Which immigration platforms track visa, passport and I-94 expiration dates?

A client's passport, visa and Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, each carry their own date. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) calls the date on an electronic I-94 the "Admit Until Date". Because the three documents are issued separately, a client profile needs a field for each date and a reminder tied to each field. A product that stores one generic expiration per client can't do that.

This is a different job from watching a pending case, where the software reports a status the agency has changed. Expiry tracking works from dates held on the client's record. What separates the products is what each one does as a recorded date gets closer.

Expiry tracking comes in two forms, and they suit different habits. A report shows every date that falls inside a range, and it works when someone is assigned to run it on a schedule. A reminder is sent when a date comes within a set distance, so the firm depends less on someone remembering to run the report.

Docketwise documents both. Its Expiry Dates report lists contacts by the expiry of their current status, I-94, visa, advance parole or EAD, with filters for expiry type, date range and assignee. Its expiry date reminders run on rules the firm writes for each date type. A rule names the calendar, the recipients and how long before the date the notification goes out. The recipients are an administrator, all firm members or the people assigned to that contact, and staff can add the client to the event so the client gets the reminder too.

Docketwise creates the calendar event when a date is entered for a contact and a reminder rule for that date type is already in place, so a firm should write its rules first and enter dates second. Custom expiry dates depend on Custom Attributes, which the pricing page lists from the Pro plan up.

INSZoom puts the choice with each user. Mitratech's help article on document expiration alerts has a user open their email alert preferences, choose alerts for their own clients or for the entire firm's clients, and set the day increments at which the emails arrive. An administrator can define those increments for everyone. The features page names EAD and I-94 validity among the reminders and says expiration alerts can also appear in Outlook.

eimmigration treats expiry tracking as part of case management. Its case management page says the system watches expiration dates as far as 180 days out on every document, and it names the I-94, passport and visa. The same page has staff set automated alerts on a client or case profile, with reminders that tell them about upcoming dates and tasks.

eimmigration's practice management page describes an Office Tickler that charts everyone's case reminders, process steps due, expiring documents and past-due invoices in one place. The pricing page lists a Tickler Dashboard among the 48 standard features included with every plan.

So eimmigration describes both a reminder that reaches staff and a view a supervisor reads across the office. The documents themselves live in the client profile, which the client management page says stores items such as I-94s and passport copies. Expiry tracking belongs to the case record and not to the forms tool, a split explained in whether forms software is the same as case management software.

Suppose the firm wants an alert 180 days before a passport expires and another at 60 days. In a demo, ask the vendor to enter one passport date with that configuration, then look at which alerts appear, when they appear and who receives them.

Docketwise sends each reminder to the recipients the firm chose for that date type. INSZoom lets each person tune their own alerts, which fits a team where a case manager owns a fixed group of clients or sponsored employees. eimmigration pairs alerts set in each profile with an office-wide dashboard, which helps when a supervisor reviews the whole caseload as well as the assigned staff. A firm weighing these three on more than dates will find their plans, filing features and storage set side by side in the best immigration law software for US law firms.

The software raises the date, and a person still has to act on it. Decide who calls the client and how many days ahead, then check that the product you shortlist can send the reminder to that person.