Does It Compute?

Worldox and Zip Files

I am frequently asked how to deal with Zip files in Worldox. The most common problem people have is that you cannot extract the content of a zip file directly into Worldox. You have to extract the documents and THEN import them into Worldox. While you can save a zip file to Worldox you cannot extract the contents without extracting it separately and re-importing to Worldox.

However, once you do extract the files, you can bulk import them into Worldox in one of two ways. First, you can simply select multiple files, drag them to the Worldox WorkZone (that little icon normally at the top center of your screen) and import them. Most firms have limits on the number of documents that can be imported at one time, although that can be adjusted. Also, all the documents have to be imported to the same Client/Matter/DocType.

Perhaps more usefully, in Worldox GX4, if you right click on the folder containing the documents (for example, from a document production), you can import all the contents AND any subfolders into Worldox into a single pass. A comment will be assigned to each document that tells you the original path of the document.

If you want to be able to sort the documents by the original folders and subfolders, create a Worldox display that includes a “comments” field. When you sort on this field, the documents will sort according to the original folder structure. This trick is useful for any set of documents bulk imported from some folder tree.

Worldox - Processing the Mail during Covid-19

Most firms have instituted working from home, in part or all during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some have skeleton (and/or rotating) staffs to do things that cannot be done electronically such as processing incoming mail. Worldox offers an efficient way to do this while minimizing contact.

Assume you can get the actual physical mail, either in the office, forwarded to a home, or picked up at the Post Office. The person in charge of this gets the mail and scans it into Worldox, either in the office or in a small home scanner such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap ix1500. They then save the scan to Worldox either to where it should go or to a temporary location (“incoming mail”).

Now here’s the nifty part. Create a “category” in Worldox GX4 for each attorney and staff member: atty1review; atty2review; paralegal1review, etc. These categories are searchable.

So when atty1 logs in remotely, they do a search for the category “atty1review.”This will bring up all the documents marked for review. Review the document as needed and, when done, remove the category from the document. Since you can assign more than one category to a document (unlike doctypes, where there can only be one doctype per document), the intake person could assign review categories to more than one person. You might even create a personal bookmark for “review documents” for ease of use. That way, you can check on all incoming mail that needs your review with a single click on the bookmark.

This minimizes contact and is considerably more efficient than, for example, emailing the documents to be reviewed to one or more attorneys, who then not only have to review them but process them as well.

Optimizing Workflow in Worldox

Firms considering Worldox or reviewing their configuration frequently start from a “look and feel.” Users want (or think they want) Worldox to look like the so-called “modern” systems like NetDocs or iManage (which in turn usually look like windows explorer-type folder structure).
This is a mistake. The question to ask yourself is: what do you want Worldox (or any other system) to DO? What is your standard workflow? You can then match the look and feel to the workflow, not the other way around. What is the request you most often want to make of the system? Rather than thinking of your documents as if Worldox were a glorified windows explorer system, think of it as Google for your documents. Take advantage of the indexed searches.

• Show me all the documents for a given matter.
• Show me all documents of a certain type – pleadings, agreements, retainers, etc.
• Show me all the documents I worked on in the last 7 days.
• Show me all documents containing given names, terms, etc. (very useful for conflict checking).
• Documents satisfying more advanced (boolean) critera: a certain type of document containing certain language in a given date range.

Worldox offers a variety of configuration shortcuts that let you tailor it to what you need, including on an individual user basis.

The first and most flexible is Bookmarks. Bookmarks let you bring up a pre-configured search screen and fill in what you need. This will always save you at least several clicks over the basic “search” icon. This lets you customize a search extensively and searching based on a table/index is always going to be more efficient than scrolling through a folder tree. Many people just look for all the documents in a given matter. This frequently produces more documents than can be dealt with conveniently.

Which leads to the second option: Filters. There is a “Filter” tab at the bottom left of the Worldox screen. Clicking on it lets you see all the metadata for the documents on the screen. This lets you sub-select by doc type, actual type of document (*.xlsx, *.pdf, etc.), Worldox categories, etc. You can do a quick secondary search without having to actually fire up a search request again.

One of the most common options is “Favorite Matters.” These are everything you have accessed recently at the left tab of the Worldox screen. There is a serious caveat here. These show up ONLY things that are actual directories. So if your DocTypes are not actual directories, you can see only matters, not doc types. Conversely, if your DocTypes ARE directories, you can only locate a single doc type at a time, you cannot bring up all the documents for a given matter. This is a good reason NOT to configure DocTypes as folders on your system.

Unlike some systems, Worldox does not allow users to create random sub-folders in a given matter independent of the indexed metadata. However, it does offer an equivalent in Workspaces. Workspaces lets you create collections of documents that may or may not be otherwise linked in an organized fashion. The most typical examples of this are various kinds of lists of documents: Closing Binders in real estate, lists of Exhibits or other ancillary documents, collections of the same type of documents drawn from different matters, etc. You might also use Workspaces to collect a variety of boilerplate provisions.

Lastly, there is a quick and dirty search. If you know a doc id number (many firms print them at the bottom of the page) you can just plug it in to the Search field at the top right of the display and the document will pop right up. This field also lets you do a quick search for any given word or term that occurs either in a document name or in the text of any document on your Worldox system.