Does It Compute?

Worldox and SEC Filings

A couple of clients have told me that the SEC has recently changed its filing requirements for the format of PDF documents, apparently requiring that they be stripped of metadata. Since Worldox inserts metadata into documents when it saves them, this means that you can no longer upload documents directly from Worldox to the SEC site.

In this case, firms will have to use one of two approaches. First, re-save the PDF using the “Save Outside Worldox” function to copy a document outside Worldox, then optimize it for filing to the SEC, then upload it. Many firms block the “Save Outside Worldox” function for most users. For those firms, the function will have to be enabled for those users in charge of filing to the SEC. If extra security is wished, the “Save Outside Worldox” function can be passworded, so that users will have to enter a password in order to use it.

Alternatively, use the “Send To” command to copy the PDF to the local drive. Then open it, optimize it and resave it prior to uploading to the SEC.

Worldox: Felt Needs and Real Needs

I was correcting the page proofs of the third edition of my “Worldox in One Hour for Lawyers” book (out approx. Sept. 1!) and saw that the proofreader had questioned the word “felt” in the phrase “depends on the firm’s culture and felt needs.”

Yes, there is a difference between felt needs and actual needs. As it happened, somebody presented me with a classic case of the difference the same day.

Some lawyers at a firm that has been running Worldox for a couple of years have expressed a “felt need” for a directory structure and complain that Worldox doesn’t work like this.

As I’ve said many times, if you consider your document store as a gigantic book and you want to located something, there are three ways too do it:

1. Read the book. Obviously very slow.
2. Look through the table of contents (like scrolling up and down a folder tree). Better but still slow.
3. Use a hyperlinked index. Fast and efficient.

So if working with the Worldox index is faster and more productive that scrolling up and down a directory structure (an equivalent of which is provided by Document Types in any event), why is there a “felt need” for a directory structure?

There would seem to be two answers to this. The first is simply “it’s what I’m used to.” But, as one of my clients once said, lawyers have to make changes to their practice all the time to adapt to new laws and standards, why shouldn’t they be willing to make changes based on new or better software and practices? The second answer is more interesting. If you have a manual directory structure you are not tied to firm standards, you can make up any sub-folders you want to meet your momentary needs. This seems reasonable until there are more than one or two people who are using your files. The firm doesn’t have to be very large before “do your own thing” conflicts with the needs of the firm to enable all users to access documents efficiently. So the individual’s “felt need” conflicts very quickly with the needs of the firm. There are, of course, dysfunctional firms that are really just a collection of disparate attorneys where “felt needs” rule, but most successful firms try to adapt some sort of centralized standards of practice.

“Felt needs” certain exit, but they very often conflict with the objective needs of the firm to be as efficient and productive as possible in dealing with their documents (which are, after all, the main “product” of a law firm).

Viewing MRIs from Worldox

Clients occasionally ask me if there is a way to use Worldox to manage information from MRI scans or similar that they receive on a CD/DVD with self-contained viewers/programs to access the information.

Because the disc contains multiple subdirectories and all the files needed to run the built-in program, it cannot just be copied into Worldox. Worldox deals directly with files, not with programs.

It turns out there is a simple, albeit retro lo-tech, way to do this. Copy the entire DVD including the program/viewers and all the files to a separate location on the server. I copied the entire DVD to W:\MRI\jhmri. The viewing program was called efilmlt.exe (a very common MRI viewer program) and was located in the efilmlite subdirectory on the DVD.

Then I created a batch file called “jhmri.bat” using notepad. The file contained a single line needed to run the viewer program: W:\mri\jhmri\efilmlite\efilmlt.exe

Then copy the batch file (in my case “jhmri.bat”) to Worldox and label it appropriately. A good practice would be the name of the MRI center and the date of the MRI. Double clicking on that document will run the program.

You may need to get help creating a batch file, as it is somewhat old school (did you ever wonder why there are so many management tasks that you can easily still do in dos but not in windows?). Also, depending on your settings, the file may just open in Notepad. In that case you may need to get someone to edit the registry to fix a setting (you need to delete the
Hkey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\File
Exts\.bat). Do not try to do this if you are not sure how to do it.

Worldox Categories - Document Status

Many users find it difficult to get a handle on Worldox categories. What exactly are they good for and how are they different from doctypes?

After struggling myself to explain this adequately to clients, I finally had a Eureka! moment a while ago.

DocTypes describe what kind of document it is: Letter, Pleading, Contract, etc.

Categories describe the status of a given document: Needs Review, Executed Copy, “Finished Treating” for PI/Workers Comp firms, Partially Discoverable, etc. That is also why multiple Categories can be assigned to a given document.

So a document with a DocType of “Contract” could have Category (status) of Needs Review, Executed Copy, etc.

The beauty of Categories is that you can assign more than one to a given document. For example, a paperless firm might assign incoming mail, in addition to a doctype, to a category (status) such as JH_incoming. The attorney (JH) can then search for all their incoming document, process them, and remove the category.