Does It Compute?

Finding Documents in Worldox

Many people use the “Direct Access” search to find documents in Worldox. This immediately finds all documents in the actual Worldox directory structure underlying the Profile. Normally, this means all documents assigned to a given client/matter. If you have a small number of documents in the matter, this is fine. Otherwise, however, especially in Worldox GX4, it is one of the most inefficient ways of locating documents (aside from actually trying to view them in “My Computer” or similar).

So what are the better ways? That depends on what you want to locate.

If you are on the Worldox display screen listing your documents, the Favorite Matters tab on the left lets you instantly find any of the matters you have worked on in the last 30 days. Like Direct Access but quicker and more efficient.

GX4 allows you to do a combined search for any text in either the description or text of a document simply by typing in the Search field. This is particularly useful for client names, for example. This search also displays the text hits in “snippets” à la Google. It also lets you find a specific document by ID number if you know it (for example if your firm typically prints the doc ID as a footer in documents.

Assuming you have created bookmark searches (firms should always have basic bookmarks created on a bookmark bar, just as you would do in a browser), you can narrow down a given search using boolean operators. One of the ones I find most useful, for example, is to search for all actual documents in a given matter but “NOT Email.” Similarly, you can find all documents of a given document type across matters or within a given date range.

If you go through the “Find” screen, doing a search requires 2 clicks (once on Find and once to select the Search Template). Using Bookmarks requires only 1 click – to select the Search Template.

You probably want to create an email Search Template which enables you to search easily on the To, From, or “either” fields to find any email that has been stored in Worldox. An associated List Display lets you also show the To and From addresses in the email.

Favorite Matters are rotating: every matter you have worked on in the last month. When you haven’t worked on something in a month, it drops off the list. However, if you manually mark a document as “Favorite” (with a red heart to the left of the document), it stays on the list forever. Therefore, you can manually mark documents that you use all the time as “Favorites” and have them instantly accessible with one click on the bookmark.

Getting Documents in and out of Worldox

Worldox GX4 has a number of improvements that make it considerably easier to get documents into and out of Worldox.

The first, and most obvious, is that when you save a document there is a box at the upper right corner of the Profile screen that says “Save Outside of Worldox.” Clicking on this brings up Windows Explorer. (Note that the profile has to be blank for this to work.) Some firms regard this as simply an encouragement to avoid using Worldox and either disable it, password it, or restrict it to certain people. If implemented it certainly does pose a threat to the integrity of the Worldox document store in that the firm can no longer be guaranteed that all documents are stored in Worldox.

Secondly, if you right-click on a document in the Worldox file list and select “Save As,” you see options to copy the document to your Desktop, My Computer, or a thumb drive if one is plugged into your computer. A new option in GX4 allows the firm to create a “Save As” which enables the user to browse their computer to select the location to which the file will be copied. If you are comfortable creating Send To commands, the “Run” line should read: %wdnetpath%\wdstwd.exe and the Parameters line should read: /pf="%@" /AsExport

GX4 also has major new functionality that facilitates getting documents into Worldox. You have always been able to drag and drop one or more files in the same directory to the WorkZone and copy them to Worldox. GX4 now adds a “Save to Worldox” function if you right click on a file in Windows Explorer. The big news is that if you right click on a directory and select “Save to Worldox” it will copy all the files in the directory and in all its sub-directories into Worldox. This means that if you receive a CD with a bunch of discover files, documentation, client files, etc., they can all be copied into Worldox in a single pass. There is the limitation that the files all have to be copied to the same client/matter/doc type, but the original path will be indicated in the comment field (in the form of  “copied from c:\discovery\ jones\bank information\statements\January 2015 statement.pdf.”), so that the audit trail for the documentation will remain intact.

Together, these provide a good example of the major improvements in ease of use that characterize Worldox GX4.

Using UNC paths in Worldox

Worldox now supports using UNC paths instead of mapped drive letters.  Why would you want to do this?  Two words:

Better security.

UNC paths give you better security in two significant ways:

1.  End users cannot access Worldox-managed documents outside of Worldox unless they specifically know what the UNC path is (which 99% of users will not be able to figure out). This means no more going behind Worldox’s back for Legacy or other files.  Users will no longer be able to see Worldox or Legacy documents using Windows Explorer or “My Computer” in Worldox.  In order to locate their documents, users must use Worldox.

Of course, if the firm does this, it may get some blowback from users determined to continue to use the massively inefficient Windows Explorer demanding to know “where are my documents.”

2. Protection against Ransomware. At present, current versions of Ransomware only search drive mappings. Therefore they would not be able to find or corrupt Worldox data using a UNC path. As Ransomware increases, this may change, but right now this is a relatively easy way to protect your firm at very little cost.

If you have an existing Worldox setup, this would be some work, as you would have to reconfigure Worldox and reinstall Worldox on all your PCs. For new setups it would be only a minimal amount of extra work.  If security is a major concern (and it should be), you may want to consider going the UNC route.

Is Windows 10 Really Worth It?

Despite massive (and sometimes underhanded) pressure from Microsoft to upgrade to Windows 10, there seem to be a growing number of people wondering whether it is really worth it.

Windows 10 is designed around tablet/touch screen use (hence all the oversize buttons), so if you get a Surface Pro 4 or similar, it makes sense. And of course, if you buy a new PC, Windows 10 will come with. But what if your primary use is various business applications and generating documents on a PC rather spending hours on organizing selfies on a tablet? If you do go with Windows 10, be sure to check out the Start10 menu system:  it gives you something much more useful that the Windows 10 menu.

As I have said many times, I always trust what Woody Leonhard has to say.  Here’s his conclusion:

“Is it time for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users to embrace Windows 10? It’s not a clear-cut decision. There’s no killer app, no killer service, and certain drawbacks (forced updates, snooping). Windows 10 is good and steadily improving, but not yet compelling. If you’re happy with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, and Anniversary Update’s key draws (such as Cortana and Windows Ink) don’t ring your chimes, you might as well stay put.”

A few days after that, Woody posted concerning a number of problems users have been experiencing with the anniversary update.

Look at Woody’s two posts on Windows 10: one on avoiding it entirely, and the other on avoiding the problems created by the Anniversary update.

So I now plan to wait until I upgrade my hardware to move to Windows 10.

Check out his reviews on InfoWorld.