Upon Returning from Banff

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I have just returned from the Amicus 2010 Consultants conference in Banff.  They were kind enough to invite me to speak on document assembly to their consultants and to demonstrate how Amicus Attorney can support and facilitate complex document assembly workflow.  The setting, high in the Canadian Rockies, was nothing short of spectacular.  Some days were sunny and warm (I wore T-shirt and shorts) and other days it snowed.  But what was real exciting was the transformation from Amicus Attorney from the “warm familiar” attorney practice management system that “anyone” can use into a powerful, fully customizable, extensible workflow powerhouse.

Workflow Possibilities

I took several days to prepare for my session, evaluating just how far and how easily Amicus could be modified to support complex workflow.  The answer was that “within constraints” there was no limit to how far it could be customized.  Customization is permitted on Contacts and Files in the form of “Custom Pages”.  Each custom page can be designed.  All field types are supported.  You can layout the prompts and the data entry boxes in any fashion you want.  You can (and are recommended) to use the same fields across multiple file types.  However, you can apply them in a different order, in a different grouping, and on different pages across multiple file types.  You also have “custom records” which can be used on files and contacts, with no restriction on the number and type of custom records.

This is all done without substantially altering the familiar look and feel of Amicus.  But in the process, it truly transforms the product.  Gone are the limit of 50 custom fields for Files and 20 custom fields for contacts (assuming of course you are using Premium Edition).  In preparation for the session I prepared 3 custom pages with a total of 100 custom fields of various types including dates, picklists, checkboxes, text, and memo fields.  I also added custom pages for contacts on the file.  And I created two new record types.  It was all done rapidly.  I was able to define the field names, the prompts, the size of the text boxes, the location on the page, and even use alignment fields to make everything “pretty”.  I was also able to add text label boxes to provide further clarification.

The fun begins

This would have been enough, but the focus of my presentation was document assembly.  Amicus lets you access all the fields, including custom fields, in both “merge templates” and through HotDocs.  The merge template builder gives you access to the custom data on the file with fields grouped by file type.  If you are “rigorous” on your field naming, your field lists can self organize by subject area.

As for HotDocs, Amicus takes full advantage of the HotDocs API.  You can use a default “map file” which will automatically create a HotDocs component file will all the data on the file (with the exception of custom records at the present time).  This include all matter data, including custom fields, all data on the “primary client” including custom fields, basic information on people on file (in a repeat) and special fields for data on events, tasks, notes, calls etc.  It creates a CMP file and will generate the requisite answer file without any mapping required.  That doesn’t prevent you from creating your own custom maps to an existing set of HotDocs templates.  Nor does it prevent an advanced HotDocs developer from creating his or her own master component file and using an INSERT command to bring the interview into the template.

Even more exciting is the ability made possible by SQL Server that ships with Premium Edition.  You can create a database component in HotDocs and “query” the database for any data that is not coming over automatically.  You can use the Short Filename in your query to go back and grab more related data. Or, you can build your own dynamic reporting system.

Conclusion

As you can see, it was a busy few days.  I learned a lot about Amicus and met a lot of great new consultants and made some new friends.  In my standing room only presentation, it is my hope that I have excited them as much about document assembly and its possibilities, as I am now excited about Amicus.

Time Matters Installer Error – On Loading Internet Explorer After Upgrade to Time Matters 10 SR2

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It happen on a client. Every time they opened Internet Explorer or Outlook, they would get a Time Matters error and it would attempt to run a setup file.  It was looking for a file called infoent.msi. No matter what you did, click Cancel, OK, the problem would keep recycling.  A reboot didn’t solve the problem.  Nothing would make the darn thing go away.  I thought this was isolated to my client, until I started discussing it with other CIC’s.  Marc Wexler had seen it and had a solution.  The best solution came from Wells Anderson.  Read on for the solution.

The True Cause

The cause of the error had to do with a Windows installer that had not “completed” all steps of its installation.  The incompletion was triggered when you opened Outlook or Internet Explorer, most likely because the installation routine, in my case, an upgrade to Time Matters 10 Service Release 2 was trying to build integration to those applications and was interrupted.  When you open one of those applications, it would then try to complete the installation, but since the installer had closed and removed itself, it could no longer find the file “infoent.msi” to complete the action.  I am sure programmers could come up with a more precise explanation.

The Solution

You could call techsupport, if you were on annual maintenance.  Or, you go to the Microsoft Knowledgebase and click on the article titled: Use the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to remove Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003 (found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301).  Or you could just click here to download the Cleanup Utility.

(1) Run the EXE to install the Cleanup Utility
(2) Find “Windows Install Clean Up.
(3) Find the entry for LexisNexis/Practice Advantage installer
(4) Click on Delete.
(5) When done, go into File -> Setup -> General -> Workstation Level and run both the Word Processor Setup and the Additional Program Setup.

The problem should go away.

Document Assembly – The Contenders

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When you think “document assembly” for law firms, who do you think of?  For many years, there has been a single answer, HotDocs.  This is not because of any great marketing effort by LexisNexis (the former owners of HotDocs). Rather, it was a combination of “automated forms” delivered by LexisNexis and a grass-roots movement of lawyers and consultants building systems from the ground up with a “cheap” software tool.  It was word of mouth that caused the spread of HotDocs, one license at a time.  Now that HotDocs is “established”, who are the contenders.  I was given the following list of contenders: ActiveDocs, Business Integrity/Dealbuilder, Epoq/Rapidocs, Exari, Korbitec/GhostFill, Napersoft, Pathagoras, SoftPowerHouse/PowerReuse, Thunderhead, and Zumesoft.  It is interesting that despite my 15 years in the business, this list failed to include some interesting contenders, but also included some contenders I had never heard of.  So, who are these contenders?

The text below is drawn directly from the website of these vendors.

ActiveDocs

ActiveDocs Opus facilitates the simple and effective creation of your essential business documents and the automation of a wide range of mission critical communications. A scalable, affordable, high-performance document production solution, ActiveDocs Opus enables you to quickly create accurate, professional documents that meet a variety of business needs.

Business Integrity / Dealbuilder

Business Integrity launches ContractExpress.com, the world’s first premium document assembly product to be delivered exclusively as “software as a service,” requiring no set-up costs or infrastructure. ContractExpress.com builds on Business Integrity’s trusted DealBuilder technology, which is used by many of the world’s leading law firms and corporate legal departments.

Epoq/ Rapidocs

– Rapidly automates legal and business documents
– Creates dynamic and interactive interviews
– Delivers to end-users instantly in the browser
– Displays real time document changes live to the user
– Supports all popular web browsers
– Handles both text and PDF forms
– Offers ‘try before you buy’ technology for your customers

Exari

Exari accelerates your contracts, reduces costs and risks, and streamlines authoring complex documents.  …. With Exari, business people create their own legally pre-approved documents and agreements by completing a web-browser interview. It eliminates the need to wait for the legal department while still providing legal compliance and contract visibility. Exari saves time, lowers costs, improves document quality and minimizes risk. Exari contract creation and contract management solutions are used by leading companies to automate various document types including those used in sales, insurance, and banking.

Korbitec /Ghostfill

GhostFill is no longer offered directly for sale.  However, GhostFill is embedded in several applications, including AIA Forms, DWTA, and Nebraska Probate System V.

GhostFill is one of Korbitec’s flagship document assembly software engines, and has over the last decade been utilized in thousands of document-centric software solutions at law firms, banks, publishers and other institutions, world-wide.

Napersoft

Napersoft CCM (Customer Communication Management) solutions streamline business processes for document creation, personalization, publishing, distribution and archiving. Quickly & easily create complex real-time customer documents, including correspondence, letters, emails, notices, alerts and confirmations and distribute them via print, email or the Web.

Pathagoras

Pathagoras™ is a multi-faceted document authoring tool. First and foremost, Pathagoras is a ‘Plain-text based’ document automation system.  In just two clicks, using your current collection of documents, Pathagoras can present a list of forms or clauses on a designated topic. From that list, you would select an appropriate form, group of forms, or a subset of clauses to be assembled One more click presents your selections, fully assembled, onto the editing screen for final processing.  No complex or time consuming setups are required. You can create automated documents within 5 minutes of installation. You will begin cutting document produc-tion time immediately.

SoftPowerHouse/PowerReuse

PowerReuse is a document assembly software designed for boosting productivity for professionals (lawyers, insurance agents, real estate agents, project managers, sales, marketers and consultants) in small and medium-sized companies. Taking advantage of its patent pending technology, it organizes related Word, Excel and PowerPoint files into projects for better accessibility, updates many documents at a time and pastes pieces of text from the created library by simple drag & drop. The functions ensure accuracy and consistency of all your documents.

Thunderhead

[With the CorrespondNOW module] customer communications are as personal as they get with this module, which allows you to create individual ‘ad hoc’ communications quickly and simply. Streamline correspondence creation, allowing your customer service teams to respond more quickly and efficiently to customer inquiries while bringing new levels of control to the desktop.

Zumesoft

WordFusion is an advanced web-based Document Assembly Platform.  In very simple terms, WordFusion allows you to automate document templates, and then distribute them within your organisation or across the internet. WordFusion also provides work-flow management for the preparation, review, payment and finalisation of documents. This enables professionals from a number of disciplines to effectively collaborate on the production of a document. In essence, WordFusion is a project management tool, to connect you with your clients and other professional partners, to efficiently collaborate on the production of sophisticated and high-value documents.

There were a few MORE that should rightly have been on the list.

XpressDox Docussembly

XpressDox Docussembly™ saves you time, saves you money.  XpressDox Docussembly™ is a document assembly system that will help you become more productive when creating repetitive documents. Using XpressDox, you can easily create a template that asks you for only the information which changes. This improves your efficiency and effectiveness, and ensures that all documents you create conform to your organization’s standards. The result is faster, more accurate documents, which saves you time. And saving you time means saving you money, too.

ActiveWords

ActiveWords relates words and actions, giving you instant access, making you more productive, and improving the quality of your work.

Memba Genesis

The Memba Contract Management Platform is constituted of three main components which work integrated or independently. Memba Genesis Editor is the editor of contractual documents and templates. Memba Genesis Formation Server supports contract drafting and negotiation. Memba Genesis Execution Server supports portfolio and diary management.

Intelledox Enterprise

Intelledox Enterprise is the fully featured Intelledox document creation software solution. Built on Microsoft technology, Intelledox Enterprise is a user-friendly, document creation solution that enables the fast, accurate and compliant production of documents; tailored to individual business requirements and delivery methods.

DrawLoop Technologies

Drawloop is a complete document automation service. We help businesses, organizations and individuals close more deals, increase revenue and improve productivity through automating document creation. In minutes, you can web-enable the same Microsoft Office files your business has been using for years. There is no hardware or software to buy, install or maintain. All you need is your documents and a web browser!

Ultimus

Ultimus automates and simplifies key business processes so you can dedicate more time to your business and customers. Ultimus’ Business Process Improvement Suite reduces the potential for human error, eliminates waste, and decreases the amount of paperwork companies use on a daily basis. Moving far beyond standard workflow automation, Ultimus (Business Process Management) BPM Software provides a flexible solution that connects technology systems to enable data sharing and enhanced visibility throughout your entire organization

Ultimus has automated more business processes than any other BPM software provider worldwide and has over 15 years experience helping organizations across many different industries implement business process optimization. We have more than 1,900 customers and thousands of process templates to enhance every division of your company.

*This list is by no means an endorsement of any or all of these products.  As independent document assembly specialists since 1996, we have worked with a number of these products.  Our entrepreneurial clients have generally favored HotDocs as the best dollar value, given its historical pricing.  However, over the years we have partnered with GhostFill, DealBuilder, and Exari on projects, and we have carefully evaluated a number of other products.  Any decision on a document assembly platform should at least consider these contenders.

Merge Templates and Clause Libraries

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Early Days of Automobiles

In the early days of the auto industry, a team of mechanics would put together a car in a week.  This was no mean feat of engineering.  In many cases, the car would have “custom parts”.  There would be “user” preferences.  And there was the inevitable unintended variation.  To achieve efficiencies (and thereby profits which was the ultimate goal), the engineers would create a template (a master design) with instructions to be “manually” completed by the engineers.  Further efficiencies were achieved by laying out the workspace; adding labeled shelves with all the key auto parts.  Some items were “pre-assembled” or partially assembled, leaving a few remaining steps that could be used for customization.  Nevertheless, it required a team of skilled engineers to put together a car.  Quality control was a matter of “experience” and not something that could be measured.  Each car had a unique character.  And of course, cars were expensive; in fact, too expensive for most people to afford.

Read moreMerge Templates and Clause Libraries

Custom Imports and Updates

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Time Matters has a very advanced and sophisticated import system.  There are many reasons one would wish to import data into Time Matters.  The most common is for new users of Time Matters who are converting from other systems.  If they are using Outlook, you can use “synchronization”.  For other practice management system or contact management systems there are pre-set import routines.  But there are other circumstances where you will need to use the Custom Import.  It is for those circumstances that I offer a few tips or best practices.

Circumstances where Custom Import is Required

(1) Your data source is Outlook, but you have used custom fields.
(2) Your have worked with Seibel CRM On Demand, and only have CSV (Comma Separated Value) Files.
(3) The built-in import doesn’t support the record type you want to bring in, such as “Notes”
(4) You are doing a “mass” export and cleanup and reimport
(5) You are enabling User Defined Records from a custom database or spreadsheet.

We use Excel to cleanup the data before import and prepare
(1) Always “index” your imports with some unique record ID.  In Excel, you can add an ID column, with data such as ADV001, ADV002.  By dragging the corner of the cell, Excel will complete the series.
(2) Use concatenation (e.g. =CONCATENATE(A2,” “,B2,” “,C2) ) to merge data from multiple columns.
(3) Use Cell Formatting on Dates and Numbers to get the “data” to look the way you want, and the “copy/paste” into a new column as text
(4) Replace the column heads with the Time Matters Core Field Name, or Field Label for the record type you will be importing.
(5) Mark as “DNC” for Do Not Code, any columns of data which you don’t wish to import.
(6) Search and remove all QUOTES “” in any of the cells, Except for Cells where there are Formulas
(7) When done, save worksheet to CSV.

When you are doing the import:
(1) Create a sample data set with only 2 or 3 records
(2) Save the Import Template and test it until it works perfectly.
(3) Then rerun the template, but change the data source to the full set
(4) Be sure to include the RecordID as a field you are importing, and set it as the matching field.  This is a critical step to avoiding the creation of duplicate records.

Flat World … Big Cloud

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Last week, I received a call from London.  An American lawyer, based in London, with clientele in Florida was setting up a firm “in the cloud”.  He was planning to use a Salesforce.com application for lawyers called AdvologixPM and an accounting service called Xero.com.  After some research, we discovered there was integration between Force.com and Xero, an accounting software package offered as a SaaS model (monthly fee) and hosted out of New Zealand.  After speaking to an accountant in Auckland, New Zealand, we were able to advise the client.  What makes it interesting in the “multinational” nature of this engagement made possible by “The Cloud” and requiring “no software installation”, but rather the engagement of “services.”

Here was a lawyer in London, contacting a consultant in New York, to assemble a practice management suite with “case data” hosted in the U.S. on Salesforce.com and “accounting data” hosting in New Zealand, to service clients in Florida and England.

Go figure this brave new world.

Wordle Revisited

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Apparently my experiment with Wordle did not change the results for HotDocs, XpressDocs, GhostFill, Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, and AdvologixPM. Perhaps, if I reorder the phrases HotDocs, XpressDocs, GhostFill, Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, and AdvologixPM so that they are alphabetical:  AdvologixPM, Amicus Attorney, DealBuilder, GhostFill, HotDocs, HoudiniESQ, Time Matters, XpressDocs.  Maybe if they are reverse alphabetical:  XpressDocs, Time Matters, HoudiniESQ, HotDocs, GhostFill, DealBuilder, Amicus Attorney, AdvologixPM, it will push me over. Alternatively, I can try them by word length:  Amicus Attorney, Time Matters, AdvologixPM, HoudiniESQ, GhostFill and HotDocs.

So … back to Wordle for the test.

Will let you know. I suspect the reason has to do with the fact that Wordle uses Google Analytics and it may be that the feed has not yet registered in Google.  Not sure if that is true, but will check back later.  Must return to real work.

The Open Source Manual

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We are going to try an experiment.  We are going to use Wiki technology – MediaWiki (the same used by Wikipedia) to create an open-source manual for Time Matters.  We will start out the core of it with our current knowledge of Time Matters.  We will require contributors to “register” in order to make contributions and revisions to the manual.  The hope is that this Wiki will fill the void between what is in the “help text” and what constitute “best practices”.

We will be making a general announcement later in the month when the Wiki is ready.  All contributions will be subject to a “Creative Commons” license.  That means that Basha Systems LLC as host will have license to use and republish any contributions submitted to the Wiki.  However, you will also be free to “republish” content and link to it, so long as that content contents source attribution and a hyperlink back to the website source for the article.

The more people contribute, the better the resource will become.  This Wiki is designed to “refine” the knowledge out there as to best practices and specific tips, using group-sourcing to improve on the content.

Wordle and Cloud Maps

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I recently WORDLED this blog.  It turned out the hot word was SAAS.  Even though our predominant focus is document assembly and workflow, those words did not show up.  HotDocs, XpressDocs, GhostFill, Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, and AdvologixPM did NOT show up. There was some mention of ContractExpress and DealBuilder.  This could be because Wordle focuses on the RSS feed which is the Summary para of the blog entry, and not the body.  It also could reflect that HotDocs, XpressDocs, GhostFill, Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, and AdvologixPM don’t have prominent mention in the summary. And so if I use the words: HotDocs, XpressDocs, GhostFill, Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, and AdvologixPM more often in my summaries, then it is likely that HotDocs, XpressDocs, GhostFill, Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, and AdvologixPM may show up more often.  And so I am testing Wordle to see how responsive it is for these words: HotDocs, XpressDocs, GhostFill, Time Matters, Amicus Attorney, and AdvologixPM.

My apologies for the redundancy, but I am checking an experiment.  This is also an advise to those using social media to pay special attention to Summary/Abstracts if they are targeting key words.

And yes, there is method to my madness.

Database Connection – Vista64 and Windows7

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Have you ever tried to add an Access database as a new “datasource” in Vista64 and Windows7? In most cases, you will go WINDOWS START -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Data Sources (ODBC).  When you click ADD, you will get SQL Native Client and SQL Server.  There will be NO opportunity to add Access or any of the OLDER data types.  These 32-bit datatypes are effectively banished from the system.  Quelle disaster!!!  Well we have a solution, one that is REAL EASY

Read moreDatabase Connection – Vista64 and Windows7