Troubleshooting: "A progress/close document cannot be completed before an initial document exists."

What's happening:

An error similar to the following is appearing when attempting to complete a Progress or Close stage for a Staged Form or Outcomes Assessment --

Possible causes and solutions:

An Initial Stage needs to be completed on the appropriate record and for the appropriate "Completed For"

If an Initial Stage of the Document has not been completed for the Individual, Worker or Blue Book who is being selected in the Completed For field of the Progress Stage, then one will need to be completed before any other stages can be saved.

If a Progress or Close stage is being filled out and a different name is selected in this field from the name selected in the Initial Stage, this error will appear.

Outcomes Assessments are required to be completed on the Service File or Event level, and while all of the stages for a particular Document being completed for an Individual all need to fall under one Service File, the Initial stage can be completed on the Service File level and other stages completed on Events, or vice versa.

The Stages for a Staged Form need to all be completed on the same level, but can be completed on the Individual or Case level.

If, for example, the Initial Stage for a Staged Form has been completed on the Service File level and the Progress Stage is being completed on an Event, this error will appear.

If it appears as though there is already an Initial Stage completed for the correct Completed For and it is on the correct level...

It is possible that the Document template being used was copied and the Initial Stage was completed using the original template, and the Progress or Close is being completed using the new version.

Since a copy of a Document is considered a separate Document from the original, Penelope will not recognize the Initial Stage as being related to the Progress Stage that a Worker is trying to fill out.

To check if this may be the case...

• Navigate to your Penelope homepage

• Open the Setup tab

• Select the Document List link

• Uncheck the Active Only checkbox

• Click Go

If you do not see the Setup tab or the Document List link, you may be restricted by either your Security Class or User Group. Please reach out to your agency's System Administrator if this is the case.

This will bring up a list of all of your Document Templates including ones that have been deactivated. From here, it is suggested to check the list for Documents with a similar name to the one being filled out currently.

If an Initial Stage was completed for an old copy of a Document Template, the Initial Stage will need to be filled out again using the new copy before any other stages can be filled out.