We will be launching a SaaS option with your data stored in Canada. Keep an eye out.

As with all software applications you have to concern yourself with the validity and health of your data. The Time Matters quicktab is your best friend and a great help to analyse the data that has been entered for accuracy. Each role in your office should have a series of quicktabs. In the backend you have to aware of a few housekeeping issues. 1 or 2 you cannot really solve, unless you have not upgraded recently. An upgrade will assist as it cleans some data as it upgrades. There is an issue with padded space in the billing table. It is something that needs to be dealt with if you are a long time Billing Matters user or you plan to be a long time Billing Matters user. Too technical for this intro blog, but I will get back to it later.

Stay tuned. Let me know if there are areas of the application that you want explained. It can be as technical as you want or practical.

Is Mobility – access using a Mobile phone? Is it accessing your information while away from the office?

In this conversation, there is not one size fits all.

It depends on the type of law business that you operate. Some firms work during business hours at the office. Some firms work during business hours away from the office. Some firms have users that work many hours after hours at home or on the road.

It also depends on what you expect to while while Mobile. If you just want to look at data or if you want to work as you would while in the office.

The cloud is by its nature Mobile. Your experience is the same whether you are in the office, at home of on the road.

If you want to use your work computer at home just as you would if you were in the office, there is a free solution called LogMeIn. We use the business solution daily. I have used the LogMeIn service for 8 or more years without issue. I can remember a few times when I was not able to access a computer.

If you need many users to work while away from the office and do not want them to access their own computer, then you should look at a Microsoft terminal server solution or Citrix. We have clients that use both. An interesting product is also 2X at www.2x.com.

Some applications have Mobile applications that are specific to your handheld or a website. I use the Salesforce mobile application often and as a consultant it is excellent. As I change the customization and configuration of Salesforce, the mobile app adjusts with those customizations. It is a rich environment and I am able to see all of my data. The same data set that is available when I log into Salesforce. I can also control whether I want a smaller set of data on my handheld device as I manage the mobile users. The data is available when I am offline and not connected to the Cell phone network. This is often the case while I am in Court as Cell reception is not available inside the court rooms.

Time Matters and PCLaw have release a Mobility portion of the version 11s of the applications. The Time Matters mobility product is limited in scope and is very much a first generation product. If you need access to fields on your Matter form, Time Matters Mobility does not allow this which is interesting as the ability to customize the fields on a Matter is a compelling feature of Time Matters. It also does allow access to all of the record types in Time Matters. Access to the calendar will be added in the future but for our customers calendar does not include our Key Dates feature which in my opinion is part of the calendar.

Our recommendation is to use MobileTM from Data Equity. It is mature as it has been in the market for years. All record types in Time Matters are available and you can customize all lists and forms to include any information that are tracking in Time Matters. For me, this is the basic functionality that is required of a mobile Time Matters solution.

In my opinion, Mobility should also extend to allowing your clients to access their Matters. Cloud applications by their nature will include this functionality. In the Time Matters world, this is only available from DataEquity. It is called GuestOffice. It is an eloquent solution with security at the core of the design and the ability to shape your clients experience as they look at their own Matters.  For other consultants that have not seen or used GuestOffice, it can be customized and configured. This means you define the data to which the client has access, the look and feel and you can extend the functionality.

So what does Mobile mean to you?

What is the key? Data migration is a process and as a customer you need to engage your consultant. I would also be cautious of thinking a data import is a data migration. There are a series of steps and at each step you need to asses your progress and gauge success.

I can think of 2 distinct Data Migration examples.

1.Upgrading from 1 version of an application to another.
2. Moving from one Matter Management Application (Practice Management) to another.

Especially in Time Matters, when you upgrade from 1 version to another, you need to verify the data has migrated. At the very least you should do record counts and a random sample visual confirmation. If you are upgrading an accounting and/or billing application you should run your key reports before and after the conversion.

The easy stuff? Each application deals with dates and times in their own way. Some databases are more normalized than others.

Moving from one application to another can be difficult. You have to account for the differences in the applications and you have to deal with the integrity of your data. As we migrate clients away from Time Matters we have to be cautious of their data.

We have a team that has many years experience in Migrating data and a team with years of experience managing the process. We move clients to and from all of the applications that we support.

I will push some of the lessons out to the blog. Contact me if I am missing something, or I have not pushed the lesson you want to review.

http://7secondblog.ca/time-matters-basic-training/

We use the cloud extensively. So extensively, that as a computer dies, I am up and running (exactly as I was before) in minutes not hours, days etc. I do have high speed internet that is stable and consistent.

As a consultant – Our team stores documents in the cloud. We do project management in the cloud. Our help desk is in the cloud. Our training manuals/materials are in the cloud. Our email is in the cloud. Our mind mapping/thought management is in the cloud. We have online meetings and online training sessions. We remotely manage most of our clients so that we can work after hours. We support Matter Management applications in the cloud.

As a Lawyer. We store and backup documents in the cloud. Our collaboration is in the cloud as we are in different cities. Our Matter Management is in the cloud. Presently, we run the criminal business on Advologix. Being built on top of the Force.com platform we can do a lot with it, including scheduled reporting, anywhere access and take complete control over the interface.

The problem? Or a potential issue? Where is the data? It is not stored in Canada. It is in the North American cluster. NA7.

What does a Canadian Lawyer do when they want to use Matter Management in the cloud and have their data in Canada? Right now? There is no option. I looked into Clio and although it is located in Canada (British Columbia) there is no guarantee your data will reside in Canada.

With long ears, I hear there will be an option in the near future. If you are interested drop me a line and we can discuss or I can let you know when it will be announced.

The Time Matters exchange synchronization will support Exchange 2010 in the near future. It has been re-written. Let’s hope they have improved the logging of the application and deal with meeting requests in an affective manner. We all know meeting requests and the current Time Matters Exchange synchronization do not mix. If you are using them….read my previous blogs.

The PCLaw to Time Matters link is undergoing a re-fresh. In the future we will see an expanded and a reasoned approach. Sorry…nothing to add or change to it today, although with the release of PCLaw 11 the link now runs as a service and is not a process.

Once we have the products in hand..more will come.

If you have not upgraded to Time Matters 11 or PCLaw 11 or you have to renew your AMP in the near future, contact me and we can work on them together. Lexis has given consultants some incentive to assist in the upgrades and AMP that will benefit customers.

What should you be doing now?

1. Spending some time with the validity of your data. There is data in your database that you cannot see.  A good indicator is the size of your database and how quickly it is growing.

Recommendations:
Be careful of your database size and rate of growth. If you are using a free version of SQL, consider upgrading.
Purchase Sharpshooter from DataEquity. It will run analytics on the data that you cannot see. If you are interested, contact me and we will offer special pricing or bundled services.

2. Make sure  your system is set up properly.  Do your bills look right? Do your reports add up? Can you analyze the data in your reports?

Recommendations:
If you are unsure, you can contact me and I will set up a consultation with Kelly of our team. She can quickly assess your situation, offer suggestions and get your Billing Matters tuned up.

3. Be consistent, Be concise.  Use the product the same each time. Whenever you discount an invoice do it the same way. This way you can analyze the impact.

Recommendations:
Have a firm meeting and get everyone on the same page.

4. If you are not on the current version, upgrade. With your AMP, you have access to support and during the upgrade process some of your data is cleaned.  Billing Matters currently has an issue with growing the database with empty space as you enter time and other transactions. When you upgrade, this empty space is cleaned. If you are on the current version, there is no supported fix.  Although the fix is ran during the upgrade process, the same fix is not supported on a current version of Billing Matters.

Recommendation:
SharpShooter gives your invaluable insight into the current status of your Billing Matters database.

We would like to share some good news with our loyal Time Matters and Billing Matters customers. In response to customer requests and, after careful consideration, LexisNexis has decided NOT to discontinue the billing functionality of Billing Matters software. Customers have indicated that thebilling capabilities within the software are an integral part of their daily workflow and firm billing processes. Therefore, we are announcing the continuation of software support and maintenance for the billing components of Billing Matters (reversing the announcement we made in 2009 indicating plans to discontinue the entire product as of December 31, 2013). We will also begin work to enhance and evolve the billing functionality of Billing Matters in a future release, expected to include improvements in report writing, electronic billing, mobile options and archive capabilities. We will also be developing new training resources on the Billing Matters billing functionality and announcing those as they become available.

Please note however, the decision to sunset the accounting functionality of Billing Matters (also known as Billing Matters Plus) remains unchanged. Since the billing features within Billing Matters software were reported by customers as more widely used—by a wide margin—than the accounting features, we do not believe a policy change is warranted for the accounting functionality. Therefore, all support, maintenance and training for the accounting components of Billing Matters will end on December 31, 2013 as previously announced. If you have been using the accounting features of Billing Matters, you will need to start considering alternative solutions such as linking your current accounting data in Billing Matters with Intuit® QuickBooks® Pro® or Premier Edition, versions 9, 10 or 11.

LexisNexis® Law Firm Practice Management has been helping law firms streamline their operations and improve client service for over 20 years. Looking ahead, we are committed to providing a robust, industry-leading feature set within all of our software products—Time Matters, the billing components of Billing Matters, PCLaw®, Juris® and LexisNexis® Firm Manager™—valued by our customers.

What are plug-ins? If you are a 7 Second System client…you should have them. If not, contact me. The plug-ins are:

1. A configured easy to use interface for Time Matters. The goal is… Time Matters is easy to use, easy to learn.
2. Supporting powerviews to ensure you can see the data that you need instantly. We have developed the functionality that we think is needed in Time Matters. We were tired of waiting for an improved user experience.
3. Step by step training instruction on usage of the plugins and Time Matters.
4. An integrated Help Desk. Have questions/issues submit a help ticket and track that ticket until it is closed. You can also review all tickets submitted by your firm.

Why make Plug-Ins?  My view is they are needed. The Time Matters initial user experience needs work and it has not changed in some time and candidly we do not see any change in the near future.  We took control of the future and we take control of the end user experience. As we shape that experience, we ensure your firm adopts Time Matters consistently. The end result is an application that everyone uses. You get your data your way.

We have a series of videos at : http://www.7secondsystem.com/plugin.html. Too lazy to click..here is the document plug-In video: