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Cleaning up the “This PC” section of Windows Explorer

First, it is no longer Windows Explorer. It is now called the File Explorer. Got it.

It seems the “This PC” section of the File Explorer was redesigned to make it busier and less useful. Instead of just having local and mapped network drives, it also includes folders for Pictures, Videos, and other folders that are probably better for home use than business use. It doesn’t help that by default these folders that I don’t use are listed first and on top:

this pc 1

You would think there is an option to make them go away. There isn’t. But, there is a registry hack that you can easily download and use to make them go away. Our friends over at How To Geek can walk you through it and provide the registry scripts you need to remove and add the items back.

How to Remove the Folders From “This PC” on Windows 10

 

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Saving Non-Standard Files in the Time Matters DMS – Email Yourself

The Time Matters DMS has integrations with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, Outlook, and Acrobat. Basically, when you have one of these types of documents open you press a TM Save (or TM Connect) button and you are provided a Document Form to complete. Once completed, the document/email is saved to the appropriate place in your document store. It’s really simple and easy to use, and keeps you from having to drill down into a hierarchical folder structure to save documents.

But, what do you do when you get a non-standard document like a WAV, AVI, JPG, TXT, HTM, XML, or other document for which there isn’t a Time Matters integration? Per LexisNexis help, you should place it a shared folder and then right click on it and select “Send to” and then “Time Matters.” When you do this for one or more documents, you get the “Create Document Profile Records” dialog that let’s you specify how you want the Time Matters Document record to be completed.

LN_help

The main problem with this method is that you have drill into the hierarchical folder structure to put the document in the correct place, or just have a folder into which you drop these types of files. When you use the TM Save functionality, Time Matters saves a copy of the document you want to save in the exact location where it belongs.

A better way for Time Matters and Outlook users – presumably a large percentage of Time Matters users – is to drag and drop the document(s) into an Outlook email and send it you yourself. This is easily done, and easier than the LN recommended way. Once you get the email – in a second or two at most – you have all the TM Save/Connect tools within the TM-Outlook integration to save the documents as you normally do. Once saved, simply delete the email.

A final point – most of these types on non-standard documents will probably get emailed to you anyway. Better to save from the email than save it to a shared folder and then “Send to Time Matters.”

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ndOffice Must-have Interim Upgrade – 1.7.4.x

NetDocuments released a great interim upgrade to the ndOffice integration. All our NetDocuments users who use ndOffice (pretty sure that’s 100%), should download the new version of ndOffice and upgrade all users. You can get the upgrade here.

As I understand it, a few versions back NetDocuments enhanced the functionality of the Workspace lookup in ND Web. This resulted in a very efficient “type-ahead” feature that makes it much quicker to get to the Workspace (typically Client-Matter) you are looking for. Unfortunately, this resulted in the loss of the auto-fill feature when completing profile fields in ndOffice. For those of us who were used to typing in the first few letters of the Document Type, as an example, and then tabbing on to the next profile field, the loss of this feature was a real productivity hit. You had to press F2 or click on the lookup button and run through the lookup dialog.

type-ahead1Good news … with version 1.7.4.x this feature is back and it’s even better than before. Now, you have the same functionality as you have in the Workspace search bar. Just type in a few letters anywhere in the Case, Matter, Document Type, Author or other field that has a lookup table and you will quickly be given a list of potential matches that filters out the more you type. The searching term can be at the start of what you are looking for, or anywhere within the searched for word. For example, if I am looking for “Office Furniture World” and type in “Office” I would be overwhelmed with all the “Law Offices of this or that” results. But, type in “Furniture” or “World” and Office Furniture World is quickly displayed and easily selected without having to touch the mouse or press F2.

type-ahead2This issue was heavily discussed in the NetDocuments Support Community, and NetDocuments should be commended for their quick action. They initially intended on waiting to upgrade it in 1.8 but chose to do so sooner. And, while I wish it had never happened, the ultimate result is that we actually got better functionality that we had before.

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Eliminating Email Overload – Part 2

Other Posts in Series:
Introduction
Part 1

In Part 1, we discussed how email, which can be such a great thing, can also cause so much dysfunction and inefficiency. In Part 2, we will discuss email procedures and protocols you can implement to begin to attack your Inbox.

Email Procedures and Protocols

First, a caveat: everyone’s situation is different. While many readers of this article are hungry for ideas to reduce their overwhelming stress, others will shrug their shoulders and say, “what stress?” Still others will scoff at many of the ideas set forth here with a “there is no way I could get away with that in my practice.” I understand that we are all different, with different demands and expectations. What one lawyer or staff member may be able to do might get another fired in another setting. The point is that for most lawyers, there is substantial stress and resulting inefficiency brought about by email overload, and some of these tips will be very beneficial. Adopt what works for you, and ignore the rest.

The first step in reducing your email overload problem and the associated stress it can cause has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with implementing some very simple and common sense procedures and protocols to reduce the amount of email you get and make it easier to handle.

[Read more…]

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Eliminating Email Overload – Part 1

email_overload2

Other Posts in Series:
Introduction
Part 2

Email – Boon or Bane?

What can be wrong with a technology that lets you do in seconds what used to take days? What downside can there be with a technology that lets you deliver written communications around the world in seconds, without having to pay postage?

If you answered, “SPAM, junk email, or the spread of viruses, that’s what,” you are right. But, those are the obvious email problems that are well known, well publicized, and have plenty of talent dedicated to their eradication and/or control. The real insidious downside to email is the negative impact it has on daily business productivity. E-mail Inboxes with hundreds of email messages are not manageable; staff members using their Inbox as a pseudo-ToDo list are not efficient; and firms that have tens of thousands of email messages stored in non-shared folders that cannot be effectively searched waste valuable time locating information that should be easily accessible to them. The sheer amount of email that is received daily, without an effective method to deal with it, can simply be overwhelming.

[Read more…]

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Eliminating Email Overload Series

email_overloadIn January 2001, I sold my legal technology consulting business in Atlanta, and moved to Cary, North Carolina, to become the Vice-President of Time Matters Software. I had begun to struggle with the amount of email I was receiving while I was consulting in Atlanta. Stepping into the corporate world magnified my struggles as I now received an inordinate amount of email from the Time Matters consultants I was in charge of, the LexisNexis employees I was working with (Time Matters was in a 3 year partnership that preceded the LexisNexis acquisition of Time Matters), Time Matters clients and prospects, and all the email that flowed throughout an office of 30 employees. After spending another Wednesday night until midnight working through my email, I figured there had to be a better way. The next several months of experimenting and studying lead to my method of RAFTing email that is described in this series of blog posts.

This series of posts mirrors the most current iteration of the white paper I wrote and published in late 2001. It is more relevant today as it was back in 2001. And, I still struggle with the amount of email that I receive and how to handle it. I hope the concepts set forth in the posts will help you manage your email better. My company, OTB Consulting, offers technology and email protocol services and training to assist help you in your journey to an empty Inbox – contact me if you think I can be of assistance.

Eliminating Email Overload – Part 1

Eliminating Email Overload – Part 2

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SimplyFile for Outlook

simplyfileDavid Bilinsky, the Practice Management Consultant and lawyer for the Law Society of British Columbia, recently blogged about a product I have come to love – SimplyFile. He does a great job describing this incredibly helpful Outlook utility so I will let him tell you why Outlook users will find it is so helpful.

I’ve been using it for about 6 months and couldn’t use Outlook without it. I plan on blogging in the future on its use with Netdocuments, how it relates to Time Matters users, and how it should be an integral part of a users strategy to tame Email Overload.

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Law Firm Reporting is More Than Financial Reporting

Client AquisitionOver the past few months, I have seen a number of tweets in my Twitter feed that link to articles that discuss law firm reporting. Invariably, the articles discuss what financial reports the firm should be looking at.

As an example, Frank Strong of LexisNexis, whose Business of Law Blog is one of the best legal blogs around, recently posted 5 Essential Practice Management Reports for Small Law Firms. Of the 5 reports listed, they are all billing reports. This represents a tendency that I have seen with attorneys and law firms who only look at the financial reports to evaluate how their business is doing. When you come across an article about law firm reporting, it is almost always about the finances … how many hours did I bill, what was my realization rate, what is our AR, etc. In a recent post on the Time Matters forum hosted by my good friend and Elder Law Attorney extraordinaire, Robert Fleming, a poster said, “I use only the standard financial reports – Aged A/R and Detailed WIP.  But I would like to do more.”

[Read more…]

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NetDocuments Updates iOS App

nd_iosNetdocuments has released an updated version of their iOS app, offering richer functionality for an improved mobile experience on your iPhone and iPad.

With the new version you can:

  • View documents and email
  • Email a link or document copy to your contacts
  • Open in third-party applications for editing
  • Create subfolders
  • Store offline
  • Search across cabinets
  • View your recent documents list
  • Upload photos from your photo library

For more information visit the App Store.

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Netdocuments Launches Video Series

ndvideosNetdocuments recently released a series of short, focused tutorials on how to do specific tasks in its service.

The ndTutorial videos are located on a Netdocuments Support YouTube channel. In the initial series, videos are available for adding or removing users, performing a mass profile change, creating ShareSpaces, and defining display formats, just to name a few.

This is a great addition to Netdocuments’ online information which was already top-shelf.

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