Does It Compute?

Search Strategies in Worldox

One of the most central questions users have with regard to Worldox is: what is the fastest and most convenient way to find my documents? While to some extent this is a matter of user preference, and the “most convenient” way to find documents for some users may not be the fastest, there are some underlying principles.

There are basically three types of search strategies: broad, narrow, and pre-configured.

Broad. The primary “broad” search responds to the query: find me all the documents for a given matter. The two quickest ways to do this are via Direct Access, which bypasses the index and goes directly to the matter directory (assuming the client has not configured their system to have doctypes be a directory) or by clicking on a “Favorite Matter” in the tab at the left of the Worldox screen.

This works well if a matter has 20 documents. Not so well if it has 200 or 2,000 documents. In that case you a second step to narrow the search. There are several configuration settings and other options that can help. Most firms set search results to display in descending order chronologically by date modified. This puts the most recently used documents at the top, so if the document you are looking for has been used recently it will be toward the top. Clicking on the column header sorts documents by that column, so if you click on “Description” documents will be sorted by description.

A more effective way to narrow down a large number of search results is to use the “Filter” tab at the bottom left of the Worldox screen. This lets you select only certain doc types, documents used by specific users, etc. and display just those documents. It also lets you eliminate certain doc types (email, for example, tends to clog up search results).

Narrow. Most firms have search templates defined (hopefully installed on a bookmark bar for ease of use). A search template lets you narrow down a search using boolean operators and any field in the template. Here are some examples:
• Find just a specific document type within a matter (pleading, real estate closing documents, court filings, etc.)
• Find a specific document type containing certain words across matters. For example, if you remember a specific clause, but not the case. All documents in Worldox are full-text indexed and searchable (assuming your PDF’s have been OCR’d). Thus you could search for all pleadings containing “not jurisdictional” and “failure to state.” Or “thumb” w/10 (within 10 words of) “amputate”.
• Find documents within a specific time frame: The last 2 weeks, the last 6 months, or Jan. 1 through June 30, 2010.
There are many more combinations. In the age of Google, most people understand that you may need several formulations to find exactly what you are looking for.

Text Search. Text search is a special case. Just above the file listing in the Worldox screen, there is an input field next to a small binoculars icon, which probably says “Find Doc ID or Desc/Comments.” This will do a search for anything contained in a document description OR in the text of a document. This lets you do both very broad and narrow searches. For example, if you have a real estate practice and search for “easement” you may turn up thousands of documents. However, if you search for “drainage easement” AND “Erwin Road” you are likely to find the half dozen or so documents you want.

The ultimate “narrow” search is for a specific document id. If you know the doc id and type the number in this field (you don’t need leading zeros or the document extension), you will pop up the specific document you are looking for.

Pre-configured searches. Just about everybody has searches they do repeatedly or documents they use on a regular basis. The best way to access these documents is through pre-configured searches, “bookmarks” normally displayed on a bookmark bar (similar to bookmarks in a browser). Call me old school, but in my view any reasonably well-configured Worldox installation has a bookmark bar. For instructions on creating a bookmark that uses the same search over and over, click here to see my blog from last April.

A special case of pre-configured searches is the “My Favorites” function. If you click on the “favorite files” tab at the left of the Worldox display, you will see all the documents you have used in the last 30 days. This is a rotating list: if a document is not used for 30 days, it drops off the list. However, you can manually mark a document so that it stays a “favorite” forever, under the “Added” function (with a red heart). To implement a canned search for these documents, click on the left-most icon in the line listing the document once or twice so that it turns pink and then red. If you click on the “Added” documents so that all those documents appear, you can create a bookmark called “My Favs” (or whatever). Then, all those documents you use all the time will appear with a single click.

There are more detailed options such as Categories, but implementing some of the above suggestions should make you more efficient at finding the documents you need more quickly.

 

Worldox - Direct Access to matters

Every so often a client calls saying that the firm’s indexer is down. The main symptom is that while documents a given user has worked on recently come up on their “Home” screen, searching for those documents does not work.

Usually, this is something that a consultant, or trained administrator can fix fairly quickly. In the meantime, however, what are the workarounds?

The easiest workaround involves Direct Access. As the name implies, Direct Access goes directly to the directory where the client/matters are stored, bypassing the indexes. Thus if you use Direct Access (usually a button on the ribbon bar at the top of your screen) to look for a given matter, all the documents for that matter will show up (but there is no ability to refine the search).

Similarly, if you are someone who likes to use the “Cabinets” option on the pane to the left of the main Worldox window, you can scroll up and down through the client/matters just as you would using Windows Explorer (very inefficient, but workable in a pinch).

There is another nifty little trick for Direct Access. When the cursor is on a given file in the Worldox window, if you click on Direct Access, it will prefill the client/matter for that document, and you can see all the documents for that matter in a single click.

Direct Access is something of a “brute force” option in that it doesn’t let you narrow down the files you are looking for (a certain document type, excluding email using the boolean “NOT” command – “NOT email”), but in these instances it can be a life saver.

Document Dates in Worldox

I recently had a client call to complain that Worldox “wasn’t saving” attachments to emails. She would right-click on the attachment, do a “save as,” fill out the Worldox profile, but then the document “wasn’t there.”

After a certain amount of head-scratching, it turned out that the document was indeed there (Worldox virtually never “loses” a document, and on those rare occasions that it does, there is usually a network issue involved). The problem had to do with the way Worldox treats document dates.

Worldox piggy-backs on the Windows operating system. When you save a document, Windows gives it the current date. If you re-save the document, the date is updated. So the date you see ascribed to a document is the date you last worked on and saved it. However, when you copy a document, Windows preserves the original date of the document (after all, you haven’t actually worked on it, just taken it from somewhere else).

So if you save an attachment to Outlook without opening it, you are copying it and Worldox/Windows preserves the original date. In most cases, people email a document as soon as they have finished working on it, but in this case the document was a week old. Therefore it didn’t appear at the top of the file list, which was organized in descending order by date modified. Most firms organize their documents this way, since you most often want to consult documents you have just been working on.

There are a couple of other document date issues to be aware of. If you use the Worldox Copy/Move function to put an email into Worldox, it copies the email and preserves the original date of the email. However if you drag and drop an email to Worldox via the Workzone, it changes the date of the email to the current date. If you save your emails as soon as they come in, this is not an issue, but if you are going back and saving all the emails for a given client for the last week or even month, and drag and drop them to Worldox, they will all be given the current date, which is obviously a disaster for record-keeping. DO NOT drag and drop emails to the WorkZone!

For firms that do a lot of court filings there can be a discrepancy between the last time a document was worked on and when it was filed. A document might be finished a day or two before it is sent to a client. Usually this is not an issue. However, some firms want to be able to reliably access the date filed and create an additional field in Worldox called “Date Filed” or “Doc Date.” The advantage to doing this is that the firm preserves exactly and reliably the date of the document or the date it was filed (assuming that users fill in the field correctly, which might be a questionable assumption). The disadvantage is that it is an extra step users must complete and is open to user error (unlike date modified, which is determined automatically by the operating system).

 

The ROI of Additional Training

Most firms, when they install new software, so some sort of training. The results of which are frequently abysmal, as Casey Flaherty demonstrated with his “Legal Tech Audit” several years ago. Add to this the new Bar Association requirements in many states that attorneys be more or less computer literate, and you have a training issue. My experience is mainly with Worldox, but the following is applicable to most software programs.

After the initial training, most firms don’t do any follow-up training or refresher training after a period of time. New hires frequently have to "muddle through" with ad hoc assistance from other users. Refresher training generally serves three purposes:

1) It lets users ask specific questions they might have and customize the program to meet their particular needs.
2) It helps establish a minimum level of competency and bring users up to speed. It will also fill in the gaps for new users without much formal training.
3) It allows for the introduction of new and/or advanced features that may not have been covered initially.

So why don’t more firms do this? Aside from simple inertia, objections to refresher training tend to invoke two main arguments.

The first is: we’re too busy. Aside from periods of peak activity, this argument is oxymoronic, since it boils down to the following statement: “we’re too busy to do anything that will increase efficiency and productivity and consequently become less busy.”

The second argument is: it’s too expensive. This is much more interesting, if equally fallacious. Most smaller firms don’t do a lot of ROI (Return On Investment) analysis, but consider the following: An hour or two of training for, say, 6 people, will cost $200-400. If each of those 6 people save 6 minutes a day, or 30 minutes a week, the total time savings for the firm is 25 hours per year per person, or 150 hours. If you assume a conservative pro forma billing rate for assistants and paralegals of $50/hour, then the time savings per year is $7,500. Cut the time savings in half and you still have a substantial gain.

Equally important is the decrease in frustration and aggravation that better training accomplishes. Many studies show that happier people are more productive.

So in reality the question is not: what does it cost to do refresher training, but what does it cost a firm NOT to train. Firms need to be proactive in this area.

 

Creating a My Favs List in Worldox

Everybody has files that they use all the time – boilerplate, lists, forms, spreadsheets. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to see a list of all those files with a single click? Turns out that’s easy.

Worldox GX4 lists all the files you have worked on for the last 30 days by file type under the “Favorite Files” tab. If you do not work on a file for 30 days, it drops off the list. There is a little pink heart next to these files in the Worldox list display.

If you manually select a file by clicking on the icon to the left of the file listing so that it turns red, it becomes a permanent “favorite,” and always stays on the list. If you look at the “Favorite Files” list, these files appear at the bottom under “Added.” Click on the “added” icon and they appear in the Worldox file list.

With the files displayed, make a bookmark for them by right-clicking on any blank space on the bookmark bar and selecting “add this list.” Call it “My Favs” (for example).

Then, all those files you use all the time that you have marked appear with a single click on the “My Favs” bookmark.

Manipulating Worldox Searches

Many clients limit their search options to “Direct Access” which just brings up all the files for a given matter (depending on how your system is configured). This is fine for matters with a relatively small number of documents, but what about larger matters, large litigations, etc.

Once you get an initial sort done, how can you process the results? Many clients ask if they can do a secondary sort/search on the results of an initial search. Depending on exactly what you want to do, there are several options for doing this.

One convenient option is via the “Filters” tab at the bottom left of the screen. This will bring up a screen that lets you select specific options, such as particular file types (*.xlsx, etc.), and bring up just those files. The bigger the type the more files fulfill that criteria. By default, this lets you select a particular option. However, if you click on the little green circle with a “+” sign at the left of a line it changes to a red “-” sign and lets you exclude certain items, such as emails (*.msg files).

Within the Worldox display, you can sort on any column by clicking on the column header desired. You can also sort by a second column in addition to the first column that is sorted. To do this, right-click on the column header row and select “Set Multi-Level Sort.” Select the first column to sort on and then the second, together with ascending or descending in each case. Click OK. Note that some options may not work very well, such as sorting by description after you sort by date modified. But sorts by Profile fields work well.

You can search for a word in the description or other columns. Just start typing with the worklist displayed and you will go to the first “hit” as you time. This works the same way as type-down in selecting from the client or matter list.

When you start a new search, at the bottom there is a button that says “Search What?” Click on that and select “current list.” This offers the same search options as a general search, but is confined to the current list. Note that since this search is not indexed, if you have a very large number of documents it may be a bit slow.

One Size Fits All vs. Best of Breed

When exploring the options for implementing Practice Management, Document Management and related software, firms are faced with choosing between One Size Fits All programs (“we’re the only software you need, we do it all”) and Best of Breed programs.

The obvious tradeoff here is that One Size Fits All does exactly that: you have one program, one consultant and don’t need to worry about compatibility, integration, etc. However, there is a downside to these programs. Historically, they developed to do one or two things (contacts, calendaring, etc.). As computers got more powerful and the programs grew, they added new features (email, document management). The problem here is that while the original core functions are usually quite good, the later add-ons such as email or document management are frequently second-rate at best. So the firm winds up being short-changed on features and functionality that could be key to its practice.

Best of Breed is also what it sounds like: you pick the programs that best meet the firm’s needs in specific areas: practice management, time & billing, document management, court scheduling, and so on. This potentially raises integration issues and dealing with multiple consultants, but on the other hand the firm has the best functionality available for specific needs.

This is not always an easy choice: if a second-rate feature of a one size fits all program is something that is not critical to the firm’s needs, then that program might be a good choice. Obviously as a consultant for Worldox, I have a vested interest in the Best of Breed solution, but it may not always be the best option for specific firms.

There is an analogous choice when firms select consultants.

Many firms like to pass everything through their IT consultants. This is convenient, since there is always only one number to call. IT firms obviously like it because it increases their revenue.

But very often, IT firms that are hardware-oriented have only a very limited knowledge of software programs that firms are using, such as Worldox or other document management or practice management software. This frequently creates two kinds of problems.

First, the firms get incomplete or bad advice about their software. IT firms may be able to do a minimal install but it is very unusual for hardware-based IT firms to be able to optimize an installation (there are a few exceptions to this rule, but not many). The better IT firms recognize this and work closely with software consultants for specific programs. This works well for both the hardware and software companies, since they each do only what they do best.

The second problem is the delays and expense of phone tag. The firm calls the IT company. They muck around but can’t solve the issue. They call the software consultant, who calls them back and gets insufficient information. So after several back and forths, the consultant finally calls the appropriate person at the firm and resolves the issue. This is a bad, time-consuming solution for everyone involved – and expensive for the law firm.

So, while I may have a vested interest, I still believe it is in a firm’s best interest to go with best of breed even at the inconvenience of multiple consultants. It will be more cost-effective and the firm will have a better configuration in the long run. A simple check to to consult the Worldox web site to see if your IT firm has been certified as a Worldox consultant. To quote one of my favorite sayings: “if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur.”

Table of Contents in Worldox

Fairly often users need to construct a “Table of Contents” containing a specific list of documents. This could be for a closing binder in real estate or a list of exhibits in various litigation documents (pleadings, depositions), etc. Worldox offers a number of ways to do this.

• Projects/Workspaces. Workspaces provide a way to group any number of files together, not just for a Table of Contents. From the Workspaces tab at the left of the Worldox display, you right-click and “subscribe” to a location (most often a separate Workspaces cabinet for ease of use), then simply drag and drop files to a newly created Workspace. This lets you view the documents together. Workspaces just offer a “pointer” to the documents in question, so changing the workspace, deleting or adding documents to it, does not affect the underlying documents. Note also that unlike searches, workspaces are static. If you add a new document to a given matter, you then have to add it to a workspace in a separate step if that is what you want.

• Related documents. This is most useful if you are working on a group of documents. For example, when I was writing my Worldox book, I had a table of contents document and then related the various chapters to the table of contents. Thus when I called up the table of contents I could see all the related documents together. To relate one document to another, you simply drag the secondary (child) document on top of the main (parent) document. You can also have sub-related (grandchildren) documents.

• Categories. Categories are metadata keys meant to function “on top” of document types without having to go through the administrative hassle of maintaining “sub-doc types.” They are typically most useful in litigation where you can have categories such as “needs review, needs bates number, partially discoverable, expert review,” etc. There are three kinds of categories: Personal (that only you see and no one else), Public (that everyone sees) and Folder, which are visible only within a given matter (or folder). While Folder categories are not searchable, they can be accessed via the “Filter” tab at the bottom of the screen. This enables you to create, for example, “Deposition of X,” “Deposition of Y,” or “Deposition of Z” that is visible just from the relevant matter. Categories are frequently underused, but welll worth exploring.

• Actual Hyperlinks to documents. If you wish, you can create a table of contents with hyperlinks to the actual documents listed. The trick here is that the hyperlink must point to the actual path of the document as it would appear in Windows Explorer, information which is not directly available from Worldox. To obtain this, in Worldox right click on the document to be linked and select “Copy location to clipboard.” When you create the hyperlink in your main document, when asked to enter the location of the hyperlink, right-click and paste the location of the document from Worldox, which will be something on the order of P:\clients\JH\0102\GRA\00038547.PDF.

• Export list to CSV. Lastly, you can print any Worldox display to a *.csv file. So you could make up a special display listing only the document description, or comments, or any other information you want to display in your csv file. Then export the desired list to a csv file and manipulate it from there.

Refresher Training and Worldox

Persuading firms to provide adequate training is an ongoing struggle. The classic responses run along the lines “we’re too busy to take the time to become more productive and hence less busy” or “we can’t afford to spend the hour to become more productive and consequently save time and money.” I have recently done some refresher training at a couple of firms that was quite successful. Refresher training generally accomplishes three things:

• Allows users to ask questions about things they would like to be able to do but don’t think they can, problems they have been having, or basic functionality;
• Lets the firm take advantage of functionality such as projects/workspaces or categories that have been underused previously;
• Promotes a more consistent level of competence with Worldox across the firm.

Can you benefit from refresher training? If you have to answer “no” to more than a couple of the following questions, the answer is almost certainly “yes.”

• Are you taking best advantage of searches, including text and boolean searches, or do you just use Favorite Matters or Direct Access? Do you use the full-text “Search” field at the upper right of the Worldox display list?

• Do you know how to narrow down the results of a search? Can you search just the documents on the screen?

• Does the firm use Projects/Workspaces? The Categories feature?

• Does the firm have systems in place for the batch importing of discovery or other large volumes of client documents?

• Does the firm make systematic use of bookmarks? Do users know how to create their own bookmarks?

• Can users customize the display the way they want to?

• Do you routinely use Worldox as the first step in conflict checking for new clients? Are you familiar with the Legal Hold function?

• Are there things you would like to be able to do in Worldox that you feel you can’t?

Worldox and Zip Files

 In the past, Worldox has not been able to deal with Zip files very effectively. Users have had to extract files to a local drive and then import them into Worldox – a two-step process.

The latest Worldox update (WDU13 - released last week) enables users to drag and drop the contents of a zip file directly to the Worldox WorkZone. When you open a zip file in Windows Explorer, depending on the particular zip program you have installed, you see the contents and various options, such as “Extract all.” Instead of having to extract the files to a local drive, just select the desired files and drag them to the WorkZone icon (there is usually a limit as to how many files you can drag at one time, but this can be adjusted if necessary). All files must be saved to the same matter, but you can (and probably should) add a comment indicating provenance. If the files should be a variety of files, simply select the relevant files and repeat the process as needed.

This is indicative of larger changes in the Worldox update process. Rather than waiting to collect a variety of improvements and new features, Worldox is releasing them with general bug-fix updates (WDU - WorlDox Update). Another major update is expected in the August time frame.

Taken together, these updates provide even more compelling reasons for any firms still on GX3 to upgrade to Worldox GX4.