Worldox GX3 has been out for several months now. Should you upgrade? Or better, assuming a firm will do it sooner or later, how high should it be on the list of priorities?
Structural Changes
There is a newer version of indexing program (ISYS). Especially for firms with large databases, this will result in much faster builds of the indexes. In addition, the viewers are much better: I had documents that the old viewer did not display correctly at all but the new viewers saw with no problems. For some firms, this will be sufficient reason to upgrade rather sooner than later. If a firm is using Web/Mobile, that will have to be patched as well in order to access the new databases.
Legal Hold
If a firm needs Legal Hold capabilities, they will probably need them badly. A “Legal Hold” is the process a firm uses to preserve all forms of relevant information when litigation is reasonably anticipated. While this will include much more than just not deleting documents and emails on your server (backup tapes, for example), Worldox now has the ability to mark documents and emails stored in Worldox for “Legal Hold.” This places them in a reserved area where than can be viewed, but not edited or changed in any way. By identifying relevant documents and marking them for “Legal Hold,” a firm should satisfy a major portion of legal hold requirements (just as a document management system such as Worldox gives a firm a step up in terms of Electronic Discovery).
End User Changes
There are also a number of changes more obvious to the end user. For example, the toolbar can now be customized to get rid of the clutter of buttons you never use.
The main change, however, is the addition of an Outlook-style Navigation Pane to the left of the file list. This contains buttons for Favorite Matters (a new addition that extends the “Favorites” tab on search screens), Bookmarks, Profiles, My Computer and My Workspaces.
The Favorite Matters tab lists the matters you have consulted recently. It can grow to be a bit unwieldy, but you can easily remove matters you are no longer actively involved with. This, like other elements on the Navigation Pane, is a directory search, so the functionality of full boolean searching is not available here.
The Bookmarks button lets you display more bookmarks than generally fit on the bookmark bar, so that the dichotomy between the bookmark bar and the bookmark menu item is removed.
The Profile button lists client/matters available under the various profiles your firm has, while My Computer lists a standard, internet explorer type directory tree.
Lastly, if the firm makes significant use of Projects, they are now very much easier to organize and access than previously. This works best if you set up a separate “Project” profile group, because My Workspace, like other items, is directory based on search-based. Heavy users of Projects might find this feature sufficient reason to upgrade.
The tabs that are displayed here are customizable, so that some can be removed and the order can be changed. Lastly, all these items can be set to expand when you hover the mouse over them so that you do not take up valuable screen real estate except when you need to.
Does all this add up to a good reason to upgrade. For certain firms, especially larger firms, yes. For other firms, it should definitely be on the list but perhaps not at the top. And don’t forget, with a Worldox maintenance contract, there is no charge for the software.