If you’ve just finished an import into NetDocuments, opened one of the new workspaces, and found that half the Doc Type filters you expected aren’t there, you’re not alone. There is a NetDocuments workspace filter limit behind it, and it has nothing to do with how your import ran.
I’ve written before about a Doc Type filter going missing in NetDocuments, which covers the usual causes and the Refresh Workspace fix. This is a different reason entirely, and it shows up in one specific situation: a workspace being created from nothing.
The NetDocuments Workspace Filter Limit Is 50
When NetDocuments creates a workspace, it automatically generates Doc Type filters from the documents associated with that matter. That process stops at 50.
So if a matter has 100 Doc Types represented across its documents, the workspace gets filters for the first 50. The other 50 don’t get created. There’s no error and no warning — you just end up looking at a workspace that seems to be missing a third of the firm’s filing structure.
Your Documents Are All There
This is worth saying early, because the first assumption is that the import dropped documents.
It didn’t. Nothing is missing but the filter.
The filter cap only affects summary view. Switch that workspace to list view, and every document on the matter is sitting right there. Add Doc Type as a column, and you can see exactly what each one is profiled as, including the Doc Types that never got a filter. Remember that a Filter isn’t a filing location — it’s a saved question NetDocuments asks about your documents’ profiles. The absence of the filter doesn’t change the document’s profile, and it doesn’t hide the document from search.
Why You Only See This After an Import
Day-to-day, this never happens.
A new matter opens, the workspace gets created, and it starts out with almost nothing in it. Somebody saves a piece of correspondence, and the Correspondence filter appears. Somebody saves a pleading, and the Pleadings filter appears. The workspace accumulates filters one or two at a time as documents get filed, and it never comes anywhere near 50 in a single pass.
The cap only bites when a workspace is built all at once against a matter that already has years of documents behind it. That’s an import. You bring over a matter with 4,000 documents spanning 100 Doc Types; NetDocuments creates the workspace, but filter creation runs out of room.
Three Ways to Deal With It
Option 1: Let the Next Document Create the Filter
The filters that weren’t created aren’t permanently blocked. Add a document with that Doc Type to the matter, and the filter appears.
This is the no-effort answer, and for many firms, it’s the right one. The Doc Types that matter for active matter are the ones people are still filing to, so those filters will fill in over the first few weeks after go-live. The 30 Doc Types that appear twice each in a matter closed in 2014 don’t need a filter, and nobody is going to miss them.
If a specific matter needs its filters now, Refresh Workspace will rebuild it — but read the previous post first. If your workspaces use Folder Packs, refreshing will duplicate every folder in the pack, and you’ll have traded a cosmetic problem for a real one.
Option 2: Consolidate Your Doc Types
If you hit the cap, the import told you something useful about your Doc Type list: it’s long enough that a single matter can carry 100 different values.
That is the actual problem, and consolidating the list solves this and several other things at the same time. Firms that go through this exercise usually find that a third of their Doc Types are near-duplicates inherited from whatever system they came off of — Letter, Letters, Correspondence, Corr, Outgoing Correspondence. Collapse those and you’re under the cap without touching anything else.
Option 3: Convert the Cabinet to a Folder-Based Cabinet
Sometimes the honest answer is that this Cabinet was never a good fit for filter-driven workspaces. If the practice group’s documents don’t sort cleanly into a manageable list of Doc Types, and the users think in terms of folders anyway, a folder-based Cabinet is a better structure than a filter-based one with 100 filters that only half work.
This isn’t a small change and it isn’t for every Cabinet. But when a firm keeps fighting its Doc Type list, it’s worth putting on the table.
Should a Workspace Have 50 Doc Types at All?
My rule of thumb is 25 to 30 Doc Types, and I’d rather be at the low end of that.
The filter cap is the least of the reasons. Here’s what actually goes wrong once the list gets long:
- Nobody picks the right one – A user facing a 100-item dropdown picks whatever’s nearest the top or whatever they picked last time. The list gets longer and the profiling gets worse, which is the opposite of what the list was for.
- The workspace stops being scannable – The value of summary view is that an attorney opens a matter and sees its shape in one glance. Fifty filters is not a glance. It’s a scroll.
- Search gets less useful, not more – Fine-grained Doc Types only help if they’re applied consistently. If Letter, Correspondence, and Outgoing Correspondence are all in use, a Doc Type search for any one of them returns a fraction of what you were looking for.
- Every Doc Type is a decision you hand to a user – Each one you add makes the save dialog slower and the answer less certain. That cost is paid on every document, forever.
A shorter list gets used correctly. A long one gets used badly, and then people stop trusting it.
The Bottom Line
Missing filters right after an import point to the 50-filter cap, and the problem is cosmetic. The documents are fine; the list view proves it, and the filters people actually need will emerge as the matter is used.
The part worth acting on is what the cap revealed. If a single matter contains 100 Doc Types, the list needs work regardless of how the workspace looks.
Need Help?
If you’re planning a migration and want the Doc Type list consolidated before the import rather than after, or you’re looking at a set of workspaces that came out of an import half-built, that’s usually a single call. We can review your Cabinet’s Doc Types, map the duplicates, and tell you whether the Cabinet belongs on filters or folders before you commit to it.
Schedule a free consultation at go.oncehub.com/optconsult.
Craig Bayer is the founder of Optiable and has rolled out NetDocuments for over 600 law firms since 2010, specializing in firms with 10 to 150 users.