Settings
Open Settings by pressing ⌘, or choosing Certum Draft → Settings… from the menu bar.
Settings has five panes in the sidebar: General, Matters, Paths, Notion, Legal.
General
Section titled “General”The General pane gathers everything that doesn’t belong to a single subsystem: identity, weather, configuration health, template behaviour, reminders, settings import/export, and the danger zone.
Display Name
Section titled “Display Name”Your name as it appears in the home-page greeting (“Good morning, Rodney”). Saved with a 500 ms debounce — type freely without writing to disk on every keystroke.
License
Section titled “License”Shows your activation state and registered email. If you’re licensed, the masked key is shown with a copy button so you can paste it onto a new machine without digging through emails. To enter or change a license, you typically run a Factory Reset and then re-activate on next launch.
Weather
Section titled “Weather”Optional. Set a city for the home-page greeting strip. Leave empty to hide weather entirely.
Configuration Status
Section titled “Configuration Status”Read-only badges showing whether Paths and Notion are configured. If either says Not configured, jump to the corresponding pane and complete the setup.
Templates
Section titled “Templates”Two toggles that control template behaviour:
- Validate templates on startup — scans every precedent file for Jinja2 syntax errors at launch. Helpful for template authors; slow on libraries with many precedents. Defaults on; turn off if startup feels sluggish.
- Expand template folders by default — controls whether the template-picker tree opens expanded or collapsed.
You can re-run validation at any time from the Template Manager (no preferences toggle required).
Reminders
Section titled “Reminders”Controls the macOS notification system for critical matter dates on Purchase and Sale matters.
- Send date reminders for Purchase and Sale matters — global on/off.
- System permission — shows whether macOS Notifications is Authorized, Denied, or Not requested.
- Counters show how many reminders are currently scheduled and how many matters are muted on this device.
When enabled, reminders fire at 09:00 local time on the day of, 1/3 days before, and 1/2/3 weeks before each settlement, cooling-off expiry, finance approval, or funds-due date. Tapping a notification opens the matter directly.
Share Settings
Section titled “Share Settings”Export your configuration to share with colleagues, or import one they’ve sent you.
Export Settings writes a JSON file containing:
- Notion configuration (token, database IDs — the token is stored separately in the Keychain)
- Matter numbering and folder-naming template
- Default folders and starter files
- Finder colour labels
- Reminder preferences
Import Settings loads a previously exported configuration. Folder paths (Matters and Templates roots) are deliberately not included in exports — each user must point those at their own machine via Paths.
Onboarding
Section titled “Onboarding”Show Onboarding resets the onboarding flag so the first-run setup wizard appears on next launch. Useful if you want to reconfigure folder locations or walk a new staff member through setup on their own profile.
Danger Zone
Section titled “Danger Zone”Two destructive actions:
- Clear Notion Settings — removes the integration token and database IDs from Keychain + preferences. You can reconfigure Notion later.
- Reset All Settings — clears the license, terms acceptance, Python environment marker, paths, and every preference. You’ll need to re-enter your license key, and the app shows first-run onboarding on next launch.
Matters
Section titled “Matters”Matter Numbering
Section titled “Matter Numbering”Choose how matter numbers are generated:
| Format | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Year-Sequential | 2026-0001 | Resets to 0001 each year |
| Pure-Sequential | 000150 | Simple incrementing number; never resets |
| Year-Short | 26-0001 | Short year prefix |
For Pure-Sequential, the Next Number field is editable. Click Auto-detect to scan your existing matter folders for the highest number and continue from there — useful when adopting Certum Draft on top of an existing matter library.
Folder Naming
Section titled “Folder Naming”How matter folders are named. Click a placeholder chip to insert it; the live preview underneath shows the resulting folder name.
| Placeholder | Description |
|---|---|
{matterNumber} | The generated matter number |
{surname} | Client surname |
{givenName} | Client given name |
{matterType} | Matter type (e.g., Conveyancing Purchase) |
{matterName} | The matter name / Re: line |
Example: {matterNumber} - {surname} {givenName} - {matterType} → 000150 - SCHRUTE Dwight - Conveyancing Purchase
Default Matter Folders
Section titled “Default Matter Folders”Subfolders created in each new matter. Add, remove, or reorder them; Reset to Defaults restores the factory list.
Starter Files
Section titled “Starter Files”Files automatically copied from the template into each new matter. Each starter file has:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Source path | Relative path within the template folder (e.g., Accounts/Office_Accounting.xlsx) |
| Copy to | Subfolder in the new matter where the file is placed |
Common uses: trust accounting workbooks, intake checklists, standard cover letters. Reset to Defaults restores the factory list.
Finder Colour Labels
Section titled “Finder Colour Labels”Tag matter folders with a Finder colour based on the solicitor with carriage. When you create a matter and the “Practitioner with carriage” field matches one of these names, the folder is tagged with the corresponding Finder colour.
- Click Add Practitioner
- Enter the name as it will appear on matters (e.g., “Rodney”)
- Choose a colour: Gray, Green, Purple, Blue, Yellow, Red, or Orange
- The change saves automatically
The Paths pane has two pickers.
Matters Root
Section titled “Matters Root”The folder where new matter folders are created. This can be a local folder, a network drive, or a cloud-synced folder (Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive).
Templates Root
Section titled “Templates Root”Where Certum Draft looks for template definitions. Each subfolder containing a matter.json becomes an available matter type.
Notion
Section titled “Notion”The Notion pane configures the live CRM integration. See Notion Integration for the full guide; this section covers the controls.
Authentication
Section titled “Authentication”- Integration Token — your Notion API token. Stored in the macOS Keychain (not in the settings file). Click Get Token to open Notion’s integrations page in a browser.
- Save Token — writes the token to Keychain.
Databases
Section titled “Databases”- Clients Database ID — points at your Clients database.
- Matters Database ID — points at your Matters database.
- Save Database IDs — writes both IDs to settings.
Both fields accept either a 32-character database ID or a full Notion database URL — Certum Draft extracts the ID automatically.
The PNM (Potential New Matter) feature uses a third database. Click Find or Create Leads Database… and Certum Draft will:
- Detect the Notion page that hosts your Clients database
- Search for an existing Leads database there
- Either adopt the one it finds, or create a fresh one with the full 16-property schema (only after you confirm)
If multiple Leads databases exist in that page, you’re shown a list to pick from — Certum Draft never silently creates a duplicate.
Default watchers on new PNM Leads
Section titled “Default watchers on new PNM Leads”Select firm members who should be tagged on every new Lead’s Watchers people property. Notion notifies them automatically when a Lead lands. Selected users persist across sessions; if a watcher ever leaves the workspace, Certum Draft silently drops them from new Leads and shows a one-shot dismissable banner.
Team Tagging
Section titled “Team Tagging”Select team members to auto-tag on every new matter you create. When a matter is created:
- Selected users are added to the People property
- They’re @mentioned in a comment on the matter page
Click Fetch Workspace Users to load the picker. Refresh Users re-fetches; Clear All removes all selections.
Connection
Section titled “Connection”The Test Connection button runs four checks:
| Check | What it verifies |
|---|---|
| Authentication | Your integration token is valid |
| Clients Database | The database exists and the integration can read it |
| Matters Database | The database exists and the integration can read it |
| Schema Validation | Expected properties are present |
Read-only pane. View the Terms of Use you accepted during setup and the Open Source Licenses for third-party components Certum Draft uses.
Matter Auto-Save and Locking
Section titled “Matter Auto-Save and Locking”These behaviours are not user-configurable — they’re documented here because users often ask.
Auto-Save
Section titled “Auto-Save”Matter data saves automatically 2.5 seconds after your last edit. The footer shows the save status (Idle / Pending / Saving / Saved). A manual ⌘S flushes immediately.
Matter Locking
Section titled “Matter Locking”When you open a matter on a shared drive, Certum Draft creates a hidden .editing-*.lock file to prevent simultaneous editing. If another user already holds the lock:
- The matter opens in read-only mode with a banner indicating who holds it and how old the lock is.
- A lock is soft-stale after 5 minutes (UI flags it as “may be stale” — laptop sleep, lunch break).
- A lock is hard-stale after 15 minutes and can be automatically cleaned up.
- Closing a matter releases the lock immediately.
- Certum Draft heartbeats the lock every 60 seconds so a long editing session never trips the stale threshold.
Institution Catalog
Section titled “Institution Catalog”Certum Draft ships with a bundled catalog of 1,586 Australian financial and aged-care institutions (banks, credit unions, building societies, insurers, aged-care providers). Loaded from disk at launch; no internet required. Used to populate mortgagee, lender, and institution dropdowns throughout the app.
Template Cache
Section titled “Template Cache”Templates are cached in ~/Library/Application Support/Certum Draft/ so they remain available when the source folder is temporarily unreachable (Dropbox Smart Sync eviction, network drive offline). The cache refreshes whenever the templates folder is accessible.
Updates
Section titled “Updates”Certum Draft uses Sparkle for automatic updates. There’s no Updates pane in Settings — updates are triggered from the menu bar instead.
- Certum Draft → Check for Updates… — manual check from the app menu.
- Updates also check in the background a few seconds after launch.
If an update is available, the traffic-light area shows a coloured indicator and the standard Sparkle update sheet appears.