docEvault automatically follows up with contacts so you don't have to chase them manually. This is the feature that does the most work for you, and it's worth setting up properly once.
The default sequence
Every organization starts with a Default message sequence covering five moments:
- The initial request, sent when you send the request — or on its send date, if you scheduled it for later (see Creating a document request).
- Ongoing reminders, while items are still outstanding.
- When a document needs attention from them — after you reject a file or flag it incomplete. One review pass sends one message, not one per document; see Reviewing and approving documents for how the timing works.
- When a document they were asked to sign has been signed.
- Completion, when you mark the request complete.
Each moment has both an email and an SMS version.
Scheduling
Reminders go out on a schedule you choose per request — every day, every 2 days, every 3 days, weekly, or every 2 weeks — and they run up to the request's deadline. Past the due date the automatic schedule stops on its own: chasing someone every few days for months after the date they were given is noise, and for texts it's billable noise. The request stays open, you can still send a reminder by hand, and moving the deadline later restarts the schedule.
Each automatic reminder goes out at your firm's send time (below) on the day it's due, counted in your firm's calendar days: a daily reminder the day after the last message, a weekly one seven days after. Nothing goes out before the send time, so a request sent late at night gets its first reminder the next morning, never overnight, and a reminder held up by an outage waits for the next morning rather than going out in the middle of the night. Reminders are checked hourly, so one can arrive up to an hour after the send time. The send time is your firm's, not the client's: a client in another time zone gets reminders at that hour in your zone.
Choose Manual Only if you'd rather a request never remind automatically. You can still send one whenever you like.
Once its schedule has ended with items still outstanding, the request header reads *Reminders stopped (past due)*, so you know the nudging has stopped and the next move is yours. Extend the due date to start them again, or send one yourself.
Bear in mind what reminders actually chase: items still waiting on your contact. An item sitting in Under Review is waiting on you, so it won't be nudged, unless you've already rejected one of its files and the contact hasn't replaced it yet. Each item in a reminder says why it's listed when it isn't simply missing: *needs revision* or *incomplete*, followed by the reason you gave. See Document statuses.
Customising
Customise the wording of any step, or build additional sequences for different situations, under Settings › Message Sequences. Different sequences are useful when the tone should differ — a first-time client and a long-standing corporate contact don't need the same follow-up. Give each one a practice area and the list, and the sequence picker on a new request, group them under it — the same practice areas templates use.
A sequence sets the wording, not which messages go out. Every sequence has exactly one email and one SMS for each of the five moments, and you can't add or remove one. Whether a text is actually sent depends on your plan, carrier verification and the contact's consent (see Texting, below). New Sequence is at the top of the list. A new sequence starts as a copy of your Default's wording, and Reset Wording on any step you've changed puts that wording back.
Only an admin can change the wording. Members can open every step and read it, which is the quickest way to see exactly what a client receives. Placeholders such as {contactName} and {requestTitle} are filled in per message; {senderName} becomes the name of the person a reply reaches (see below).
One-off reminders
Send a one-off reminder manually at any time from a request's detail page if you don't want to wait for the next scheduled send.
Seeing exactly what was sent
Every message from a sequence (the initial request, reminders and review updates), and every one-off reminder, is recorded in the request's message log. You'll find it under Messages Sent on the request's detail page and under Messages beside each request on the contact's page. Each entry shows when it went out, whether it was automatic or sent by a team member, and what happened to it: whether the email was sent, and whether the text was delivered.
Press View Message on an entry to see the exact email (recipient, subject and body) and text message the client received. It's the wording as it was sent, so it stays accurate even if you edit your sequence later. The client's personal upload link appears as a label such as [portal link · ends …7F2Q · valid until Dec 28, 2026]. The full link is a private key to their documents, so it isn't kept, but the last four characters let you match it to the link in the client's own email, and the date shows when it stops working. Messages saved before September 29, 2026 show just [portal link].
Messages sent before this feature was added have no copy, so they show no View Message button. Signature and form invitations aren't recorded in this log.
For the client file, or to show what a client was told and when, press Download PDF Record. It's at the top of the Messages Sent window and under the Messages list on the contact's page. The PDF lists every message on the request, oldest first, with its time (in your firm's time zone), whether it was automatic or sent by a team member, the email and text results, any problem, and the wording where a copy was kept.
Where a client's reply lands
Every message docEvault sends on your behalf comes from noreply@docevault.com, so the address that matters is the one a reply goes to. An admin chooses it under Settings › Notifications › Where Client Replies Go:
- The team member who created the request. Their reply lands with whoever built the request. If that person later leaves the team, replies fall back to the firm address. New firms start with this option.
- The firm reply-to address. Every reply goes to one shared inbox, whoever sent the request.
The same choice covers every email a client receives about a request — the initial request, reminders, review notices, and signature and form invitations. A request's detail page shows the address its replies will reach, and an admin can press Send Me a Test Email in Settings to receive the reminder template exactly as a client would and check where a reply goes.
Send time and time zone
Under Settings › Notifications › Email and Text Delivery, an admin sets your firm's time zone and send time. A new firm starts on the time zone of the browser that signed up and a send time of 8:00 AM. They govern two things: a request scheduled for a later date goes out at that hour, in that zone, on its send date, and automatic reminders go out at that hour on the day they're due, as above. Members can see both values in the read-only summary on their Settings page.
Texting
SMS reminders are a Professional feature and need more than just a phone number on the contact record — your firm has to be verified with the carriers first, and the contact has to have consented. See SMS reminders and consent.