Track who has acknowledged a preservation notice and who has not. Each recipient row shows a status, timestamps for delivery and engagement, and an escalation level. When a custodian acknowledges off Hintyr, you can record the acknowledgment manually with the method, date, notes, and a scanned attachment.
How acknowledgment tracking works
Open a notice in the Notices subtab to expand its recipient panel. Each row is one custodian. The status chip is the current state, and the timestamps tell you exactly when each transition happened. Hintyr updates the row as the custodian moves through the acknowledgment flow.
Some custodians acknowledge offline: they return a paper form, they confirm in a phone call, or they tell their attorney in person. Use Mark offline ack to capture the method and notes. The recipient row flips to Acknowledged with a method chip that distinguishes online clickwrap from an attorney-recorded acknowledgment.
How to record an offline acknowledgment
- Open the notice in the Notices subtab and expand the recipient panel.
- Find the recipient row and click Mark offline ack.
- Fill in the dialog: pick the date, select the method, write notes, and attach the signed return form if you have one. Click Save acknowledgment. The row updates to Acknowledged with an Offline method chip.
Options and fields
Recipient status values and what each means:
- Pending: the notice has been composed and the send fired, but the email has not yet been accepted by the recipient's mail server. Most rows leave this state within a minute.
- Delivered: the recipient's mail server accepted the email. The custodian has not yet opened the secure link.
- Engaged: the custodian opened the secure link and landed on the acknowledgment page. The clock on the audit record starts here.
- Read: the custodian scrolled through the notice body. Useful when a court asks whether the custodian actually looked at what they later acknowledged.
- Acknowledged: the custodian submitted the clickwrap, or you recorded an offline acknowledgment on their behalf. This is the legal record of preservation duty.
- Escalated: the custodian did not acknowledge within the cadence window. Hintyr sent an automated Reminder. The escalation level field shows how many reminders have already fired.
Offline acknowledgment dialog fields:
- Acknowledgment date: the day the custodian confirmed. Defaults to today; backdate when the conversation happened earlier.
- Method: pick Paper return, In person, or Verbal. Default is Paper return. The method appears on the audit record so a future reader can tell how you collected the acknowledgment.
- Notes: attorney notes about the conversation, including who was present and any caveats the custodian raised. Write enough that a future reader of the case record can reconstruct what happened.
- Attachment: optional. Upload the signed paper return, a photo of the in-person sign-off, or any document that backs up the offline acknowledgment.
Following up with non-responders
Hintyr's automated reminders close most of the gap, but every matter has a custodian who never clicks. Use the recipient table to spot them: rows that stay Pending or Delivered for more than a week deserve a phone call. Treat it as a practice issue, not a software issue. Pick up the phone, walk to their desk, or ask their manager for help routing the question.
For departed or non-responsive custodians, attorney-to-attorney follow-up is the right move: contact their personal counsel or former employer's general counsel. Document every follow-up in the notes field of the offline ack dialog. The notes become part of the audit record, so a court evaluating preservation can see the firm worked the problem.
Repeat outreach is the firm's responsibility. Hintyr captures what happened; it does not phone the custodian for you.
Edge cases and limits
- You can record an offline acknowledgment for a custodian who never opened the secure link. The recipient row shows the Offline method chip; engagement timestamps stay blank.
- Once acknowledged, a row cannot be reverted to a prior state from the UI. If you marked the wrong recipient, contact support.
- A custodian who clicked the wrong identity button (No, this is not me) shows up as Engaged with a repudiation note. The row does not advance to Acknowledged. The firm investigates and re-sends if needed.
- The recipient table is sortable by name and by state. The state sort ranks rows by how far they have moved through the flow, so you can scan for the rows that still need attention.