Offline Viewing of Dropbox Files on Your iPad
Posted on January 23, 2012 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Time and Billing, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments
A client asked me a Dropbox question this week. I should have known the answer but the question had never occurred to me before. I had to figure it out. These types of questions make great blog posts. If one person is asking the question, there are probably more.
The client was boarding a plane in a few hours. For the first time, he planned to take his iPad rather than his laptop. He had copied a number of documents tha
t he needed to Dropbox. However, when he disconnected from his wireless network, he could not access the documents. They were only available when connected to the Internet. He wanted to review these documents while on the plane. How, he asked, could he save a local copy of the documents on his iPad?
The answer is simple but I did not know it until I looked it up. Dropbox files are not automatically saved to the iPad. In order to save a file locally on your iPad, it must be indicated as a Favorite. You indicate a file as a Favorite by highlighting it in Dropbox and tapping the star in the upper right of the screen.
One more thing. In the Dropbox settings on your iPad, there is a Local Storage setting. By default, this is set a 500MB. If you need to store a lot of files locally on your iPad, you may need to adjust this setting.
For those of you who have never tried Dropbox, it is a useful tool. It allows you to share files between your desktops, laptops, tablets and smart phones. If you sign up using this link, you can get 2GB of free storage and I get 250MB of additional storage for my account.
Chrometa Helps You Capture Your Time
Posted on January 19, 2012 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Applications, Cool Stuff, Law Practice Management | Leave a Comment
Have you ever had one of those days where you were busy all day? You moved from one item to the next, dealt with interruptions and was able to get a lot of work done. Problem is, you look down at your timesheet and it is almost blank. You try to reconstruct your day but all you can really come up with is about 5 hours when you know you were busy for 8. Where did that time go?
Entering your time immediately after you finish each task is the way to go. We all know that. The problem is that this is not always realistic. Emails are pouring in, you are switching between applications and you get into a rhythm as you do things. Entering your time breaks that rhythm. Many legal billing applications have timers - PCLaw and PracticeMaster have very good ones. These work but you still have to start each time entry and classify it at the beginning when you start timing it. This helps but, at least for me, it does not completely solve the problem.
Enter Chrometa (http://www.chrometa.com). For a small monthly fee, Chrometa monitors my computer. It determines which window is active and automatically records the time I spend in that window. It uses information from the active program to specifically identify that time. For example, if I write an email to my Lawtopia partner Carol Schlein with the subject line “Chrometa Is Really Awesome,” Chrometa will record how much time I spent on that specific email. Same for documents (where it uses the document name) and Internet browsing (where it records the site and time spent on it). Periodically, everything is sent to Chrometa where I can view all of my time. I can even switch computers although I have to remember to pause Chrometa on the computer I am leaving or it will record me as away.
At the end of the day, I log in to my Chrometa account and all of my time is there. From there I can check which items belong to specific clients. If, for example, I worked on an email and reviewed a document for a client, I simply check both entries and assign them to that client. I can annotate the entry before I assign them. Once everything is assigned, I can export a report to Excel that groups all of my time by client. Chrometa also has built in exports to several legal billing systems as well as .csv for exporting to just about anything. I will cover those in another post.
Chrometa is a very useful tool. It does not replace my billing system but it compliments it very nicely. I spend most of my time at my computer and Chrometa helps me keep an accurate record of everything I do. It also allows me get things done without the immediate need to stop and record it. Now I know where my time is going.
View Menu Settings in Time Matters Records
Posted on November 9, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Time Matters, Tips and Tricks | Leave a Comment
Today, while I was doing a webinar for the Time Matters Virtual User Group, a question was asked about hiding several fields on the Billing Form. Specifically, the user was interested in hiding the Date and Code fields at the top of the form. In answering the question, I discussed a feature of Time Matters that many users don’t seem to be aware of.
All Time Matters records have a “View” Menu. The View Menu allows you to show or hide different areas of the form. For example, on the Billing Form, you have options to display or hide the Reminders Area, Notify Area, Record Information, Rate and Override Areas and User Areas. The specific areas available for display vary from record type to record type. Areas that are not checked do not appear on the Billing Form. To answer the question for our webinar attendee, I suggested they uncheck Record Information as this would hide the Date, Time, Duration and Code area of the Billing Form.
Time Matters Billing Record View Menu
It is important to understand that “View” selections do not actually remove the fields. You are simply deciding not to view them when you look at a particular form.
Also, keep in mind that this is a user level setting. Hiding an area for one person does not hide it for anyone else, so you will have to go around station to station if you want to make the change for everyone. It is possible to copy the setting using the User Level Setup Copy function. In this case, you would be copying Form Settings. Just be aware that you might overwrite other Form level settings if you use that feature.
10 Ways to Minimize Risk When Running A Law Firm Webinar
Posted on October 21, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under KPM News, Lawtopia News | Leave a Comment
On November 10, I will be doing a webinar entitled 10 Ways to Minimize Risk When Running a Law Firm. I will be presenting along with Christopher T. Anderson, a Georgia attorney who is now the Product Manager for LexisNexis Firm Manager. The webinar is sponsored by LexisNexis.
Here is the description of the webinar:
As an owner of a law firm, it’s critical that due diligence is being used to minimize risk for you and your law firm. After all, it is your professional responsibility to ensure you are keeping complete and accurate records of your client and matter activities, protecting client privileged information i.e. backing up the data, restricting access to information and knowing who works for you. Learn what some of the biggest reported disciplinary actions are today and how you can prevent them from occurring in your law firm.
Here is the link to register for the webinar.
Wisconsin Solo and Small Firm Conference is Next Week
Posted on October 19, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under KPM News, Lawtopia News | Leave a Comment
There is still time to register for next week’s Wisconsin Solo and Small Firm Conference at the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells.
The WSSF is my favorite (and busiest) conference of the year. This time around I will be speaking four times on a variety of topics including Legal Forms, The Ethics of Cloud Computing, Adobe Acrobat and Remote Computing. You can take a look at the conference website for more details or visit the Events list at Krause Practice Management Facebook Fan Page for more information. I am also chairing the Technology Track along with Sean Sweeney this year. The technology track committee has put together a nice selection of topics.
I am also looking forward to the presentation by my friend and business coach Chris Carman of ActionCoach Elm Grove. It is not in the technology track so I am going to have to find a way to sneak off for a bit and listen in on “7 Secrets to Running Your Practice.”
As usual, Krause Practice Management will be exhibiting this year. My schedule is so packed that I have asked my Lawtopia partner Dan Hutchison to come down from Minneapolis and give me a hand in the booth.
I am sure this year’s show will be another great success and I hope to see you there.
Richard Kessler Talks Business at GrowthClub
Posted on October 8, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under KPM News | Leave a Comment
Yesterday, at my quarterly ActionCoach GrowthClub event, I had the pleasure to listen to guest speaker Richard Kessler of Kessler’s Diamonds here in Milwaukee. It was great to put a face to the thousands (literally) of radio ads I have heard over the years but even better to hear his story.
He started with one struggling store and his company now sells more diamonds than anyone else in Wisconsin. In part, he credited his success to changing his mindset and creating a niche for his company. How do you create a niche? In his case, he did it by listing all of the things he hated about traditional jewelry stores and doing the opposite. Another large part of his success was his company’s dedication to its one goal. He gave many examples of people trying to get him to sell watches or other jewelry but he always went back to the company slogan. ”We do diamonds better because diamonds are all we do.”
Great speaker, great story.
Hiding Fields in Time Matters
Posted on October 4, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Time Matters, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments
Every Time Matters user knows that the program is extremely customizable. However, many overlook one of the most important aspects of customization – what do you do with all of the fields you are not using?
You can’t just leave these fields on your Form Styles with their factory settings as text fields labeled Custom13, etc. Doing so just invites trouble. If there is anything I have learned in years of working with Time Matters, it is that non-customized, empty fields attract bad data. There is something about an empty field that makes people want to put something there. To make things worse, the data they put there tends to be different depending on who is entering it. One person decides that Custom13 is the perfect place to enter the statute of limitations date for their cases while another decides that they should be entering the referral source in the same field. At best, this leads to confusion. At worst, valuable data is compromised.
It is very easy to hide fields in Time Matters. Simply right click on the field, select Customize Field.
Right Click for Customization
When the customization screen appears, select “Hidden” in the lower left.
Time Matters Field Customization
You can also hide entire areas of the form. When you right click on a field, select Customize Area. Click the area to highlight it and change the Area Type in the upper right to Hidden Area.
Time Matters Area Customization
Here is one last tip on hidden fields. Change the label to something that indicates it is not used. I have seen some firms label the fields NotUsed, NU, or nu depending on the firm. Why is this important? When you are setting up a Formattable Clipboard, Triggers or any other feature where you need to select fields, it helps to have the unused fields labeled in a way that immediately tells you they are not being used for anything.
Manually Clearing Favorite Files in Worldox GX2
Posted on September 4, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Worldox | Leave a Comment
Worldox has a great feature called Favorite Files. Favorite Files track the documents you have opened or saved recently. It is accessible from the “Heart” icon on the toolbar.
I have had a lot of people tell me recently that their Favorite Files has too many files listed and takes too long to load. My Lawtopia partner, Craig Bayer, tells me that he has several clients asking the same question. There is a setting under Edit - Preferences that allows you to lower the number of Favorites. However, recently, this does not seem to actually make any difference for any client that I have shown it to. Everyone who has mentioned this to me is a Worldox GX2 user.
However, you can easily remove files from your Favorite Files list and make it load much faster. For example, let’s say your favorite files list contains 250 files and takes five seconds to load. Here are the steps for paring it down:
- Open your Favorite Files list
- Sort the list by Modified date with the newest at the top
- Scroll down and select a file around 15 or 30 days out depending on how far back you would like to see your Favorites list
- Click the file
- Hold down the Shift key and scroll down to the bottom of the list
- Click the bottom file
- All files from your selection to the bottom of the list will now have a check mark
- Right click in the list
- Select Edit, Favorite Files and Remove
- Follow the prompts
If you follow this process, the selected files will be removed from your Favorite Files and your list will load much faster. Of course, you can uncheck some files before you remove them if you want a few older files in your list or search for them and open them the next time you need it. Do this periodically and you can keep your favorite files list much smaller.
Law Technology News Article on Billing Matters Sunrise
Posted on August 17, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Tech News, Time and Billing | Leave a Comment
Law Technology News published an article on their website today entitled Lexis Changes Course, Keeps Billing Matters Software. In the article, Jonah Paransky, Vice President and General Manager of Practice Management explains some of the reasons for the decision.
“We learn about our market as we go. At the time we believed that we could transition those customers to other billing options in our portfolio and provide them with an experience that would be different and still meet their needs. That transistion was going to be more difficult for our customers and our partners than we expected”
So, in other words, LexisNexis listened to their customers and consultants, and changed their strategy accordingly. That makes sense to me. Not only do I agree with this - I lobbied for it.
Nevertheless, as I predicted in my post earlier this week Lexis Decides to Sunrise Billing Matters, there are naysayers. In the same Law Technology News article, former LexisNexis CIC John Heckman is also quoted:
“I think they’re right that they have not been able to transition people from Billing Matters to PCLAw. On the other hand, Billing Matters was always a second-rate program. It was very buggy. There was, in fact, a utility that they had to develop to fix general ledger balances because it would be out-of-whack.”
I disagree with this statement for several reasons. Despite some issues with the accounting functions, Billing Matters has always been a powerful easy-to-use billing system. I have many satisfied clients using the billing functions of Billing Matters because it so seamlessly integrates with Time Matters and is very customizable. It is far from second-rate if those are the features you are looking for in your billing system. Furthermore, fixing general ledger balances refers to issues with the accounting aspect of the program - the part that LexisNexis still intends to sunset. With the accounting portion turned off, Billing Matters was no more buggy than other programs and that was before some of the stability improvements I have seen in Time Matters in versions 10 and 11. LexisNexis has recognized that the billing functions of Billing Matters are critical to their customers and has decided not to sunset those components. That’s good news to me.
I am not trying to be a shill for LexisNexis here. I install and support Tabs3 and the other great products from Software Technology Inc. and will continue to do so. At least one of my Lawtopia partners supports just about every legal billing system on the market. The simple truth is that this decision by LexisNexis is a great relief to many of my clients who did not want to switch from Billing Matters when it was sunsetted.
LexisNexis Decides to Sunrise Billing Matters Billing
Posted on August 15, 2011 by Jeff Krause
Filed Under Legal News, Tech News, Time and Billing | Leave a Comment
LexisNexis announced this morning that it has decided to “sunrise” the billing component of Billing Matters. Previously, they had announced the sunset of the entire Billing Matters program at the end of 2013. Today’s announcement means that they will continue with their plans to sunset the accounting portion of the program but retain and further develop the billing portion.
I welcome this announcement. Over the years, I have installed Billing Matters for many of my clients as a companion to Time Matters. Billing Matters is easy to use, does everything most smaller firms need in a billing program and fully and seamlessly works with Time Matters. I rarely implemented the accounting portion of the program, primarily because Billing Matters was initially released without accounting and I had found that the QuickBooks link worked so well. In fact, Billing Matters has one of the industry’s best links to QuickBooks. It allows all billing functions to take place in Billing Matters while payables and general ledger information are sent to QuickBooks.
Personally, I have suggested this solution from the moment LexisNexis announced the sunset of Billing Matters. Collectively, Lawtopia made a coordinated push this year, asking LexisNexis to keep the billing component of Time Matters. I suspect other consultants made similar appeals. All along, our reasoning was that the billing functions of Billing Matters work very well and it is the best solution for small firms using Time Matters. Many of us had personal reasons as well - we use it for our own billing.
I can already hear the naysayers regarding this announcement. They will say that LexisNexis is changing its mind - again. They will say that this is happening because LexisNexis was unable to make the link between Time Matters and PCLaw work as promised. Those statements may be true but the fact remains that this is the right decision. If you believe that the original decision was a mistake, can you really fault LexisNexis for correcting that mistake? When was the last time a large corporation actually listened to its customers and reversed a management decision?
If you would like more information, here is a link to an FAQ from LexisNexis regarding the announcement. Now that Billing Matters is back, I am looking forward to writing a series of blog posts detailing some of my favorite features of Billing Matters.
