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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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:

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

If you have installed Time Matters 10 and had issues. Sometimes a complete uninstall will get you back on track. Click here for complete instructions:

UninstallComplete.pdf