You need both a Clio and Afterpattern account to get started (sign up for Afterpattern here). Next, from your Afterpattern account, under Account Settings > Integrations, add the Clio integration:

The most common use-case for integrating Afterpattern with Clio is building apps that use Contact and Matter data from Clio to auto-populate document templates.

The following video takes you through the entire experience of automating a document template with both Clio Matter and Contact data: 

Do you want to perform logical functions with the data you pull from Clio? 

This is possible, but it requires an extra step because all data pulled from Clio arrives in your app as text datatype.

For example, if you pull a data from a money-type field in Clio, that value arrives in your app as text. So, if you want to perform a numeric calculation on that money-type field, you must first convert it from text datatype to number datatype.

Learn how to convert non-text Clio data.

There is a special procedure for using Clio custom field data in your app. It's easy to do, but not immediately intuitive.

Step 1: Add an Expression Block

Expressions are a type of logic block. It doesn't matter where you place a logic block:

Step 2: Begin your expression with your Clio data source variable

You can remind yourself what your Clio data source variable is called by looking under the Data Source tab. Add this variable to the first dropdown of your Expression Block:

Step 3: Complete the expression

Select "index" for the 2nd dropdown in your Expression Block and then use either `clio_contact_id` or `clio_matter_id` depending on whether the data source is for Contacts or Matters:

Pro tip: Give the variable created by this Expression Block a semantic name. In the above example, we called this variable `contact data with custom fields`.

🎉 All done!

You can now have variables in your app for your Clio custom fields. These variable are labeled as follows: 

Afterpattern apps, which are essentially robust online forms, can collect information and send it to Clio. This simple mechanic (sending data to Clio) can be combined with other Afterpattern features to create a wide variety of legal apps, including:

• An intake app that automates an engagement letter and creates a new Contact in Clio with the letter attached;
• A self-help legal app (e.g. 'Make a will' or 'Apply for US citizenship') that guides the end-user through a complex process, helps them automate a document, and then sends all that data to Clio to create a new Contact and Matter.