it was part of the group.