The 7 Second Blog

I will start with this…. in general we do not have crashing issues. We carry lots of clients, many of which are on our fixed fee implementation….that means we support all issues – technical, set up and training. So if we had crashing, I would be busy all day dealing with it.

We have a standard methodology in dealing with issues that arise:

1. If Time Matters 9 – make sure the tmw0.ini file and the registry are not in conflict.
2. If isolated to a user, we copy settings from our model user.
3. If isolated to the program level, we toggle the setting.

So isolation works and many/most issues can be traced to the data in Time Matters…because your preferences are saved as data.

Ok.. so you have been there and tried that. Next you have to limit the data in Time Matters and you should start to look at the data that you cannot see from within Time Matters. Here is an example.. this is my personal database. You can see in the video below that there are many ‘users’ in my system that are not users here in our office. This could cause issues under certain circumstances.  You can also see that there are settings in the data that do not exist in our system. A good example is the quickbooks entry… no Quickbooks linked to Time Matters here.

CAUTION – THIS VIDEO SHOWS DESTRUCTIVE DATA PRACTICES. If you make a mistake there is no way to undo.  BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP and even then I am not sure I recommend a typical end user do this…

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The 7 Second System has guaranteed training from its inception. We use a variety of mediums including onsite support, online meetings, help videos and manuals. We have added an integrated help system to Time Matters and also to all of the Speed Matters products. For existing clients we are making our way to everyone and updating your powerviews to include the help system.

We are also working on a help desk software implementation. We all receive so much email that it is difficult to ensure we have fixed your questions to your satisfaction when there are multiple consultants working on the implementation. In keeping with the one stop shopping approach we are implementing this help desk solution. It will allow you (and any of your users) to submit help desk tickets. Our team will monitor these tickets, utilize our best resources and be more responsive. We will also allow you to track all of your tickets for your firm regardless of who has submitted. Hang tight for our release.

For now, we have opened up some of the training resources for everyone to see. Take a look:

7 Second Training

I have been beta testing Google Connect4TM for a while. It synchronizes your Time Matters contacts and calendar to your Google calendar and contacts.  Why is this new application important? Many phones now work with Google, so we don’t always have to rely upon Outlook as the middle point.  You have to be careful when deailing with technical support and phone to Outlook to Time Matters syncs.  Time Matters tech support is not the place to be ensuring your Outlook is talking to your phone…so be sure to take that out of the mix when dealing with tech support.

Steve over at DataEquity is always on top of things and responsive. All of our clients and implementation rely upon Steve’s tools to make our lives and jobs better.  Everyone needs Sharpshooter and anyone that is using Time Matters the “default” way need to use his tools to convert to our system.

I could bore you with details, but we all like tv so…. here is a quick video:

http://www.lexisnexis.com/law-firms/practice-management/resource-center/time-matters-case-studies.aspx

Lexis published a case study on our Time Matters client McGlinchey Stafford.   Large firm that had tried other applications..and other Time Matters consultants. We implemented for a fixed per user charge in offices across the US.

We all know the love hate relationship that we have with the Time Matters – PCLaw link. Let’s just start with what we all know…if you are on an old version of Time Matters or PClaw (pre-version 9), I recommend that you upgrade. If that is not your cup of tea…contact us and we can discuss some of the issues that you need to understand.

Time Matters has fixed one huge issue with time entry. The description field in Time Matters was limited to 100 characters. Why was that a big deal? It made the Worksheet useless if your are verbose…and for those of you using it before the SR for 9… be careful.  Now we can enter long descriptions in Time Matters and send those to PCLaw.

Wait there is more!!!

They have updated the PCLaw worksheet to allow easier time entry and they have made it even easier to post that time to PCLaw. It acts similar to the Amicus to PCLaw link of years ago with some extra features. Users will like it. This feature alone may be worth the upgrade and adding AMP. 

Enter your time on the worksheet and watch the Matter summary information update. You can see the AR, the WIP etc for that matter in real time from PCLaw. (Note this does not include any time that has not been posted. ) When you are ready….post the time to PCLaw from the worksheet. You can also make time entries in other places in Time Matters and they show up in the worksheet….so capture the billing for all of those emails. Check out the demo video:

Time Matters 10 has been in the market for some time. As everyone knows we typically wait until the first service release to recommend an upgrade. Is there are new killer features? well…. the new powerviews are nice, but anyone using our sstem will not find them particularily helpful as we ship simple effective powerviews.
The desktop extensions are nice – The notepad, contact viewer and the agenda view. The rest need some time to mature.
We are often asked if upgrading is difficult. It never is. There are some things that you have to consider. Time Matters 10 does some data cleanup in the conversion. (Many of these issues we already find and deal with using Sharpshooter). You also want to verify your data before and after to ensure it properly made it through.

The big cavaet – your attachmnets are moved outside the database during conversion. Attachments are now stored as files in the file folder structure and not in the SQL database. It is about time…but if you are a long time Time Matters user, be prepared to wait out the conversion as it may take some time. Interested in the process? Here is a quick run through video:

As we all know Time Matters as it ships has lots of power, but it is not harnessed. That power gets in the way and leaves the application in a state that is harder to implement and harder to use.  After years of consulting, I took some time off to readjust my philosophy and approach to Time Matters. That was the foundation of the 7 Second System.

Time Matters has to be:

• Easy to Use
• Easy to Understand
• Easy to extract data
• Even easier to extract key and critical data

It is.

If you have been using the shipping defaults (or any other variation or configuration) we make sure that you have not lost that time investment. We have automated data tools that can manipulate your data and conform it to our way of implementation.

All of our clients learn Time Matters in a few hours.
All of our clients immediately begin to use Time Matters.
We guarantee our training and implementations.

How do we do this? Take a look:

Clients and potential clients often ask me what they should expect when working with us, whether we are your

• Time Matters consultants
• PCLaw consultants
• HotDocs consultants
• Integration consultants

First and foremost we have to manage the project. As we look back over our years of implementations, an issues that we have typically stem from communication gaps. Email is not an effective communication tool when it comes to managing projects. Many times, emails are partially read or information is split across multiple emails.

We implement an online project management system where we track:

• Key Dates – called milestones
• Tasks – who is assigned the task and the current status
• Meeting notes
• Documents – we will upload your quote and key documents

Here is an overview video of our project management system:

The first hurdle in implementing Time Matters is proper matter naming. It may sound odd that I call it a hurdle but…it is. Although I have been a Time Matters consultant for years, I always start with the fundamentals.

Fundamental #1
You need to name your matters in a consistent manner preferable as;

Last Name, First Name – Descriptive Language
Company Name (or short form) – Descriptive Language

This way, you can open your Matter list and begin to type. QuickPic will take you directly to the proper matter immediately. 

This may sound simple, but what if you are a long time PCLaw user and are adding Time Matters into the mix. You set up the link and bring over the matters into Time Matters. Be default, the MatterRef will be the Re line in PCLaw. Most firms will now have lists of : incorporation, Will, ats …   etc… this causes an issue in Time Matters that you have to address.  You can rename the matters which will write back to PCLaw, or you can unmatch the MatterRef field and rename the matters.  This is key to beginning your Time Matters implementation.

Some other best practices:

• Use Matter and Client numbering. It just keeps things simple. You can use the Matter number for many things including auto-naming in the Document Management System
• Staff on the matter, you can use all of the staff that work on the matter. This way, everyone can have a concise list of the matters they are working on. (If you are using the PCLaw link, be careful as the staff field is linked to the Responsible Attorney in PCLaw. I suggest that you un-match this)
• In Contacts – enter the RefName as you would refer to the person in a letter. Example . Matt Stone, Esq or Matt D. Stone, or Mr. Matt Stone
• Always use the last name field. I suggest you make it required. If it is a company contact, enter the company name in the last name field
• Leave the default form fields alone, especially in contacts. Leave the phone numbers and email field where they are.
• On an event, only assign it to the person that will attend that event. Multiple staff create multiple records
• Save Email attachments outside of the database

There is a list to get you started… Strong fundamentals leads to long term success in Time Matters

Interestingly enough, not that many Time Matters firms I work with work toward document assembly or automation of their documents.

There are 3 options for document assembly with Time Matters:

1. Formattable Clipboards
2. Document Merges
3. HotDocs

Formattable clipboards were created in Time Matters to allow greater access to the database. We can access almost all of the related records and use more than one record in a document. So you can merge documents with information from 1 or 10 or100 matters or clients. You can also dig further into the data and access the events, todos, UDR (people records) from each matter.  The downside is that the formatting options are limited – no full justify or tables are a few examples. There is also a size limitation to the produced documents.

Document Merges use the merge capabilities in your word processor. There is a limited amount of data that you can access in Time Matters but you use the formatting options in your word processor.

HotDocs is a document automation tool with an expansive set of features and tools. There is a HotDocs integration with Time Matters, but we find it too limiting and we have built a direct Time Matters database connection. The downside to HotDocs is it takes some time to prepare the database connection (although we have it built already) and it takes some time to built the initial interview. HotDocs can also assemble PDF forms.

What is a firm to do?
My advice is to look at the document assembly needs of your firm as a project. You need to understand:

• What you want to automate
• Why you want to automate
• How many documents there are
• Who is going to approve the content of the documents? If you have a motion, can the staff agree on the wording? If you have a standard contract, can you agree on the terms? Have these been reviewed lately?
• The time it takes staff to produce these documents
• The potential time saving
• The time to automate
• Are there pdf documents or forms

In general, if you are looking for short quick documents, many times you can get the correct language from a clipboard and then have users verify formatting once the data has been pasted into Word.
If you are looking to seriously automate documents that you use regularily and constantly and they are pleadings and/or agreements/contracts you should take a look at HotDocs. There is a cost that goes along with HotDocs but in the long run, the tool will work better for you and the firm. You will not run into limitations in creating documents (like the size limit in a formattable clipboard or the data that can be access in a Word Merge). I would also invest in 2 things:

1. Someone to help you get going with the documents – have them set up the framework and the interviews
2. Train some staff to modify and add documents in the future

Along side this advice is the acknowledgement that for some firms their document assembly and automated documents are key to their business.  Down time is not acceptable. This is mission critical.

When I trained Time Matters technical support, document merges were one of the highest call drivers. So users were having trouble. Along with that almost each of the last releases of Time Matters have had document merge issues. In some instances, firm’s documents were not able to assemble. There are some issues with Time Matters 10 as it initially shipped.

So for me, when document assembly is mission critical, I would handle it as its own project. Focus the appropriate resouces to the documents and create a strategy to handle your needs today and into the future.  Look  for something to get you started. We have solutions in:

• Ontario Statutory Accident Benefits
• Ontario Small Claims Court
• Ontario Real Estate

We have products in developement for:

• Personal Injury and Motor Vehicle Accidents
• Ontario Civil Court Forms
• Wills and Estates
• Business Transactions and Corporations

With each of packages in SpeedMatters, you can add forms and documents as you desire. We believe we have all of the key documents, but you can add as you see necessary.