Explainer
Understanding stagnation rules
Stagnation rules flag open matters that have gone too long without activity. This article explains how rules work and why a matter might appear — or stop appearing — in a stagnation chart.
A stagnation rule flags any open matter that has not had a qualifying action within a defined number of calendar days.
Think of a stagnation rule like a smoke detector for your matters. It runs silently in the background, and when nothing has happened on a file for too long, it goes off. The rule does not know why a matter has been quiet — it only knows that it has been. When you see a matter flagged as stagnant, it is not an accusation. It is a prompt to check in.
Every stagnation rule has three ingredients: what counts as activity, how many days of silence triggers the flag, and which matter types it applies to.
Each rule defines a set of essential actions — the things that count as activity on a matter. Available actions are: fee creation, note creation, task completion, status change, and step or stage change (called a "step" in Actionstep and a "stage" in Smokeball). Opening a matter also counts.
When any one of these actions is performed on a matter, the timer resets. You do not need to complete all selected actions — a single qualifying action is enough to restart the clock.
If none of the selected actions occur within the rule's defined number of days, the matter is flagged. Days are counted in calendar days, not business days — weekends and public holidays count.
Matter type filters let you scope a rule to specific types of work. A rule with no matter type selected applies to all open matters. Scoping by matter type is useful because different work types have different rhythms — a fixed-fee matter has a structured sequence where stagnation directly delays revenue, while an hourly matter may have periods of legitimate waiting. Separate rules let you set appropriate thresholds for each.
A matter can be caught by more than one rule at the same time if it meets the conditions of multiple rules. Each rule runs independently.
Once flagged, a matter remains stagnant until a qualifying action is taken. There is no way to manually dismiss a flag at this stage.
- Days are calendar days. Weekends and public holidays are not excluded.
- If more than one essential action is selected, any single action resets the clock — not all of them.
- Only open matters are evaluated. Closed matters will never appear in a stagnation rule.
- A matter can be caught by more than one rule simultaneously if it meets the conditions of each.